Cantorite: Night Freight

Cantorite: Night FreightRailhead

Lay the line. Hold the line. Four turns at a time.

Your squad of three guards a train that lays track across a canyon. The Harrow rises out of the canyon, and every Harrow shows exactly which tile it will hit next round. Move, shoot and push to turn those attacks aside.

  • 8x8 board
  • 3 units
  • 4 rounds a stretch
  • 15 to 20 minutes a run

In development. Phones first: Android and iOS.

Read the devlog On cantorite.com
A fight from the build: three Free Holds units and the railhead on an 8x8 basalt board. Cyan tiles show where a unit can move, red tiles with numbers show where Harrow will strike, and diamond pips at the top show the line.
1/4 The round

Everything is shown before you act

Each stretch is an 8x8 board and four rounds. There are no hit chances and no hidden rolls: the board you are dealt and what the Harrow will do are both on screen before you touch anything.

  1. 1/3

    The Harrow shows its hand

    Every Harrow moves and locks its attack: a red tile, a damage number, an arrow for any push. Gold rings mark where new ones will rise.

  2. 2/3

    You move, shoot and push

    Each unit moves, then acts once. Pick a target and a ghost preview shows every push, hit and death before you commit.

  3. 3/3

    The railhead rolls

    Tap End turn. The Harrow fire, then the train lays up to two tiles of track. Reach the far edge with the line intact.

The puzzle

Move the Harrow, and its attack moves with it

A locked attack is relative to the attacker. Push a Harrow one tile left and the tile it was going to hit moves one tile left too. You rarely kill everything; you redirect it. Into rock, into each other, off the edge, or into their own fire.

The line has a shared health for the whole run. Every hit on the train or the track costs one pip, and a unit standing on the track takes the hit instead. Body-blocking is a choice.

Before: a Harrow aims at the track. The Rifleman lines up a shot that pushes.
After: the Harrow slides one tile, and its strike lands on bare ground.
  • will be hit
  • your unit
  • Harrow
  • shot and lamps
2/4 The squad

Three units, one train

You start with the Free Holds: navy plate, cream panels, brass fittings, closed helmets. A unit that goes down is back at full health for the next stretch. Nobody is lost for good.

  • Rifleman

    Health
    3
    Move
    3

    Shot: hits the first thing in a straight line and pushes it one tile away.

  • Hauler

    Health
    4
    Move
    3

    A brass walker on four legs. Shove: two damage up close and a push.

  • Signaller

    Health
    2
    Move
    4

    Flare: lobbed over blockers, it hits one tile and pushes its four neighbours outward.

Later squads

  • Directorate: damage and shields, pale steel and cyan light
  • Umbra: swaps and teleports, matte black and violet
The lineup screen from the build: the Rifleman, the Hauler walker and the Signaller under three spotlights, with their health pips.
3/4 The run

A line run, then the Reach map

Four stretches and a terminus fight against a Warden make a run of 15 to 20 minutes. At each fork you choose the next stretch, and after each win you pick one of three rewards: a unit upgrade, a train car with its own board effect, or repairs to the line.

Quiet

Fewer Harrow, less freight.

Loud x2

A crystal seam: more Harrow, double freight, and the Hum rises.

Every won stretch lays one segment of your faction's line across a world of the Reach. Each finished run opens a station that unlocks something for good. Never random, never paid power.

The route screen from the build: a hex-tiled world of dark basalt and molten cracks, the line drawn across it, and the next stretch marked with a pin.
4/4 From the build

Shots

Screens from the current development build, cropped. Not final art.

A stretch beside a lit city: the squad, the railhead on the lane, and a Harrow target marked in red.
A board on the edge of a lit settlement. Lane tiles in amber show where the train lays track next.
A quieter board with no HUD: cyan move tiles, two hovering Harrow of smoked glass, and the railhead on the near edge.
The first tutorial board: one Rifleman, a few Harrow, the train waiting at the edge.
A hex-tiled planet in the Reach map, with a line of track drawn across it.
A world of the Reach. Your line is the track drawn across it.
Six Harrow models from the build on a grey ground: cut-gem constructs of dark and ivory glass with thin gold cracks, from a small shard to a winged diamond and a ringed bell.
The Harrow models in the build. They hover; no faces, no legs on the small ones.
The world

The Vesper Reach

Night Freight is set in the Vesper Reach, the universe of Cantorite. Its worlds are rich in cantorite, a crystal that rings when it is cut, and every tonne cut is a note the Harrow can hear. When a world rings loudly enough, the Harrow comes to reap it. You are the Free Holds, laying freight lines across the canyons anyway, while the Directorate and the Umbra lay their own.

The Harrow does not speak and nobody plays it. Its constructs are smoked quartz and ivory glass with gold light in the cracks, and that gold belongs to them alone.

Read the canon on cantorite.com

Platforms and status

In development

Phones first

Portrait, one thumb. Android and iOS come first.

Later

Windows, Linux, macOS and Steam Deck. The playable build also runs in the browser for testing.

The first playable build exists, with the Free Holds squad, the Harrow, route picks, a terminus fight and the first Reach map. It is not public yet, and there is no release date. Progress is in the devlog.

Fair play

No ads. No timers. No loot boxes.

Night Freight is premium-style. Paying gives you more game, never more power.

Free

The Free Holds squad, the first world (Ember Reach), the daily stretch and the weekly line.

One-time unlocks

The Directorate and Umbra squads and further worlds, each bought once, at a price in euros.

Cosmetics

Railhead liveries and squad paint. Fixed: you see exactly what you get.

  • No adsNot rewarded, not otherwise.
  • No energy or timersPlay as long as you like. Nothing to speed up.
  • No loot boxesNo paid random rewards and no premium currency.
  • No pay-to-winNothing that adds power can be bought.
  • No pushy offersNo countdowns, no prompts during a run, no subscriptions.
  • No trackingNo ads SDKs or third-party analytics. Player data stays in the EU.
More
Devlog How the game is being made, step by step.Cantorite Night Freight among the other games of the Vesper Reach.Privacy One policy for every Cantorite game: what is stored, where, and for how long.