The situation
The radio cut out on Tuesday. Half the city burned on Wednesday. By Thursday someone had boarded up the windows of a two-storey house on a quiet suburban street and locked themselves inside. That house is yours now, along with three to six strangers, their quirks, fears and secrets.
Deadlight is a management game with a story engine underneath. You never fight directly. You hand out jobs, decide who risks what, answer what the day throws at you, and read the recap. The dead wander, listen and remember: every footstep, gunshot and dropped can pulls them closer. The house is one bad night from falling, and nothing outside gets better with time.
A run ends when you escape, or when everyone is dead. Most runs end somewhere between day 8 and day 20. That is the intended length, and everything below is about pushing the good ending closer.
A day in three phases
Each day is morning, afternoon and night. Every phase you assign one task per survivor; anyone you leave alone rests. Then the phase resolves and the recap tells you what happened, line by line, with the numbers that changed.
| Task | What it does | Rolls on | Costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scavenge | A quick sweep of the block. Small haul, a chance of finding a weapon on a big roll, some risk of a wound. | Scavenging | Noise |
| Cook | Turns raw food into meals. A good roll makes two meals from one raw unit, a poor one wastes it. | Cooking | Raw food |
| Stand watch | Adds the watcher's firearms skill to tonight's defence, doubled, and more again if they hold a working gun. | Firearms | Fatigue |
| Fortify | Raises the walls. Defence caps at 100; at the cap the task fades and says so. | Crafting | 1 material |
| Repair vehicle | Pushes the car in the alley toward 100. Only useful once the gas station is cleared. | Mechanical | 1 material per phase |
| Heal | Treats one person: restores health, cuts infection and sickness. Tap the target chip to choose who. | Medical | 1 medicine |
| Expedition | A long run to one marked location, for everyone assigned. The big haul and the big risk. See Expeditions. | Group | Noise, fatigue |
| Rest | Clears fatigue and lets infection fall faster. Safe. The default for anyone unassigned. | — | — |
Every task in the game funnels through one roll:
most tasks succeed at −1 or better; scavenge needs 0, a big haul needs 4
A skill of 3 with no penalties rolls between −1 and +4. That is why a specialist matters: a Chef cooks on 4 and rarely wastes anything, an office worker cooks on 0 and burns one meal in three. Put people where their numbers are.
Scavenge in the morning, cook in the afternoon, stand watch at night. A group that posts a watch every night escapes roughly three times as often as one that never does. Nothing else in the game moves the odds that much.
Hunger, thirst, exhaustion
Every phase, hunger rises by 4 and thirst by 6. Eating and drinking happen automatically at the end of the phase as long as there are meals and water in store. When there are not, the whole group crosses the line within days, all at once, and starts failing everything.
| Condition | Trigger | Health | Penalty on every roll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dehydrated | thirst ≥ 85 | −5 per phase | −2 |
| Starving | hunger ≥ 90 | −3 per phase | −1 |
| Exhausted | fatigue ≥ 75 / ≥ 90 | — | −1 / −2 |
Penalties stack. A survivor at −3 rolls between −4 and +1 and fails most of what you ask. The party screen names each penalty on each card so you can see who is worth assigning and who needs a phase of rest and a meal first.
Someone badly hurt, burning with fever, or too far gone in despair will not get up whatever you order. Rest and food bring them back; medicine brings them back faster. The party header counts how many hands you actually have.
The night and raids
The walls are tested every night. Both sides of the roll are shown to you in the evening forecast so you can decide whether to fortify, quiet down, or put a gun on the door.
threat = 20…60 + noise + ≈2 × days survived + 28 on a horde night
defence beats threat: the boards hold. otherwise someone takes the hit
Three things follow from that formula. Noise is a loan. Scavenging and gunfire raise it, and it comes due at night. Days survived are a slope. Threat climbs about two points a day regardless of what you do, so a defence that held on day 5 loses on day 15. The watch is not a bonus, it is the mechanic. A watcher with firearms 3 and a pistol adds more than several phases of fortifying.
Horde nights
Days 10, 20 and 30 add 28 threat on top of everything. You are warned the evening before. Spend that day fortifying and keeping noise down, and post your best gun.
