Gridsmith: Blacksmith Crafting

Gridsmith is an offline blacksmith game about weapon crafting: design a weapon cell by cell, then send it into a fight that is pure physics. Lay a hard edge over a tough core and the seam holds; get it wrong and the log names the exact cell that cracked. Free to start. No ads, no energy, no dice.

THE FORGE

A weapon is a grid of cells, and you lay a material into each one: the tip that lands first, the edge that cuts, the core that carries the shock, the spine, the bolster, the tang, the grip, the pommel.

- Thirty materials with real properties: hardness, toughness, density, heat resistance, corrosion resistance.

- Six material families: wood, bronze, steel, stone, bone and meteoric.

- None of them is good at everything. Voidglass is the hardest thing on the bench and it is brittle; meteoric iron is the densest, and every gram of it costs swing speed.

- Lay a hard edge over a tough backing and the seam between them holds the shock. Get that pairing wrong and the seam is exactly where it cracks.

- Six weapon forms: dagger, sword, warhammer, spear, axe and glaive. Each is a different grid asking a different question.

NO DICE

There is no random damage roll anywhere in this crafting game. Every fight is a physics simulation of the weapon you designed: energy from mass and swing speed, penetration from hardness, armour subtracted from every hit, wear building up in the exact cells taking the blows.

When a run ends, the log names the cell that failed and what failed it. Change that cell, or what sits behind it, and go again. Every decision lives at the forge.

A thrust answers a third of a foe's armour where a cut or a hammer blow answers all of it, which is why a dagger is not simply a small sword.

THE SMITH AND THE RACK

Tam carries what you forge, and Tam has a strength figure: a weapon too heavy to swing well costs stamina on every blow.

Your rack holds what you have built and grows as Tam gains levels. Repair a damaged weapon, or salvage it back into materials at half return. Materials are kept even on a failed run, so a bad run still pays for the next design.

THE DAILY PUZZLE

One puzzle a day, identical for every player: a fixed form, six granted materials, one design, no second attempt at the layout. The gauntlet escalates until either your weapon or your smith gives out, and your score is how far down it you got.

FIVE REGIONS

Hollow Quarry, Ironback Warrens, Ashfall Reach, Skittering Deep, Saltmere. Each drops materials the last one did not, and each asks a different question of a blade: raw armour, heat, corrosion, or sheer mass on the other end of the swing. Each region ends at a boss, armoured beyond anything else in it.

Clear the Hollow Quarry and the sword is yours; clear the Ironback Warrens and the warhammer follows. Weapon forms are earned by clearing the region that guards them, never bought.

PREMIUM, AND OFFLINE

One purchase, once. No advertisements, no seasons, no battle pass, no energy timers, no currency, nothing sold by the unit.

Free: the Hollow Quarry and the Ironback Warrens, the wood, bronze and steel families, the dagger you begin with, the two forms those regions grant, and the daily puzzle. The one-time unlock opens the other three regions and material families four to six.

No account, no sign-in, and nothing collected about you. The game requests internet access for exactly one purpose, Google Play Billing, so the unlock can be bought and restored. No analytics, no tracking, no cloud save. Everything else runs with the radio off.

Plays in English, German or Spanish. The language follows your device and can be changed in Settings.

Forge a blade, send it out, and read what comes back.

Type set in Cinzel by Natanael Gama, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.