Raw Fury and Montreal-based indie studio Fool Moon have announced Hillthorn, a card-based investigation game where a mystery unfolds entirely without a spoken word. A child has gone missing in the mazelike trails of Hillthorn. You’re an outsider brought in to find them. The locals aren’t eager to talk to someone from outside their Flock. Time is running short. And every clue, every conversation, every discovery is mediated through cards rather than dialogue trees or inventory menus.
Hillthorn joins Raw Fury’s recent string of eerie mystery titles alongside Blue Prince and The Seance of Blake Manor — a deliberate strand in the publisher’s catalogue that’s been earning them a reputation for atmospheric, unconventional puzzle and investigation games. No release date has been announced. A Steam wishlist is live now.
Key Features
Every detail of Hillthorn’s story is revealed through Clue cards. Cards can be Investigated, Explored, or in some cases communicated with — your primary tools for getting closer to the truth behind the disappearance. No spoken dialogue. No text-heavy cutscenes.
You’ve been tasked with finding a missing person in a community that has no interest in talking to you. Drawing information from locals who are reluctant to share with someone outside their Flock is one of the core tensions of the investigation.
There are too many threads and too little time. Something seems willing to let you revisit untrodden paths — but at a cost. The time pressure shapes what you investigate and in what order.
Hillthorn’s trails are hauntingly eerie and deliberately labyrinthine. The environment itself is part of the mystery — navigating the mountain is as much about discovery as following leads.
Fool Moon is a small indie studio out of Montreal with a stated focus on crafting new kinds of interactive experiences. Hillthorn is their current project under Raw Fury, and the card-based investigation concept — no spoken words, clue cards as the sole interface for discovery and communication, a missing child, a hostile community, and a ticking clock — is distinctive enough that it’s earned our attention immediately. More details to come.