LAST WORDS

docs & help

Docs & Help

How the game works, how your data is kept, and how to get unstuck. Plain and factual — the library's formal wing.

Design

LAST WORDS is a single-player, procedurally generated vocabulary-currency strategy game. You are a scribe-deity tending the last library at the edge of a dying world. Every word you speak to act is permanently torn from your living vocabulary — for this run — and your interface erodes in step with what you've spent.

The four verbs

Tiers

Words come in three tiers: bronze (common scrap), silver (mid craft), and gold (rare — the only source of ritual and ending keys). The corpus is ~305 words, majority bronze, so scarcity does the pressuring.

The Fade, the Eaters, the Wall

Unspent words erode on their own (the Fade taxes hoarding); at two letters or fewer a word becomes its glyph; at zero it is consumed and logged forever. Every second night the Eaters advance; if they reach the library, the archive falls. Every ending lands on the Wall of Consumed Words.

Endings

Five deterministic endings: Sundown (a leaving), Resurrection (the world repaired), Gatekeeper (the Gate opened), Devouring (the tide reached the library), and Void (the dark quiet — reachable only deliberately).

Seeds & persistence

#seed= — shared, reproducible runs

Append #seed=anything to the play URL — https://last-words.pages.dev/#seed=myrun — and the game starts a fresh run generated from that seed. The same seed always produces the same world: same word distribution, same map, same endgame. A seeded run is ephemeral: it never overwrites your live save until you actually progress.

Where your data lives

Everything is kept in this browser's localStorage, under two keys:

Privacy

There is no server, no analytics, no account, no network call. Your run and your Wall never leave this browser. Clearing your browser data erases them. The Wall is never aggregated anywhere.

FAQ

Do I need an account?

No. There is no account, no login, no cloud. The game runs entirely in your browser.

Is my progress saved?

Yes — to localStorage after every action. Close the tab, come back, and the run resumes where you left it.

What is the #seed= thing?

A way to share or reproduce a run. The same seed always generates the same world. See Seeds & persistence.

How many endings are there?

Five, and they are deterministic — the same choices always resolve the same way. See About for the thesis behind them.

Can I lose?

Yes. The Eaters can reach the library (Devouring), and you can spend yourself into the Void. Both are endings, and both are kept on the Wall.

Why does my interface erode?

That is the game. The interface is made of the same language you spend; it degrades in step with your vocabulary. Decay is the fuel, not the wound.

What happens if I clear my browser data?

Your run and your Wall are gone. The game starts fresh. Nothing else is affected — there is nothing stored anywhere else.

I'm stuck. What do I do?

You always have a move: OFFER any word to pass the night. If your hand is empty and nothing more will come, the game will ask you to choose the void — that is a deliberate ending, not a soft-lock.

Changelog

M#MilestoneStatus
M1Scaffold foundation, commit 0✅
M2Seeded RNG, corpus, pool✅
M3Economy engine (4 verbs)✅
M4Board/chapters orchestration✅
M5Persistence model✅
M6UI skeleton✅
M7Audio layer✅
M8Tests complete + polish✅
M9Integration review✅
M10Deploy to Pages — live at last-words.pages.dev✅
M11v1 info pages — this site✅

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