Small Gray Games

Game developer. Dev for The Idle Class and The Salt Keep. Video games, movies, and sometimes a cat.

[smallgraygames]

The Salt Keep

Demo: The Salt Keep

Status: Complete (on sale now on Mac/PC, Android, & iOS)

Genre: Fantasy/horror text adventure (think text-based interactive fiction with CYOA and RPG mechanics)

Set in a high fantasy world with low fantasy stakes, the character-driven story of The Salt Keep follows a struggling merchant named Doyle who stumbles into a life-or-death mystery. During the last legs of a months-long journey as a traveling salesman, Doyle stops in the seemingly deserted village of Cardwyke to meet a friend who has promised to help keep him financially afloat, but what he finds is even more dangerous than the crushing weight of debt.

The world of The Salt Keep should be familiar to any fan of fantasy — it has breastplates, and swords, and other fun stuff like that — but is shaped by the vaguely industrial creep of bastard feudalism. Sprawling merchant conglomerates and faceless business structures pull the levers of power as much as dukes and knights.

The world is meant to be both a reflection of traditional fantasy settings (the England-coded sword and sorcery and D&D-style locations we're used to) and an answer to some of the tropes I find most frustrating about them. It's not a world of prophesied heroes doing Great Man Theory or of grimdark anti-heroes exposing the essential evil of humanity, but of ordinary medieval schlubs trying to survive within alienating and oppressive political systems.

In other words, it's not a world a character like Doyle has any hope or intention of changing; he only means to survive.

The Salt Keep is a text-based game, so the action is described through text and the player navigates and makes choices via button inputs. Through these basic mechanics, you'll be able to:

Guide Doyle through the village and the towering keep that looms above it as he searches for a means of escape.

Collect items and discover their uses.

Equip gear to improve Doyle's ability scores.

Succeed or fail at percentage-based challenges.

Earn experience and level up based on those challenges.

Talk to and work with NPCs to make progress.

Uncover secrets and missable areas.

Risk grievous bodily harm.

Despite the prevalence of choices and risks, there is no chance of death or dead-ends. The story always moves forward. In turn, you'll change the outcome of Doyle's story (as well as those of the NPCs) not just through the things you choose to do, but through the things you fail to do, and the things you choose to ignore.

The demo includes the prologue and first chapter of five total chapters. It should provide around two hours of gameplay, though it'll vary depending what you choose to do and how thorough you are. 

The full game is novel-length — roughly 260k words — and is now available on Mac/PC, Android, & iOS, and the demo should provide a good sense of both gameplay and the direction the rest of the narrative will take.  If you want to help support development or keep track of progress:

Follow here for dev blog updates

Become a patron on Patreon

Follow on Twitter

Please enjoy!

WARNING: The narrative includes all sorts of violence and generally negative emotional states, which can vary based on your individual play-through, so please keep that in mind.

[smallgraygames]

South of the March on Steam

South of the March is an RPG that combines visual novel exploration with turn-based combat in a hand-drawn dark fantasy world. Meet the loca

The store page for South of the March is now live on Steam! Check it out, hit that wishlist button!

[smallgraygames]

What's been happening and what's to come in 2026 for Small Gray Games.

I've got a new blog post up for what's been happening here and what the plans are for 2026. Logistical stuff, South of the March on its way, more Idle Class, Other Stuff (??) and more.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #20: Combat Speed & Status Effects - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates The usual work is still going on with art and sound, plus filling out the new node additions from last time. That said, the

Devlog #20 for South of the March is up! This one is a quick overview of a couple of new features I've been working on:

A combat speed setting

A status effect overview

Here they are, new buttons in the bottom right:

Check it out for some more details on what's coming!

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #19: Designing New Map Nodes - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Other than general progress on art, sound, and the overall structure of the game, the main thing I've been working on recen

Devlog #19 for South of the March is up! This one details a new feature (text nodes on the map) that adds quite a bit of new content to the game and makes future additions more flexible.

It took a surprising amount of back-and-forth design thinking, some of which goes all the way back to the very start of this project.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #18: Projects on Projects - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Sorry for so much time passing between updates. It's been far too long! Things are chugging along just fine, albeit relativ

New devlog is up for South of the March! It's been a while since the last update (looks like I didn't even put #17 on here, whoops), but we're still making progress - check it out!

