The Ties That Bind Us — Malafox Games

They Don't Know Where They Are. The House Does.

Three people wake up in a house they cannot leave. They don't know where they are. They don't know who they are. But the house does. The doors are sealed. The windows won't break. Outside is nothing but grey. Somewhere in the walls, something moves. It remembers them. It knows why they're here, and what they've done. It can smell their sins.

The only other voice belongs to a soul bound to the attic. She calls herself Selah Wren. She can see everything. And she will judge you.

The Characters

Eleanor Ashford — The Caretaker
Eleanor is warm. Careful. The kind of person who appears to have done everything right. She hasn't. There is something she carries that she doesn't yet know she's carrying, and the house may find it before she does.

Grant Thorne — The Soldier
Grant follows orders. He always has. He tells himself that's what soldiers do. He is not wrong. He is also not absolved. The house knows the difference between obedience and innocence — and so does Grant, somewhere underneath all that discipline.

Julian Mercer — The Artist
Julian is charming and perceptive. The kind of person who makes you feel seen — right up until he doesn't need you anymore. Of the three, he is the most certain he doesn't belong here. He is also the most deserving of it.

Selah Wren — The Overseer
A spirit bound to the attic. She can see everything. She speaks to the players, guides them when they are lost, and when the time comes, will judge them. Her voice is the voice of the game. She is not cruel. She is not kind. She is patient. The house has given her all the time in the world.

The House

Four levels. A basement, a main floor, a second floor, and the attic — which cannot be accessed until the time is right. 41 rooms to explore. Items and weapons hidden in forgotten corners. Locked doors, vented shortcuts, and memories buried in places players may never think to look.

The board tracks everything in real time. Blue LEDs show player locations. Red LEDs show enemy presence. Green LEDs mark locked doors. The pulsing eye of the Shape tells you when it is spawning. Nothing is hidden from the board — the tension comes from knowing exactly where everything is, and having to decide what to do about it.

Three Ways to Lose Yourself

Most horror games kill you one way. The Ties That Bind Us kills you three.

Your body can fail. HP reaches zero. A Husk rises in your place.
Your mind can break. Sanity reaches zero. Something worse rises — The Wailing.
The house can claim you. If your Sin level climbs too high, it simply absorbs you. You are gone.

Sin is the currency of your worst choices. Summon darkness to fight and it grows. Act against your teammates and it grows. If it climbs past the point of no return, Selah will not mourn you. She will not remember you. But the house will.

The Enemies

The Shape That Remembers — The primary antagonist. Relentless, made of many souls, drawn most strongly toward whoever carries the heaviest sin. It cannot be killed, only driven back. It always comes back. If you hide in the Grand Fireplace while the fire burns, the Shape cannot reach you there. So it waits. And eventually, the wood runs out.

The Husk — When a player's body fails, something rises from where they fell. The least threatening enemy in the house. Until there are several of them.

The Wailing — When a player loses their mind, what spawns is not a Husk. It is something built entirely of grief and noise. It moves like pain does: unpredictably, and toward you. It will share its insanity with you if you're not careful.

Features

No cards, no dice, no moving pieces — everything expressed through a custom circuit board
41 rooms across four floors (basement, main, second, attic)
Fully narrated by Selah Wren — hundreds of individual sound bites
Three difficulty settings; Randomizer mode; LED test mode
Multiple endings — good, bad, and secret. One Patrick will not tell you about at all.
Each copy includes earbuds, stereo cable, USB power cable, user manual, and spoilers envelope
STL file for a 3D-printable display stand included with every pledge