Oats in the field, barrows under the hill
Smoke from the chimneys, sheep on the fell, and a bit of land at the end of the lane that is yours to clear. When the mist comes down off the hill, take a lantern and a friend, and go and see what is stirring in the old barrows.
Opening soon. Leave your email for one message when the gate opens, and the Founder's lantern for your house.
Haverby is a farming and adventure game for you and your friends. Clear a plot of land and grow on it. Cook at your own hearth. Meet everyone in the village square. Then go down into the barrows together, fight room by room in real time, and carry home what you find. It all runs in the browser, so a friend is one link away.
They open it and they are standing on your plot. No install, no account to make first, and it is free to play.
Quick on your feet: a sword swing knocks a bolt aside, an arrow shoots one out of the air. Alone or four together.
The whole village works against the blight. Every harvest and every run below counts, and Haverby shows it.
Every villager has a plot of land at the end of a lane: by the stream, on the hillside or at the wood's edge. It starts as brambles, nettles and stones. Cut them back with sickle, axe and pick, lay a path, put up a fence, and push the hedge out a little further each time.
More than forty crops, and the seasons turn every week: each crop is sown in its own seasons, and even winter has plenty to plant. They grow in real time and keep growing while you are away. Watered ground grows faster, and dry ground only slows a crop down. Leave one in the ground long after its seasons have gone and it withers, but never in under a week.
Cook what you grow at your own hearth: an oatcake, a turnip stew, a carrot pie. Food goes down the barrows with you and lasts a floor.
One room with a hearth, and whatever you put in it: a box bed, an oak table, a bee skep, a shelf for the trophies you bring up from the barrows. Friends who visit see it just as you left it.
Haverby is the one place where you see everybody. Hild keeps the board with the day's asks. Wulfric works the forge and smelts what you bring up from below. Ada keeps the Oat Sheaf. Up by the shrine, someone tends the hob.
Not every year is a good one. The blight has got into the east field again, and the mist comes down thicker at night. Everyone pitches in: stone for the wall, oats for the store, a lantern carried down the barrows, and the village is better for it.
Find the door out in the dale and go down alone or with up to three friends. Most rooms stand open, with packs asleep until you come close, so you choose your fights; guardians and bosses shut the door behind you. The fighting is real time and quick: a sword swing knocks a bolt aside, an arrow shoots one out of the air, and a keeper's hearthlight keeps everyone standing.
The three great barrows go three floors down and take ten to fifteen minutes, deep enough to feel like going somewhere. Between floors there is a landing with a warm light, where you eat, catch your breath, and choose whether to go on or carry home what you have.
What comes up with you: ore and hide for the smith, gear, rare seeds, and trophies for the shelf at home.
Haverby sits in the middle of a dale, and the roads go out from it. The further from the hearth, the worse it gets. Gather herbs, reeds, deadfall and ore; find what sleeps in the long grass before it finds you; and follow the road home to Haverby with what you carry. The barrows' doors are out here too, and the keepers of the dale's outposts have work for anyone passing.
The wild places are yours and your party's alone, so nobody else's fight spills into yours.
Choose a people, a calling and a face when you first come down to Haverby, and change your look whenever you like at the looking glass in your house. Each people can take four of the seven callings, one of them theirs alone. Every calling has its own way of fighting and its own part to play in a party.
Of the farms and the moor. Practical, stubborn, kind. They build and keep.
Stands in front and takes the blows.
Rage · Cleave, Shield Shove, Whirlwind, Charge
Close, quick and hard to pin down.
Combo · Backstab, Eviscerate, Smoke, Shadowstep
A sea-rover: an axe in hand, another thrown, and a horn of ale for the party.
Momentum · Throwing Axe, Horn of Ale, Tar Keg, Boat Hook
Humans can also be archers.
Of the Fells, where the halls are cut into the hills. Hard, proud, fond of a bargain.
The healer, and the one who shields the rest.
Hearthlight · Mending, Hearth Ward, Hearth Circle, Step Aside
Cuts runes that strike, ward and bind.
Rune charges · Rune of Striking, Rune of Warding, Rune of Binding, Stone-step
Dwarves can also be warriors and rogues.
The oldest people of the land, here before anyone came over the sea. Watchful, not quite safe.
Keeps their distance and picks things off.
Focus · Rune Arrow, Arrow Rain, Hobbling Shot, Disengage
Heals, holds the line or hits hard, by the form they take.
Sap · Lifebloom, Grasping Roots, Shift, Seed-step
Elves can also be keepers and rogues.
Haverby is made to be played with the people you already know. There is no lobby and no server to pick: a link goes straight to you.
Make a party and copy its link. Put it in a message, a group chat, anywhere.
No download, and no account to make first. They arrive with a name of their own, standing on your plot.
Into the barrow as a party, home with the loot. They make an account when they want to keep it.
Water their crops and you both get a little coin for the kindness, once a day. Gifts of seeds and food wait for them until they come in.
A friend you bring gets seeds and a hen for their plot. When they clear the Low Barrow, you are thanked: a rare seed, then a garden hob, a farm cat that follows you about, and a free month.
Haverby runs in the browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Nothing to install and nothing to update: open the page and you are in the village. It is made for a phone held upright first, with thumb controls and the farm tools in reach, and it is just as happy with a keyboard on a big screen.
Haverby is free to play: the village, your plot and house, the dale, all five barrows, with as many friends as you like. Membership is one price, and it never buys power or faster growth. What you win stays yours.
No gems, no boosts, no loot boxes, no paying to skip the wait. A member's turnips grow exactly as fast as yours.
Soon. Leave your email and you get one message when the gate opens, and nothing else.
Yes. Everything in Haverby can be played for free, with friends. The only thing money does is a flat membership of $5 a month, and it never buys power or speed.
No. It plays in the browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Any up to date browser will do.
No. A friend who opens your link comes in as a guest with a name of their own and starts playing straight away. Their villager is kept while they play; making an account with an email keeps it for good.
Yes. The plot, the house and the dale are all fine alone, and you can run the barrows with one to four, scaled to your party.
They keep growing in real time. Watered ground grows faster; dry ground only slows a crop down. Nothing withers in under a week, so a busy few days costs you nothing.
The village is shared: everyone in it, and the village's work against the blight, belongs to everybody. Your plot, the wild places and the barrows are yours and your party's, so a busy evening never crowds you out.
A lantern that hangs by your door. It goes to those who signed up before the gate opened, when they make their villager with the same email, and only to them.
Loxley Games, a small independent studio that makes games for the browser and sells them direct.
Leave your email for one message when the gate opens. Make your villager with the same email and the Founder's lantern hangs by your door: only those who signed up before the gate opened will ever have one.
Haverby: the oat village, in the old tongue of the dale. The barrows were there before the first wall was raised, and something in them is waking.