The walls
Fortify raises defence by roughly 2 to 12 per phase depending on the crafting roll and the workshop level, and costs one material each time. The cap is 100. The wall chip shows n/100, and at the cap the Fortify task fades out and says so. The forecast's defence figure includes the watch and can read above 100; the cap applies to the walls alone.
Infection
Only wounds raise infection. An argument, a lost quest, a hungry night do not. Any health lost in a phase adds 10 infection, which is why one bad expedition can turn into a fever a day later.
| Each phase | Change |
|---|---|
| Any health lost | +10 |
| Doing anything else | −2 |
| Resting | −6 |
| Treated by a healer | −25, more with an infirmary |
| Reaches 80 | The quarantine dilemma fires. You decide what to do about them. |
The character card shows the trend arrow and its cause. Rest is the cheap cure, medicine the fast one. Do not send a wounded survivor on a run: the wound is what feeds the number.
Expeditions
A run is everyone you put on Expedition, sent together to one place on the map. It resolves as a group. Before you send anyone, the location card shows a risk band computed from exactly the party you have assigned.
difficulty = threat × 3 + distance × 2 + party adjustment
result = group skill + d10 − difficulty
≥ 4 success: a share of what is left, never less than 1 food and 1 water
0…3 marginal: scraps, at least one unit, one person scratched
< 0 disaster: someone is hurt, the place becomes OVERRUN
Site events
On top of the roll, dangerous places can throw a site event: walkers, raiders, a trap, a collapse, a feral pack. The chance is 12% plus 6% per point of threat, capped at 60%, and only from threat 3 up. What decides whether an event costs a wound or a life is what you brought:
| Event | Lethal unless |
|---|---|
| Walkers, raiders, feral pack | Someone carries a working firearm |
| Trap | There is medicine in the safehouse to stop the bleeding |
| Collapse | The party's scavenging is high enough to read the building |
This is what the risk band means. Low and Medium describe the roll. High means a bad outcome is near a coin flip. Deadly only appears when one of the lethal gates above is open for that site, so it is always something you can fix before leaving: hand someone a gun, keep two medicine at home, send your scavenger.
Location states
- Unexplored: never visited. Full loot.
- Explored: visited, still has loot. Each success takes a share of what is left.
- Cleared: nothing left to take. This is the good ending for a place, and the only way to "clear" a quest target: send an expedition there and come back.
- Overrun: a run went wrong there. Too dangerous to revisit.
Neither Cleared nor Overrun comes back. When a place is picked clean the recap says so; when it is overrun, the disaster line says so.
The map
Ten places, each with a distance from the house, a threat level, and what it holds. Loot figures are the full stock of an unexplored location; a run takes a share of what remains.
| Location | Dist. | Threat | Food | Water | Mat. | Med. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corner store | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Small, picked over, but close. A first run. |
| Neighbour's house | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The Carters never made it out. |
| Gas station | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | Clearing it unlocks vehicle repair. |
| Hardware store | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | Materials for walls, rooms and the car. |
| Pharmacy | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | Painkillers, antibiotics, broken glass. |
| Elementary school | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | Cafeteria stores, classrooms cleared in panic. |
| Supermarket | 3 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Big aisles, big payout, big risk. |
| Walk-in clinic | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | Locked drug cabinet. Dead nurses. |
| Police station | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | Armoury and the rescue frequency. Or a tomb. |
| County hospital | 5 | 9 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 12 | Best loot in town. Worst odds. |
Distance and threat feed the difficulty directly: the hospital's difficulty is 37 before party adjustments, the corner store's is 8. A starting group with group skill around 10 wins the store on most rolls and the hospital on none of them. Work outward, and bring the numbers up before you go far.
Weapons and the armoury
Weapons are found on big scavenge rolls and on runs, and live in the armoury. A survivor can equip one. They matter in three places: on watch (a working firearm in the watcher's hands raises the night's defence), on runs (the armoury's total power, capped at 12, adds to the group skill), and in site events (a firearm is the difference between a wound and a death).
| Weapon | Kind | Power | Rarity | Breaks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lead pipe | Melee | 1 | common | Repairable for 1 material |
| Baseball bat | Melee | 1 | common | Repairable for 1 material |
| Machete | Melee | 2 | uncommon | — |
| Pistol | Firearm | 3 | rare | — |
| Shotgun | Firearm | 4 | rare | — |
| Hunting rifle | Firearm | 5 | very rare | — |
A broken weapon counts for nothing until repaired. The police station and anywhere tagged industrial are where firearms turn up; a weapon found on a run comes home with the party.
