Ten ideas grown from your two finalists: two that fuse Deadhold and Mirrorhold, four from the Deadhold line, and four from the Mirrorhold line. Each is drawn in a different art style, and the two fusions also get an interface wireframe, a loop diagram, a storyboard and store art.
Before you commit
The undead-worker space got more crowded this week.
Graveyard Keeper 2 came out on 22 September 2026 with zombie workers, and Sintopia (April 2026) drops the dead into a layer you manage below the surface. Pure Deadhold ideas now need a strong twist. The fusions get their novelty from the mirror structure.
Six of my first working titles turned out to be taken or too close to existing games, so they're renamed below. Only Tombwright and Hourglass Keep came back clean; the rest are unchecked.
Recommendation
Prototype Barrowdeep first.
It's the highest-scoring idea that uses both halves you liked: every body you bury grows a room in the mirrored world below, so Deadhold's corpse economy becomes Mirrorhold's build system. The search found nothing like it.
Tombwright scores highest overall, but it's a tomb rather than a castle and uses only the Deadhold half.
Mourning Glass is the most emotional fusion and the hardest to balance.
The weights are adjustable if my priorities aren't yours.
Both use the dead to fill the reflection. They differ in what the dead become: workers in Mourning Glass, rooms in Barrowdeep.
Both linesStained glassPortrait
Mourning Glass
The living hold the keep by day. The dead hold its reflection by night.
DAY 14LIVING 14DEAD 9
ADA FELL AT THE GATESHE WAKES AT DUSK
12345
Mockup, 180×320, stained glass, animated
Ada, a guard, falls at the gate in a daytime raid.
At dusk she wakes in the reflection, on the night roster.
The chapel mirror is covered: whoever it held is at rest.
An open mirror. Shades cross through it to help by day; the Umbra can use it at night.
What climbs out of the deep after dark.
Your keep stands on the Veil. Anyone who dies inside its walls, defender or raider, wakes in the reflection below as a shade and works the night shift. By day the living build, farm and fight raiders. By night the dead run the reflection and hold back the Umbra. Every mirror in the keep is a door for souls: leave it uncovered and the dead can cross back to help, or cover it as mourners do and they finally rest.
Core loop
Day: the living build, craft and defend.
Every death moves someone from the day roster to the night roster, raiders included.
Night: shades work the reflected rooms for essence and fight what climbs out of the deep.
Dawn rite: choose which mirrors to cover. Covering one releases a soul and lifts the living's morale; leaving it open keeps a worker and adds dread.
Keep the rosters balanced. Too many dead and the day economy starves; too few and the night falls.
Signature features
Two rosters, one population. The day's losses are the night's hires, so a bad raid is never only a loss.
Mirrors are doors. Each mirror links a room to its twin. It lets shades help by day and lets the Umbra in by night.
The dawn rite. The old custom of covering mirrors in a house of mourning becomes the game's daily decision.
Bonds. A living worker whose dead relative or comrade works the twin room works better. Release the dead one and the living one grieves.
Traits: death inverts them
Brave → RecklessCharges horrors; dies again faster.
Devout → BitterResents the living; strong at wards.
Diligent → TirelessNever rests, never talks.
Coward → LurkerUnseen by horrors; a good scout.
Raider → StrangerNo bonds; a hard fighter.
Novelty
GoodNo game found with a night shift of the dead in a mirror realm, or a mirror-covering rite. Dead workers themselves are common: Graveyard Keeper 2, the jam game Death Manager, Dwarf Fortress's memorial slabs (which lay ghosts to rest), and Sintopia.
Name
My first title, Glasswake, is taken (a crystal-salvage game by Lion & Otter Studios). Mourning Glass is unchecked.
Scope
Medium–largeTwo rosters and two threat sets. The reflection can reuse the keep's art through a palette swap, as the mockup does.
Risks
Death spirals: a lost day swells the night crew but starves the economy. The tone is grim.
Prototype asks
Does a death by day feel like a loss and a hire at the same time?
Other mockup types
Interface wireframe
Low-fidelity main phone screen. Grey boxes are placeholders; blue notes explain the layout.
