Rustbucket

Rain comes off the lake and works its way down through the stacks until it reaches the alleys and has nowhere left to go.

Tara has a booth at the back of the Rust Bucket, a soldering iron that's still warm, and a circuit board cut into the shape of a lopsided star. Its copper traces run out to each point and stop there, connecting to nothing. Jezebel gave it to her. Jezebel is dead.

Somebody in this city knows why. Somebody left the blind spots open. And somebody, without knowing it, is carrying the thing everyone is looking for.

Rustbucket is a short noir visual novel about inheritance: what the people we lose leave behind, who it really belongs to, and what it costs to open it.

• Four endings, shaped by how you read the city and what you choose to show.
• Two ways in. Crack the building like a lock, or read it like a pattern.
• Hidden threads. A few words in the text can be pulled. Follow them and Jezebel has more to say.
• Around 30 minutes per playthrough, built to be replayed.
• Plays in your browser. No download needed.

Content notes: death (a body is found), grief, and a choice involving the loss of memory. No graphic violence.

Controls: Click or press Space to advance. Right-click or Esc opens the menu. Scroll up to see earlier text.

Credits

Written, designed and directed by Julian Grant. Music: Fire Automata Factory, Genesis of Consciousness and Technology Advancement by Apolo - Cyperbunk Music Pack. Fonts: Big Shoulders, Literata and IBM Plex Mono, all under the SIL Open Font License. Made in Ren'Py.

AI disclosure: The background art, character portraits and illustrations were generated with AI image tools (OpenArt, primarily Seedream), then selected, edited, composited and processed by hand. The story, writing and design are human-made. Code was written with AI assistance.