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Playing the Game
Threadbare is currently in pre-alpha. New releases are published every 2–3 weeks. This section covers everything you need to know to play and navigate the game.
Threadbare is a story-driven, top-down adventure game played from a diagonal isometric perspective (think classic Zelda games). You play as the StoryWeaver, travelling through a world being consumed by The Void — a force born of forgetting and cultural decay.
Your goal is to recover lost stories, weave new ones, and rebuild the world — not through combat alone, but through creativity, connection, and care.
Threadbare has two types of quest:
The main narrative of Threadbare. LoreQuests form the core canon story — the StoryWeaver's journey through the unraveling world. These are created and maintained by the Threadbare core team.
Self-contained stories that exist alongside the main narrative. StoryQuests have their own characters, enemies, settings, and themes, and are contributed by learners, educators, and community members. They do not need to follow the main narrative, and can have their own visual and audio aesthetic.
➡️ StoryQuests
Adventure Packs are major content expansions that introduce new areas, new mechanics, and new lore. Each pack adds a self-contained chapter to the Threadbare world.
Current packs:
- The Void Pack — The first Adventure Pack. Introduces The Void Runner and the Grappling Hook mechanics.
- Library Pack — In development.
Threadbare supports multiple input methods. The recommended setup for PC is keyboard and mouse.
| Input Method | Status |
|---|---|
| Keyboard + Mouse | ✅ Recommended for PC |
| Keyboard Only | ✅ Supported (arrow keys to move) |
| Joypad / Controller | 🚧 In development |
| Mobile Touch | 🚧 Not yet supported — follow issue #806 |
➡️ Input Handling — full controls reference
As you play, you'll travel through a range of locations across Threadbare:
- Fray's End — Your starting hub. Time passes here and weather changes as you return between quests.
- The Lucent Lakes — Once a place of light and festivals, now shadowed by The Void.
- The Forgotten Forests — Dark woodland on the fringes of Void influence.
- The Song Sanctuaries — Places of music and story, under threat.
- The Lost Library — Repository of ancient knowledge.
For more about the world's lore and characters, see The Game World.
In Threadbare's hub areas (like Fray's End), time passes and weather changes dynamically. This is a cosmetic effect and does not affect gameplay. Within quests, time and weather are fixed to suit the narrative and puzzle conditions of each level.
Threads are the core resource and metaphor of the game. Collecting threads rebuilds the world — each one recovered is a small act of resistance against The Void.
Combat in Threadbare is fantastical and cartoonish in nature. Enemies like InkDrinkers throw blobs of ink at the StoryWeaver. When defeated, the StoryWeaver unravels into a pile of thread — and returns to try again.
Some LoreQuest sequences involve stealth challenges where the StoryWeaver must avoid detection.
Introduced in The Void Pack — a tense sequence where the StoryWeaver must outrun an all-consuming Void. Being caught means being unraveled.
Also introduced in The Void Pack — a traversal mechanic allowing the StoryWeaver to cross gaps and reach new areas.
If you want to play a development build or record a playthrough for feedback:
- ➡️ Record a playthrough — How to capture your gameplay session
← The Game World | Next: Making a StoryQuest →