Press and creators

Fact sheet

The free demo

The Demonstration Term is free on Steam for Windows, macOS, Linux: the first term of the real Academy, up to apprentice level 9: four of the fifteen Disciplines, five of the twelve spells, the Proving Grounds and Hollowmere, your own castle on the black mere. It is the real game behind a cap, not a separate slice of it.

A demo save comes along: bottle it from the demo's apprentice roll and pour it into the full game, and the term goes on where it stopped. It only runs that way; a full save has outgrown the demo and will not fit back in.

The Download Demo button is on the store page.

Descriptions

One sentence

An idle RPG of dark academia and spellcasting dread.

Short, as on the store page

An idle RPG of dark academia and spellcasting dread. You signed the indenture, the page is still warm. Scry the mirror, stoke the umbra, attend your disciplines, and survive ten years. Do not feed the staircase.

Tagline

The numbers go up. The ledger remembers.

Long

You signed the indenture. The page was still warm. Grimsorrow Academy is an idle RPG of dark academia and spellcasting dread: two games in one save, narrated by a clerk who has read your file and found you wanting. Scry a black mirror for the dark itself. Attend fifteen forbidden Disciplines. Every ten years, sign again for more power. The school never lets you graduate. It only lets you go deeper.

Set in the eternal-twilight vale of Eredwraith, it is dark academia wearing cosmic horror. The horror is administrative: debts, contracts, fines, being known by name. The fines compound posthumously.

Content at a glance

8 umbra Sources · 12 spells in three schools · 68 mirror upgrades · 15 Disciplines · 353 actions · 92 monsters · 23 zones · 12 dungeons · 659 items · 10 gear sets · 31 familiars · 347 deeds, 94 of them Steam achievements · a 16-node prestige tree · level cap 99, raised to 120 by Tenure · 233 stations down the Winding Stair · roughly 400 hours of active play.

Features

• Two games, one save. An active scrying engine, the Obsidian Mirror with 8 umbra Sources and 68 upgrades, fused to a skill grid of 15 Disciplines. The best upgrade for each layer lives in the other.
• Draw your spells. Spells are not bought. Each of the 12 is cast by tracing its sigil on the glass: instant Maledictions, sustained Litanies, and Bindings that scry in your place.
• Attend your Disciplines. 15 occult fields of study and 353 actions between them, each with its own mastery track, gear and potions.
• Night Errands. Idle combat across 23 zones, 12 dungeons and 92 monsters, with 10 gear sets, 60 named uniques and an Anvil that reforges a piece +N until it sings, or shatters.
• Prestige that keeps its promises. Sign the Black Covenant: it shatters the mirror and voids the contract, and pays for both in Seals, and in Oaths spent down a 16-node tree.
• A staircase with no top. Tenure raises the ceiling from 99 to 120. The Undercroft opens beneath the Winding Stair, the Nadir at its floor, and 233 stations mark the way down.
• Idle honestly. Up to 24 hours away are paid out (32 with the Night Watch Oath), and itemised in a report waiting when you return. No microtransactions, no energy, no timers to pay past.

Video

The Early Access trailer is on YouTube and the Steam page. The gameplay loops on the home page are cut from the shipping build and are in the press kit as MP4, cleared for use in coverage.

History

Why an idle game. Idle games are usually honest about arithmetic and dishonest about cost: the numbers climb and nothing is ever charged for. Grimsorrow keeps the climb and restores the bill. Every acceleration in it is borrowed against something, and the ledger balances whether or not you are watching.

Why a clerk. Horror narrated by a monster asks to be believed. Horror narrated by an administrator who has seen this a hundred times, and who is mostly concerned that the paperwork is in order, does not have to ask. The clerk's voice never rises, and that is what makes the school frightening rather than loud.

Why a mirror. An idle game needs one thing the player does with their hands, or it is a spreadsheet with a soundtrack. Drawing each spell's sigil on a black mirror is that thing: it is skill in a genre that usually has none, it gives way to automation as you advance, and it means the central object of the game is a surface that shows you yourself.

Screenshots

11 screenshots, 1920×1080, UI on, no marketing text: the same set as the Steam page. Full-size copies, the capsules and the logos are in the press kit zip.

Logo

The wordmark (transparent, one line, and on the void), the GS monogram and the app icon are in the press kit zip. Please do not recolour or outline the wordmark, or set it on a light ground.

AI disclosure

In the Steam page's own words:

AI tools were used to assist in creating some of the code and game assets. Even so, every part of the game reflects the creator's vision and passion.

About the developer

Tadeo Interactive is a small independent studio, and Grimsorrow Academy is its first release: a single-player game with no account, no server, no telemetry of its own, and nothing sold inside it.

Contact and keys

Write to [email protected]. The clerk answers within two working days.

Requesting a key. Keys go out once the channel or outlet is verified. Write from the address listed on your channel or outlet page, or from that channel's official account, and include the link. Curators are fastest through Steam Curator Connect. There is no embargo: cover it whenever you like.

For a finite video. The demo's apprentice level stops at 9, a natural first episode. In the full game the first Black Covenant is the natural close of an arc, and do not feed the staircase is the one line worth keeping unspoiled.