The base
The house has six rooms you can upgrade and three you can build. Everything costs materials, the same materials the walls and the vehicle want, so building is a bet on a longer run. Room effects grow with level.
| Room | Effect | Levels |
|---|---|---|
| Watch post | Standing defence, every night, nobody required. | 1–3 |
| Bunks | Rest clears more fatigue. Sets how many the shelter sleeps: 6, 8, then 10. | 1–3 |
| Kitchen | Bonus on the cooking roll: less waste, more meals. | 1–3 |
| Workshop | Fortifying builds more wall per material. | 1–3 |
| Infirmary | Healing restores more and takes more off infection. | 1–3 |
| Garage | Vehicle repairs go further each phase. | 1–3 |
| Rain catcher | Water every day, for nothing. | build, 1–3 |
| Garden | Raw food every day. Still has to be cooked. | build, 1–3 |
| Watchtower | Flat defence, more than the watch post. Height and a firing position. | build, 1–2 |
1.8 One more upgrade is not built but hauled home: clear the county hospital with six materials in store and the Lights On quest brings its backup generator to the infirmary. Every treatment after that heals four more and takes the same off infection, on top of whatever level the infirmary has.
The rain catcher and garden are the difference between a group that spends every morning scavenging and one that can afford a run. On a long run they pay for themselves inside a week. The bunks are what let you say yes at the door.
People, traits, bonds
Each survivor has a profession, a handful of traits, nine skills, and an opinion of everyone else. Skills decide what they are good at. Traits decide who they get along with, and a few of them change skills too.
Professions
| Profession | Skills |
|---|---|
| Doctor | Medical +4 |
| Nurse | Medical +3, Persuasion +1 |
| Soldier | Combat +3, Firearms +3 |
| Police officer | Firearms +2, Combat +1, Persuasion +1 |
| Hunter | Firearms +2, Stealth +2, Scavenging +1 |
| Thief | Stealth +3, Scavenging +2 |
| Mechanic | Mechanical +4, Crafting +2 |
| Carpenter | Crafting +3, Mechanical +1 |
| Chef | Cooking +4, Crafting +1 |
| Farmer | Cooking +2, Crafting +1 |
| Journalist | Persuasion +2, Scavenging +1 |
| Teacher | Persuasion +2 |
| Priest | Persuasion +2, always religious |
| Athlete | Combat +1, more stamina |
| Office worker | Persuasion +1 |
1.8 Every profession also brings its own quest: the Mechanic wants the car at 50, the Carpenter wants a second row of bunks, the Chef wants a proper meal on the table, the Soldier wants the walls at 70 with nobody dead by day 9, the Thief wants twelve materials and does not say where from. They are the first thing each survivor asks for, and from 1.8 a survivor whose quest ends is handed another a couple of days later, so the quest log stays busy for the whole run. A recruit gets one too.
A starting group without a firearms skill has no watch worth posting and no safe run. Reroll until there is a Soldier, Police officer or Hunter in the house; the game limits rerolls, so treat them as a resource.
Traits
Two survivors who share a trait grow closer. Opposed traits grate. A rivalry costs everyone sanity, not just the two involved. The in-game guide lists the traits your own group carries and what each clashes with; this is the full set.