Day 14 · 16:40Dusk in 3 min
Living 14Dead 9Essence 38
Keep (living) cross-section
Reflection (dead) upside down
Dawn rite: 3 mirrors
Chapel · Ada, guardBindRelease
Hall · raider, strangerBindRelease
Forge · Old Tam, smithBindRelease
BuildRosterMirrorsWards
Both realms stay on screen; the active one is at full brightness.
The dawn rite is a sheet you can't skip. It's the daily decision.
The roster shows living and dead side by side, with lines between bonded pairs.
The Mirrors tab lists every door between realms and what can use it tonight.
Loop diagram
How one population moves between the two rosters.
The purple arrows are the mechanism that doesn't exist elsewhere: deaths cross the Veil and become labor.
Storyboard: one death, three beats
Woodcut sketch frames, the way a trailer or tutorial would show it.
Day 14. Ada falls holding the gate.
Dusk. She wakes in the reflection, on the night roster.
Night. She holds the reflected gate against what climbs out of the deep.
Store art
Header capsule at 460×215 and an app icon at thumbnail size, to test whether the hook reads small.
Both linesWoodcutLandscapeRecommended
Barrowdeep
Every grave you dig grows a room in the world below.
NIGHT 9PLOTS 8/12BODIES WAITING 2CONSECRATED 18%
ROWAN, MASON · PLOT 8GROWS A WORKSHOP IN 2 NIGHTS
12345
Mockup, 320×180, woodcut, animated
A fresh burial. The plot sets where the new room grows; the epitaph sets what it becomes.
The room growing beneath it over the next nights.
A forge-crypt under a smith's grave, worked by his shade.
Grave robbers and an exorcist. They target plots, not walls.
The keep's own reflection: the only part of the world below you don't grow.
Your keep's graveyard sits on the Veil. Each body you bury grows a chamber in the reflection beneath its plot, shaped by who they were: a smith's grave grows a forge-crypt, a knight's an armory of ghosts. Their shades work those chambers by night, and the chambers' output holds the keep. Grave robbers, exorcists and the Church come for your plots, because your underworld is built from your dead.
Core loop
Defend the surface keep. The fallen, yours and theirs, are carried to the graveyard.
Pick a plot and carve an epitaph. The plot sets where the chamber grows; the epitaph sets its purpose.
Over a few nights the chamber grows and its shade starts work: essence, wards, undead guards.
Neighboring chambers combine. A forge-crypt beside an armory makes weapons.
Robbers dig plots up and exorcists consecrate ground. A desecrated grave collapses its chamber.
Signature features
The graveyard is the build menu. Placing a plot is placing a room in the world below.
Epitaphs choose the room. A buried captain can become a barracks or a watchtower.
A fight over ground. Consecrated earth can't take graves, so the Church's advance shrinks your build space.
Day and night halves. The living defend the surface by day; the shades work below at night.
Traits: cause of death
DrownedThe chamber floods and grows fungus for food.
BurnedWorks as a furnace; its shade can't burn.
PlagueVery productive, but rot spreads to neighbors.
Old ageSlow and steady; calms neighbors.
Slain in battleA guard chamber with a free defender.
Novelty
StrongNo game found where burials grow chambers in an underworld. Partial matches: Graveyard Keeper 2 scores burials, Sintopia's dead drop into a hell layer you manage, and Zombie Farm plants corpses.
Name
My first title, Undercroft, is taken on Steam. Barrowdeep is unchecked.
Scope
MediumChambers are data. Each type is one room design.
Risks
The wait between burial and chamber can feel slow, so something has to visibly grow every night.
Prototype asks
Is choosing where and how to bury someone an interesting build decision?
Loop diagram
Bodies become rooms; rooms defend the plots.
The purple arrow is the new part: a burial is a build order for the world below.
Store art
Header capsule and app icon in the woodcut style.
Deadhold line
Four ways to run a house of the dead
Each keeps "the enemy becomes your labor" and changes one thing about it: what the dead become, who you fight, how the dead feel about it, or what you're building.
Deadhold linePixel artLandscape
Bonemason
They attack your walls. Then they become them.
BONE 1480KNIGHT 96MAGE 12CRUSADE DAY 3
EAST WALLBUILT FROM 14 KNIGHTS HARD · BURNS IN HOLY LIGHT
1234
Mockup, 320×180, pixel art, animated
A wall of knight bone reaches out and grabs an attacker.
Sorting bins: knight, mage and peasant bone are different materials.
