Chthonic Caretaker
Category: Life Sim / Economy
Stack: Vanilla JS (browser, WebGL canvas)
Play it: Itch.io
Premise
You are a daughter of Hypnos. Black Appalachian. You illegally bury the bodies of vampires, werewolves, zombies, and humans under cover of night. Dig graves, place bodies, fill dirt, plant the right seed, get paid, don’t get caught. Use the money to buy land, upgrade your van, and build out a cemetery operation that is technically not supposed to exist.
The design question was: can a simple physical loop (dig, carry, bury, plant) sustain tension through investigation pressure and economic progression alone?
Body Types
Four creature types, each with a signature seed that must be planted after burial:
| Type | Symbol | Seed | Color |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vampire | cross | Belladonna | Purple |
| Werewolf | triangle-up | Hemlock | Brown |
| Zombie | triangle-down | Fungi | Green |
| Human | psi | Sunflower | Gold |
Graves of the same body type can be adjacent. Different types require a 1-tile gap between them. Body count per night scales: 2 + floor(nightNumber / 2).
Core Night Loop
- Go to van, pick up shovel (E)
- Set grave orientation — horizontal (1x3) or vertical (3x1) with R
- Move to empty ground (at least 2 tiles from van), dig with Q (3 taps)
- Return to van, drop shovel, pick up a body (E)
- Place body in dug grave (E)
- Fill grave with Q
- Repeat until all bodies are buried
Graves are 3 cells in a line. The physical back-and-forth between van and grave site is the core time pressure — every trip is time on the investigation clock.
Investigation System
The investigation clock has 1-8 segments per night, each lasting 60 seconds. The clock only ticks while you are carrying a shovel or a body. Put them down and the timer pauses — but you cannot make progress either.
When all segments fill, an investigator arrives. You get 3 persuasion attempts per night, each a “best 2 of 3” dice roll (both rolls must exceed 0.4 to succeed). Fail all three and the run ends with a capture fine.
The Hybrid Van upgrade gives a 25% chance per run that one night has no investigator at all — a significant relief valve in later runs.
Economy
Per-Run Income
| Source | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Grave pay | $25 per filled grave | Base income |
| Speed bonus | Up to +$10 | Based on remaining time in current clock segment |
| Night bonus | $10 x night number | Completion reward |
Capture Fine
Getting caught costs 50% of on-hand money. Bank balance is separate and untouched. A full run is 5 nights — only after completing Night 5 does on-hand money move to the bank.
Property Tax
Every 4 completed runs: min($50 + $25 x assets, $300) deducted from bank. Assets = owned plots + fence + shed. This prevents infinite accumulation and forces continued runs.
Meta-Progression
All upgrades persist across runs via localStorage:
| Upgrade | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Cemetery Deed | $500 | Unlocks the Base view with house, van, plots |
| Land Plots | $300 (escalating x1.4) | Expand cemetery capacity |
| Perimeter Fence | $350 | +1 asset for tax calculation |
| Shed | $450 | Unlocks merchant (souls currency) |
| Hybrid Van | $400 | 25% chance of investigator-free night |
The plot cost escalation ($300 x 1.4^owned) creates diminishing returns — early plots are cheap, but expanding past 4-5 plots gets expensive fast.
Souls and Merchant (Partial)
A secondary meta-currency. Motes have a 30% chance to spawn per night (1-3 when they do). The merchant offers dig efficiency upgrades for souls. This system is designed but not fully wired — the spawn logic and purchase handlers are stubbed. The architecture is in place for a future pass.