| Trait | Clashes with | Skill effect |
|---|---|---|
| Brave | Cowardly | Combat +1 |
| Cowardly | Brave | Stealth +1, Combat −1 |
| Optimistic | Pessimistic | Persuasion +1 |
| Pessimistic | Optimistic | — |
| Paranoid | Trusting | Stealth +1 |
| Trusting | Paranoid | Persuasion +1 |
| Loyal | Selfish | — |
| Selfish | Loyal | — |
| Calm | Hot-headed | Medical +1 |
| Hot-headed | Calm | Combat +1, Persuasion −1 |
| Smoker | Clean-living | — |
| Alcoholic | Clean-living | — |
| Clean-living | Smoker, Alcoholic | — |
| Religious | Atheist | — |
| Atheist | Religious | — |
| Conspiracy theorist | — | — |
| Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Ageist, Xenophobic | Whoever they target | Prejudice events; opinion drops |
| Afraid of blood | — | Medical −2 |
| Afraid of the dark | — | Stealth −1 |
| Afraid of heights, Afraid of dogs | — | Triggered by events |
| Strong | Frail | Combat +1, Health +10 |
| Frail | Strong | Combat −1, Health −10 |
| Fast | Slow | Stealth +1 |
| Slow | Fast | Stealth −1 |
| A secret thief | — | Scavenging +1. Hidden until it isn't. |
| A secret killer | — | Combat +1. Hidden until it isn't. |
| Secretly infected | — | Hidden. You will find out. |
Bonds and friction
Put two people on the same job often enough and they grow close. Close pairs cover for each other and work better together; a pair who cannot stand each other argue instead of working. It runs both ways: losing someone you were close to takes a piece out of whoever is left, and some pairs get closer than close. Remember that when you count seats.
Every change of opinion is written in the recap with its cause. A survivor whose sanity has broken into paranoia will accuse someone of stealing; the recap always names who. Interpersonal events only happen between people who were actually together that phase: the same task, or both at the house.
Strangers at the door
This is the only way the group grows. A stranger at the door is another pair of hands and another mouth, and you will not know which for a day or two. Some arrive carrying an infection. Some help themselves to the pantry. Turning them away is safer, and the people who wanted to open the door will remember that you did not.
The house holds six by default, eight with the bunks upgraded once, ten at their best. When it is full the door stays shut whatever you decide. Food and water drain per head, so a bigger house is only a better house if the garden and the rain catcher are keeping up.
You can also start smaller. The setup screen allows a party of one to six. Solo and duo runs are brutal: fewer hands, same night.
The other crew New in 1.8
This section describes content arriving in version 1.8. See the changelog for where that release stands.
You are not the only living people on the block. Two houses down there is another crew, organised and armed, and from day 3 on you will meet them: a scavenger spots them across the street, or the night watch sees a torch answer a torch behind boarded windows. What you do in that first moment sets the tone. Stay low, call out with open hands, or put a round over their heads.
Then they knock. Politely, in daylight, and with a price: this is their block and a cut of what you bring home would settle things. Pay, talk them down, or refuse. Talking is a Persuasion roll, which is finally a reason to have a Journalist, Teacher or Priest in the house.
Truce or ultimatum
If you have earned any trust by then, they send one person to propose terms: split the street, share warnings, trade when either side has extra. If you have not, they come at dusk with the rifle unslung and want half the stores. Pay, stand in the door with a gun, or talk. Either way, the block picks sides.
| Outcome | What it means every night | What comes of it |
|---|---|---|
| Allies | threat −5 | A warning the night a herd comes up the avenue. A trade table at the gate, materials for medicine or food. A stranger they vouch for, who joins without a roll. |
| Feud | threat +8 | Night raids by people, not the dead. Theft from the pantry with a chalk mark on the fence. And, from day 8, the showdown in the street. |
The showdown ends it one way or the other. Fire from the roof and drive them off for good, walk out unarmed and talk an hour, or spend the timber turning the house into a box they break themselves on. Two quests track the arc: Neighbours for the player who wants peace and Our Block for the one who wants the street. They conflict, so two survivors can want different endings.
The trader
Every fifth day a pedlar knocks. He deals in no money and sells nothing. He swaps one thing for another and takes a cut every time, so he is only worth visiting when you are drowning in one thing and out of another: eight materials for water the day before a horde, or the hardware store's haul for medicine after a bad run.
He will not take your last of anything, and he only carries so much. When he is not there, the screen says which day he is back.