I've done a few tiny updates for other things (The Idle Class and The Salt Keep), plus I'm going to re-release my old Twitter API toy sometime soon, but rebuilt for Bluesky. As far as South of the March goes, it's still the same plan as it has been: demo and a Steam page, just trying to wrap things up for it. Always something, you know?

Here's me doing game dev:

[moralanxietystudio]

I'm not saying that my new game will be a huge improvement over Roadwarden, but I am posting this pic comparison to strongly imply it.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #16: Demo Work & Video Preview - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Most of the work over the last few weeks has been dedicated to: More art (especially for sidequests) Additional sound asset

Devlog #16 is up! This one's an update on demo progress plus a video previewing combat with sound. Not much left to do before it's in "ready enough for pre-alpha" territory.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #15: Demo Plans & Additional Platforms - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Most of the work over the last few weeks has been dedicated to: More fleshing out of skills Filling out early content Most

Devlog #15 for South of the March is up! This one's about plans for an upcoming demo, launching a Steam page, and the various professional/legal quandaries that have left me dragging my feet there.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #14: Sidequest Design - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Most of the work over the last couple weeks has been dedicated to: Art for the status effects (and art in general) More fle

Devlog #14 for South of the March is up! This one's all about the design of the sidequests, their JRPG (vs adventure) influence, and Yakuza inspirations.

[smallgraygames]

I wrote a collection of brief reviews based on how well these 15 games managed to distract me from looming existential medical trauma. Check it out! I even included a patented scoring system (your distraction results may vary).

Games included are:

Dave the Diver

The Cowabunga Collection

Rise of the Third Power

Cult of the Lamb

Secret of Mana

Teardown

Dredge

Streets of Rage 4

Mother Russia Bleeds

Killing Floor 2

Ruiner

Idol Manager

Final Fantasy V

Dead Ahead

Elden Ring

[coronelcoscach0]

MOTHER RUSSIA BLEEDS AND DAVE THE DAVER MENTIONED LETS FUCKING GOOOOO

[smallgraygames]

I'd never (and still haven't really) heard a word about Mother Russia Bleeds, which is an absolute shame. I got it fully on a whim just wandering through the PS Store and it was an unexpected gem.

Anybody who likes side-scrolling beat-em-ups and/or general ultraviolence should absolutely pick it up.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #13: Tutorials & Status Effects - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Most of the work over the last couple weeks has been dedicated to: Writing in-game tutorials Fleshing out equipment and ski

Devlog #13 for South of the March is up! Been working on tutorials and status effects, among other things.

[smallgraygames]

A look at Scarlet Nexus and the difficulty of talking meaningfully about things you love.

I wrote about Scarlet Nexus and how hard it is to talk critically about things that you just kind of unapologetically loved because you're stupid.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #12: New Animations & Accessibility Updates - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates Progress over the last couple of weeks has been split between the ongoing accessibility project (which seems to be about fi

Devlog #12 for South of the March is up! A bit about combat animations, finishing the first pass at self-voicing, and more.

[smallgraygames]

Been working on some combat animations. Here's a quick GIF of combat in motion, complete with my dev "cheat" skills in the dropdown!

[orteil42]

anytime i see my cat snoozing peacefully somewhere in my house it fills me with joy and determination… cannot begin to explain the positive mental impact of having a creature around who is just absolutely chilling

[smallgraygames]

This is something I never would have anticipated before having a cat. People love to personify their pets and talk about how in tune with their emotions they are and so on, but for me it's almost the opposite: at the peak of anxiety, there's nothing more grounding than the fact that my cat doesn't match it at all. He's not worried about the future. He doesn't remember the past. He could not be more present.

[smallgraygames]

Devlog #11: Accessibility Design - South of the March by Small Gray Games

Progress Updates There’s been a lot of momentum over the past couple of weeks! A lot has had to do with building out the remainder of the co

New Devlog is up! This one's all about accessibility: what's done, what's left to do, and a lot of examination (too much, perhaps) of the thinking behind the design.

The short version: self-voicing is gonna work.