A chapel lit by a bone chandelier.
Catacombs: stored material, stacked by type.
A necromancer's keep built from the bones of everyone who has attacked it. Every fallen attacker is sorted into building material, and the material remembers who it was: knight bone makes hard walls, mage bone carries wards, and a wall of berserkers hits back when struck. The keep grows with every siege, and parts of it can move.
Signature features
Material with memory. Each tile inherits a trait from whoever it was made from.
Sieges are supply. You plan the next expansion around the next crusade.
Moving architecture. Walls grab, towers throw, and a gate can bite.
A real look to borrow. The Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora and Rome's Capuchin Crypt decorate chapels with human bone.
Traits: what the material remembers
Knight boneHard, but burns under holy light.
Archer boneThe wall shoots back.
Mage boneCarries wards from room to room.
Peasant boneCheap and brittle.
Giant boneLoad-bearing; lets you build tall.
Saint's boneSacred. Poisons undead nearby.
Novelty
ModerateA fortress of enemy bones exists at game-jam scale (FortressOfBones, 2024, VR), and Necrosmith passes body-part traits to minions. Walls that inherit traits and fight back weren't found.
Name
My first title, Ossuary, is taken (Future Proof Games, 2015). Bonemason is unchecked.
Scope
MediumTile building with material properties.
Risks
Grisly. It needs a stylized, darkly funny tone to reach past horror fans.
Prototype asks
Does the material a wall is made of change how you build?
Deadhold linePaper cut-outKeep + region map
Dreadmonger
Choose who comes to kill you. They'll work for you after.
1234
Mockup, 320×180, paper cut-out, animated
Grayvein mine's outrage is nearly full: miners are coming.
A haunting on its way to the next village.
The mob. Whoever falls at your walls joins your workforce.
Your keep and its skeleton garrison.
Your undead need fresh bodies, and waiting for attackers isn't a plan. You haunt nearby villages to raise their outrage. When a village boils over it marches on your keep, and whoever it sends becomes your next workforce. The fishing town sends fishermen, the mine sends miners, and the abbey sends paladins who break your walls but make superb guards.
Signature features
A provocation map. Villages have outrage, population and trades, and each kind of haunting stirs them differently.
Workforce by design. You pick next week's skills by picking whom to anger.
Escalation. Too much outrage unites the villages into a crusade, and inquisitors come to investigate first.
Truces. Leave a village alone and it recovers and grows. A renewable harvest, grimly.
Traits: trade plus grudge
GrudgeHates their home village: better at haunting it, worse at defending against it.
FisherWorks the moat and the ghoul pools.
MinerDigs crypts twice as fast.
PaladinResists holy light; a superb guard who hates you.
Novelty
ModerateKeeperRL tribes attack when provoked and captives can be converted; Ruinarch raises villager counterattacks with a threat meter. Picking your workforce by picking the village wasn't found.
Name
My first title, Harrow, is taken on itch.io, and Harrowlands is a colony sim in early access. Dreadmonger is unchecked.
Scope
Medium–largeA region map on top of the keep.
Risks
Two layers mean twice the interface. Farming villages is the darkest premise here.
Prototype asks
Is choosing whom to anger a good weekly plan?
Deadhold lineFlat vectorComedy
Bone Union
Your workforce is dead. They'd like to talk about the hours.
1234
Mockup, 320×180, flat vector, animated
The picket line.
On strike: this skeleton has lain down and is just a corpse until you negotiate.
The ghost who runs payroll.
You, the junior necromancer.
A comedy management game. You inherit a keep full of undead staff who remember just enough of being alive to organize. Skeletons want rest days in their graves, ghouls want a better cold room, and the ghosts want to be acknowledged. Keep the place running while paladins, tax collectors and a rival necromancer try to shut you down.
Signature features
Three unions. The Guild of Bones, the Brotherhood of Rot and the Spectral Society each have demands.
Strikes. A crew lies down and turns back into corpses until you negotiate.
Rest needs by type. Skeletons rattle apart, zombies need the cold, ghosts need attention.
Events. A skeleton wants its missing finger back; a ghost haunts the payroll.
Traits
RattlyFalls apart without rest days.
ClingyA ghost that follows one living visitor around.
ForgetfulA zombie that drops tasks halfway.
