A Sky
Without Flames
A narrative RPG and farming life-sim. A returning soldier, a village in ruins, and a promise to keep.
A promise to a fallen comrade.
A soldier returns from war with no home and no family — only a promise to his fallen comrade: protect my village, protect my people.
He arrives at his brother-in-arms' village to find it in ruins: fields burned, homes destroyed, survivors desperate. With the government unable to help, he must become what the village needs.
Builder. Protector. The keeper of hope in a world that's forgotten how to heal.
A Sky Without Flames is a narrative RPG crossed with a farming and life sim, set in the aftermath of a devastating war. Players farm crops, form relationships with the survivors, rebuild houses and storefronts, and protect the village from the bandit threats arising in the post-war chaos.
Narrative & Relationships
Survivors carry their grief differently — the widow who keeps the chapel, the boy who watched his father leave, the elder who refuses to speak of what happened. Conversations remember what you said and did, and the village changes shape around the player who chooses to listen.
Farming & Daily Life
The fields were burned, but the soil remembers. Plant, harvest, and live the slow rhythm of a small farming village — seasons, weather, festivals, and the small rituals that resume even when nothing else has.
Rebuilding the Village
Homes, storefronts, the mill, the road. Restoration is a system the player drives directly: gather materials, choose what gets repaired and when, and watch the village take shape around the choices you made for it.
Defending the Village
The war ended elsewhere, but its survivors did not all come home as friends. Bandit threats rise out of the post-war chaos, and the soldier the village adopted must decide what protection looks like — and what it costs.
A four-month vertical slice.
The plan is to build a vertical slice over four months. The first month — getting this project off the ground with the right people — is the one that matters most. The initial commitment is one month; we can talk about what comes after that over voice chat.
A small team to build the slice with.
Michael Boal is the current sole developer of A Sky Without Flames, and is looking to bring on another developer to work alongside him as a programmer, as well as an artist for in-game character art. The first month is the foundation; we can talk about what long-term collaboration looks like over voice chat once we know we want to keep building together.
Programmer
A second developer to build alongside Michael — implementing core systems for dialogue, farming, the building/restoration loop, and bandit combat. You should be comfortable owning systems end-to-end, working in close collaboration, and shaping technical direction as the slice takes form.
Character Artist
An artist for in-game character art — the soldier, the survivors, the bandits, and the small cast of villagers whose lives the player rebuilds. The visual register is post-war, weathered, and human; faces and silhouettes need to carry the weight the writing leans on.
What the commitment looks like.
The initial ask is a one-month commitment so we can find our rhythm and ship the foundation. No long contracts up front.
The shared goal is a vertical slice over roughly four months — enough to show the loop end-to-end and the world it lives in.
The hope is for collaborators who stay past the slice. What that looks like — credit, revenue share, hours — we will work out together.
Direction, scope, and expectations get sorted on a call rather than a contract. We talk it through before either side commits.
Reach out to Michael.
If something about A Sky Without Flames resonated, send a short note. Tell us who you are, what you make, and what drew you to the project — credentials matter less than craft and perspective.
You can use the form, or write directly. We'll move to a voice chat from there to talk through scope and what the first month would look like.