Turn-based CRPG · in development

Nine Springs

九泉

A sealed Chinese mega-bunker, three kilometres underground, eighty years after the world above died. Ration water, learn forbidden fighting styles, and decide who controls the last breathable air, while the digital ghosts of the dead whisper through the network.

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The Springs

Nine Springs was built to house three million people in one self-sustaining arcology, sunk deep into the rock to outlast heat, storms and war. When the White Bloom, a fungus made to kill crop pests that learned to kill everything warm-blooded, swept the world above, the bunker sealed its gates.

Eighty years later, 200,000 survivors cling to failing machines. The Bureau hoards clean air at the top, a syndicate controls the water pumps, cybernetic kung-fu schools guard their floors, and corrupted AI copies of the dead haunt every network. You are a nobody from the Market Square. What you learn, who you serve and what you unleash will decide whether the Springs ever opens again.

九泉 means "the nine springs", and in Chinese it is also the old name for the land of the dead.

What it plays like

Tactical turn-based combat

Action points, free movement, cover, height and knockback. Hits land on body parts, not one health bar. Hard but fair.

Builds that matter

Martial styles, four Force traditions, guns, crafting, hacking, stealth and talk. Many ways through every problem.

A world that remembers

Rival factions fight over air, water and the dead. No clean "good" side, and they all remember what you did.

Scavenge, craft, survive

Food, water and gear come from scarcity and the workbench, not shops.

Chinese culture as texture

Family, face, debt, ritual, noodle stalls and ancestor shrines, lit by lanterns hung over broken machines.

Grounded dread

Fox spirits, hopping corpses and ghosts in the network: folk horror explained through science fiction.

For players of Underrail, Fallout 1 and 2, ATOM RPG and Wasteland.

Work in progress

The clinic waiting room in Jishi Hall: rows of chairs, red lanterns and a reception counter — Jishi Hall, the rogue doctors' clinic in the Market Square.

Lit apartment windows, rooftop water tanks and market stalls in the Walled City — The Walled City: stacked flats, rooftop tanks and a lantern-lit market.

From the devlog

2026-10-18
Devlog #0: Building Nine Springs in public

A turn-based CRPG in a sealed Chinese mega-bunker. What it is, what already works, and why I'm showing all of it as I go.