AmbitiousWants to become a lich. Will organize.
NostalgicWorks harder near reminders of their old life.
Novelty
LowThe joke has been made: Sintopia's demon workers strike (April 2026), Dungeons 3 minions strike, and The Working Dead (2025) is a tabletop RPG about an undead union.
Name
My first title, Graveyard Shift, is used many times. Bone Union is unchecked.
Scope
MediumLight systems, heavy writing.
Risks
Comedy needs a lot of good writing, and events wear out.
Prototype asks
Are the negotiations still funny the tenth time?
Deadhold lineBlueprintDeadline runsTop score
Tombwright
Finish the lich-king's tomb before he dies again.
1234
Mockup, 320×180, blueprint, animated
Nine courses still to lay before entombment day.
Mummified robbers hauling stone up the ramp.
Tomb robbers, tonight's labor if the traps work.
A live portcullis trap in the ascending passage.
A lich-king has one death left, and it's scheduled. Before then you must finish his pyramid tomb, and your labor is the mummified dead. Tomb robbers raid the unfinished tomb for its treasure, and every robber who dies in your traps is wrapped and put to work. The pyramid's cross-section is the map: passages, galleries, chambers, false doors and traps.
Signature features
Deadline runs. Each run is one tomb, and entombment day ends it.
Traps are architecture. False passages, portcullis stones and sand traps are rooms you build.
Treasure is bait. More visible treasure brings more robbers, which means more labor and more risk.
A curse score. Every robber who died in the tomb strengthens its curse after it's sealed.
The mockup's section follows the Great Pyramid, whose base was 440 royal cubits and height 280.
Traits: robber becomes mummy
ScholarRead the plans: builds faster.
BruteHauls two blocks at once.
RatSqueezes through air shafts: digs them.
PriestSaw through false doors: becomes a ward-keeper.
Novelty
StrongThe pieces exist separately (Pharaoh's tomb robbers, Children of the Nile's sudden royal deaths, the trap game Tomb of Thesh, the board game The Pyramid's Deadline). No game found combines them.
Name
No store match found.
Scope
MediumOne structure per run.
Risks
It's a tomb, not a castle. A fantasy Egypt needs its own invented gods rather than real ones.
Prototype asks
Does the deadline make every trap and every hire feel urgent?
Mirrorhold line
Four ways to split a castle in two
Each keeps a second realm tied to the first and changes where the boundary is: a moving waterline, the shadows your lamps cast, a flip in time, or the people themselves.
Mirrorhold lineWatercolorPortrait
Ebbhold
At high tide, half your castle is somewhere else.
Low tide: all six floors are in the keep; raiders come by boat.
High tide, full moon: the lower floors have crossed over, and their workers are drowned shades.
Your keep stands in a tidal lake whose surface is the Veil. As the moon pulls the water up, the lower floors sink below the mirror line and cross into the reflection, rooms and workers with them. At low tide they come back. You build for both states and plan your weeks around the tide table.
Signature features
The mirror line moves. Spring tides, at full and new moon, swallow the most floors.
Rooms change realm. A drowned forge makes essence instead of iron, and its smith is a shade until the ebb.
Floodgates decide what crosses and when.
Threats alternate. Raiders come by boat at low tide; the drowned come up from below at high tide.
Traits
SwimmerCrosses the waterline to rescue or fetch.
MoonstruckWorks best at full moon.
Drowned onceCalm below the line, uneasy above it.
LandlubberPanics when their room floods.
Novelty
StrongAll Will Fall (April 2026) floods and exposes land with a tide. Nothing found where the waterline moves floors between realms.
Name
My first title, Tidekeep, is one letter from Tidekeeper (Simcoach, early access). Ebbhold is unchecked.
Scope
Medium–largeEvery room needs two states.
Risks
A predictable tide gets solved. Storm surges and eclipses would have to break the pattern.
Prototype asks
Is building for two water levels a puzzle or a chore?
Mirrorhold lineSilhouette + live lightLandscape
Lampblack
Every lamp you light casts a place for them to live.
LAMPS 4OIL 64DARK GROUND 38%
1234
Mockup, 320×180, shadows computed live
A swinging lantern. As it moves, the bookshelf's shadow moves, and so does what lives in it.
A creature standing in that shadow.
Moonlight through a window throws shadow west across the bedroom.