Quests
Quests are offered as the run unfolds. Main quests are ways out; personal quests belong to one survivor and pay in bonds, morale and adaptation points. A quest completes only when every one of its conditions is true at the same moment, and a quest that would already be complete when offered is never offered.
| Quest | What it asks |
|---|---|
| First, Do No Harm | Stockpile 6 medicine. |
| Mine | 16 food and 12 water in store. |
| Bread for Everyone | Everyone's hunger under 50. |
| Reinforce | Defence 60. |
| Storm the Hospital | Get inside the County Hospital. |
| Quiet and Safe | Defence 50, noise 25 or below. |
| Map the Block | Explore three locations. |
| Not One Lost | No deaths in the first seven days. |
| Tend the Flock | Three alive through day 10. |
| Someone Worth It | Opinion 40 with someone; two of you alive. |
| Dog Out There, Train the Dog, Off-Leash | Find the dog on a run, get defence to 40, then scout five places with it. A trained dog guards the door every night. |
| An Open Door | Let a stranger stay. |
| Nothing Gets In | Defence 70, noise under 20. |
| Nobody Falls Behind | Nobody bedridden, feverish or despairing; morale above 35. |
| Hold Us Together | No rivalries left in a group of three or more. |
| Keep Your Head | Morale above 55 yourself while nobody is in a breakdown. |
| Turn the Key, A Roof Over Us, Green Shoots, Triage, Hold the Line, The Armoury, Five Fingers and more 1.8 | One signature quest per profession. See People. |
| Neighbours / Our Block 1.8 | Make peace with the other crew, or drive them off for good. See The other crew. |
| The School Bus, Room for Everyone 1.8 | Clear the school; then clear the gas station, push repair to 60 and keep 6 materials. Five seats at the escape. |
| Lights On 1.8 | Clear the hospital with 6 materials in store. The generator powers the infirmary. |
Quest text names the number it wants and, where it matters, how: "clear the police station" means send an expedition there and come back.
The three ways out
One route is open from the first morning. The others find you, as a radio frequency or a rumour of a bunker, and give you a few days to decide. Take one on and the clock starts. Fail it and the group pays.
Clear the gas station, then put people on Repair vehicle. Each phase burns a material. At 100 it runs.
Clear the police station for the frequency. Keep two alive until day 10. The chopper lands once.
Defence 75, 20 food, 20 water, three alive on day 12. Outlast it until the army sweeps the block.
Whichever you take, the vehicle seats three. Everyone else is left behind, and what becomes of them depends on how capable and how armed they are: the recap tells you who made it out on foot, days later, and who did not. Recruit with that in mind, and read the bonds before you choose.
1.8 There is one thing you can do about the seats. A school bus sits nose-in against the fence of the school lot. Clear the school and someone will get under it; then clear the gas station, push the repair to 60 and keep six materials for the parts. When it turns over on the third try, five people ride out instead of three.
Long runs
A long run doubles the days and offers three harder mains: The convoy (vehicle at 100, four alive, 16 food and 16 water, walls at 60), Dig in (the base built to 14 levels with the watchtower up, walls at 85, three alive, nobody left as rivals), and The broadcast (police station and hospital cleared, six places explored, 8 medicine, everyone's sanity 35 or better when you key the mic).
Ten things that win runs
- Post a watch every night. Your best firearms skill, with a gun in their hands.
- Cook every afternoon. Raw food is not food. A Chef makes two meals where anyone else makes one.
- Reroll for a gun. No Soldier, Police officer or Hunter means no safe watch and no safe run.
- Water first. Thirst climbs faster than hunger and its penalty is twice as heavy. Build the rain catcher early.
- Read the risk band. Deadly is a missing gun, missing medicine or a weak scavenger. Fix it before you send anyone.
- Work the map outward. Corner store, neighbour, gas station, hardware store. The hospital is a late-run target with a rifle and a doctor.
- Rest the wounded. A wound adds 10 infection; rest takes 6 a phase. Do not send them out until the arrow points down.
- Quiet before the horde. Days 9, 19 and 29 are for fortifying, not scavenging.
- Pair people on purpose. Same job, same traits, and they cover for each other. Rivals on one job cost the whole house.
- Count seats before you count heads. Three go. Decide who while everyone is still alive to argue about it.
Written for Deadlight 1.7, with the 1.8 additions marked. Numbers come from the game's rules and may change in later versions; the in-game guide (the book icon in the top bar) always matches the version you are playing, and the changelog says which version is live.