Fractured time shapes the battlefield.
Shearline is a turn-based tactical RPG where the board itself decides who can move cleanly, who arrives compromised, and who controls the fight. Fast-time, slow-time, and unstable ground change movement, status, and combat advantage turn by turn.
Fight through combat, defense, and escape objectives on handcrafted tactical maps
Navigate temporal terrain that changes proficiency, movement, and route planning
Use character abilities to create openings, protect allies, and punish bad positioning
Turn hostile ground into an advantage and recover from bad crossings at the exact moment it matters
Shape a squad of 15 recruitable characters through handcrafted classes, promotions, bonds, and party-building choices
The board pushes back. Take control of it.
Fast-time, slow-time, and unstable ground do more than change the map's color. They change who is effective, how cleanly a squad can move, and how dangerous it is to cross the line at the wrong moment. Vel fighters thrive on haste shear. Other units may lose footing, waste movement, or cross into battle already compromised. Some fights are won by raw damage. Others are won by putting the right person on the right ground one turn earlier.
Shearline gives you tools to break an enemy terrain advantage, open a route, or recover from a bad crossing at the exact moment a battle starts going wrong. Zev's anchor is the clearest of those tools: it can stabilize a hostile patch of ground or clear Disorientation from an ally when you need their attacks to land.
The world runs on stolen years.
Workers go into the time mines for three calendar years and come out thirty years older. Frontier towns survive on leased drift stakes they do not control. The people who profit most from dangerous time also get the safest, most controlled version of it. Zev and her squad start by holding the line around Threshold and end up uncovering something much larger.
Build the squad each fight demands.
Recruit a distinct cast of 15 characters and shape them through handcrafted classes, promotions, bond actions, and party-building choices. Some units excel on specific terrain. Others bring control, support, mobility, or raw staying power. Repeated deployment deepens relationships and unlocks bond abilities that let the right pair cover each other, open routes together, or break a threatened line at the exact moment it matters most.
Meet your crew.
Zev is a Shear-Touched scout who carries Threshold's only portable field anchor and reads the line better than anyone in town. The tool is very much on loan.
Kir is a Vel striker who is at her best on haste shear. Her father survived a 10x time claim; she understands the toll of the haste.
Bryn is a Meridian medic from a family that profits from frontier supply contracts. He knows exactly how the mine economy works, and he came out here anyway.
They are the first three caught up in something much larger.
The Demo
The planned Steam Next Fest: October 2026 Edition demo is built around five handcrafted battles, party progression, exploration in Threshold, and a frontier mystery that opens into a larger conflict.
About the Developer
Shearline is a solo project by Hasteward.