The torch leaves a shadow behind the wardrobe. Something has moved in.
The creatures of the Umbra can exist only in shadow, and your castle's shadows come from the lights you place. Every torch, window and lantern throws shadows off walls, furniture and people, and those shadows are their territory. Light a corner and you push them out, but the shadow lands somewhere else. Building is lighting design; defense is choosing where the dark goes.
Signature features
Real light and shadow, recomputed every time you build or move something.
Shadow territory. They move only through connected shadow. A shadow touching a bed means nightmares.
Some work needs the dark. Spies, dreamers and anything the Umbra trades.
Dusk. The setting sun sweeps long shadows across the whole keep.
Traits
Night-eyedWorks in shadow without fear.
Afraid of the darkWon't cross an unlit room.
LamplighterRefuels and moves lamps faster.
ShadowlessCasts no shadow. Immune, and distrusted.
Novelty
ModerateLight keeping monsters out is crowded: Hammerting's lanterns stop spawns, Lightmatter kills you in shadow, and in Closure objects exist only when lit. Cast shadow as the monsters' only territory wasn't found, so it has to be the core.
Name
My first title, Shadowcast, is taken (two itch.io games, plus ShadowCaster and a capture-card brand). Lampblack is unchecked.
Scope
Medium–largeA 2D shadow engine that runs well on phones.
Risks
Shadows are hard to read on a small screen.
Prototype asks
Does moving a lamp feel like a strategic move?
Mirrorhold lineNeon linePortrait
Hourglass Keep
At dusk, the whole castle turns over.
DAY FACE UPAXLE CREW 6/8BALLAST OK
1
Mockup, 180×320, neon line, flips every 4 s
The axle. Every dusk it turns the keep half a revolution.
Your keep is built on a great axle across a chasm. Every dusk it turns half a revolution, and the cellar becomes the tower. The sky side faces raiders by day, and the abyss side faces horrors by night. Every room has to work both ways up, and anything not tied down falls.
Signature features
The flip. A half turn every dusk. Rooms have a day use and an upside-down night use.
Tie-downs and ballast. Loose goods and careless people fall, and a lopsided keep jams the axle.
Two faces, both always built. Walls and archers on one side, wards and lanterns on the other.
Axle crews. A jammed flip leaves the wrong face exposed for the night.
Traits
Iron-stomachedNo penalty after a flip.
VertigoStunned for a while after each flip.
AnchorKeeps a room steady through the turn.
NimbleCatches falling goods.
Novelty
StrongFlipping is common in puzzle games (Flip The Castle, Gravity Guy), and Symphony of the Night has its inverted castle. No base builder with a scheduled flip found.
Name
No exact store match found.
Scope
Medium–largeThe rotation is cheap to draw; designing every room to work both ways up is not.
Risks
Players have to think upside down. The flip is a great trailer moment and may be a readability problem.
Prototype asks
Can players plan both faces without getting lost?
Mirrorhold lineInterface mockupPortrait cards
Wronghand
Something in the reflection copies your people. It copies them backwards.
Ledger portrait · day 3Maren, smith
In the forge todayMaren?
Maren · smith
Suspicious
Oswin · gate guard
Mirror-checked
Teodor · cook
Unchecked
Ilse · scribe
Unchecked
Interface mockup. The right portrait is the left one mirrored; press "Show the tells" to circle what moved.
Shades from the reflection are replacing your people with mirror-image doubles. A double does the job, mostly, until the night it opens a door for the Umbra. Because they're reflections, doubles are reversed: the left-handed smith now works right-handed, the scar is on the other cheek, the brooch on the other shoulder. You run the keep while catching impostors, and mirrors expose them, because a double has no reflection.
Signature features
Tells. Every resident's portrait has lopsided details, and doubles have them flipped.
Mirror checks. A mirror in a doorway catches doubles, but every mirror is also a door.
Suspicion. Accusing a real person hurts morale; missing a double lets the Umbra in.
Infiltration rises with the essence you draw from the reflection.
"Sinister" is Latin for "left", which is where the first working title came from.
Traits: the tells
Left-handedA double works right-handed.
ScarredThe scar changes cheeks.
Parted hairThe part changes sides.
Brooch, earringJewelry moves shoulders and ears.
Hums a tuneA double hums it backwards.
Novelty
LowImpostor-spotting is a busy niche: No, I'm Not a Human (2025) even has a mirror self-check, Quarantine Zone: The Last Check (January 2026) pairs inspection with base management, and RimWorld: Anomaly hides infected colonists. Mirror-reversed tells weren't found.
Name
My first title, Sinistral, collides with Lufia's Sinistrals (a remaster due 2027). Wronghand is unchecked.
Scope
MediumProcedural portraits with lopsided features.
Risks
Spot-the-difference fatigue, and it's hard on players with low vision.
Prototype asks
Is spotting a reversed tell still fun at the fiftieth resident?
One scene, nine art styles
The Mourning Glass scene redrawn in every style on this page, so you can compare the looks directly. The costs below are my estimates for one developer, not measured data.
Pixel320×180-class art, cheap to animate
Flat vectorClean, scalable, tweenable
SilhouetteMoody, cheap, hard to read in crowds
WoodcutBlack on white above, white on black below
Paper cut-outRig-friendly, tactile
Stained glassStriking stills, stiff in motion
WatercolorSoft, hard to keep consistent
BlueprintA build-mode overlay
Neon lineCheap, bright, costs glow effects
Style
Animation cost
Asset cost, solo
Reads at phone size
Best use here
Pixel
Low
Low
Good
Gameplay for any idea; a crowded look on stores
Flat vector
Medium
Medium
Very good
Gameplay; suits Bone Union's comedy
Silhouette
Low
Low
Poor with many units
Lampblack, where shadow is the mechanic
Woodcut
High
Medium
Good when large
Barrowdeep key art; the most distinctive
Paper cut-out
Low–medium
Medium
Good
Gameplay; rigged parts animate cheaply
Stained glass
High
High
Poor when small
Mourning Glass key art and title screen
Watercolor
High
High
Medium
Ebbhold stills and store art
Blueprint
Low
Low
Good
Build mode in any idea; Tombwright's main look
Neon line
Low
Low
Good
Hourglass Keep; glow effects cost frame rate on phones
My read: use pixel art or paper cut-out for the game itself, because one person can animate them. Save woodcut or stained glass for store art and the title screen, where nothing has to move. Blueprint works as a build-mode overlay whichever you choose.
Compare
My scores, informed by the novelty searches. Weights start at phone-first, as in round one. Change them and the ranking updates.
Presets
Criterion and weight
Weighted score, out of 100
Weighted score
One bar per idea at the current weights. The leader is highlighted.
020406080100
The next two weeks
Greybox fun-tests again: boxes and text, no art.
Week 1
Barrowdeep: bury to build
A graveyard strip of 12 plots above, empty ground below.
A raid every two minutes delivers bodies with a trade and a cause of death.
Burying asks for a plot and one of four epitaphs; the chamber grows over two nights.
Four chamber types, one adjacency bonus each.
Robbers dig up a plot; an exorcist consecrates one tile a night.
Pass: you plan burials ahead and argue with yourself about where the next body goes.
Kill: placement doesn't matter, or waiting for chambers to grow is dead time.
Week 2
Tombwright: the deadline
One pyramid section and a 20-day deadline.
Three trap types. Robbers path through the section toward the treasure.
Dead robbers become mummy labor that hauls stone.
Treasure placement sets how many robbers come.
Pass: the last three days feel frantic, and luring robbers is a real gamble.
Kill: traps are set-and-forget, or the deadline is trivial or impossible.
To stay with both halves instead, run Mourning Glass in week 2: two rosters and a dawn rite.
What's checked and what isn't
Established
Existing games and name conflicts, from web searches on 25 September 2026. Store pages couldn't be opened, so details come from search results.
Graveyard Keeper 2's release on 22 September 2026.
Real-world details: the Sedlec and Capuchin ossuaries, the Great Pyramid's 440 by 280 cubits, spring tides at full and new moon, and "sinister" meaning left.
My judgment
Every score and weight in Compare.
The art-style cost table.
Scope sizes and the recommendation.
Unknown until built
Whether any of these is fun. That's what the greybox tests are for.
Small itch.io and jam games, which searches miss most.
Eight of the ten names: only Tombwright and Hourglass Keep have been checked.
Every mockup on this page is drawn live in the browser by code in the page. Working titles are placeholders.