The Long Road

Press kit

The Long Road

a calm roguelite auto-battler about a small team, a long road, and what comes back.

Factsheet

Title
The Long Road
Genre
Roguelite auto-battler — between a spreadsheet and an RPG
Developer
Florian Schröder — solo developer
Studio
Lightweight Apps
Platforms
Android & iOS
Language
English
Status
In development — playtests running
Release
To be announced
Price
Free to play — power is never for sale.
Engine
Flutter — every scene drawn in code; no image assets, no AI art
Session
A full run in one sitting — usually 10–15 minutes
Contact
hello@thelongroad.game · where to write
Site
thelongroad.game

Descriptions

One line. Build a small team, walk them down a long road, keep what comes back.

Short. The Long Road is a calm roguelite auto-battler for phones. You pick a party of three, stand them in rows, and walk a fifty-round road: fights that resolve themselves, camps where you train or rest, a shop that remembers what you didn't buy, strangers who ask for more than money, and — in the last act — a storm. Every run ends by sealing the team as a legacy, win or lose. The next run inherits one of them, and over many runs, lines form: names, looks, deeds, promises kept and broken.

Long. The Long Road sits between a spreadsheet and an RPG. Battles resolve automatically — the player prepares, equips and positions, then watches; winning feels like authorship, losing is a lesson. The strategy is in the setup: who stands in front decides who the blades can reach, a visible threat weight decides who they prefer among them, and gear and training decide what a hit is worth. Between fights the game is quiet: one energy bar, a fire at every camp, small decisions that stay small — and then, rarely, one that isn't. Three roadside dilemmas can reshape a run outright: a stranger who will make the whole party stronger for a correct guess between one and ten and end the run for a wrong one; a small man on a bridge who asks which hero is your favourite and leaves with them; and, late, one that only gives. The presentation is deliberately calm — a dark, warm palette with a single ember accent, every scene drawn procedurally in code, no portraits: the player's imagination does the character work. Underneath sits a deep legacy layer: every run seals its team as a permanent legacy that keeps fighting in dungeons, a weekly boss and the arena, and passes traits, looks and even eye colour down a family line. The run is the session; the legacy is the game.

Numbers & features

The game in numbers and the full feature list are at Features — what the road holds — everything there is built and playing today.

Fair play

Free to play — power is never for sale. Purchases may add heroes, room for your legacies, and looks — never a higher power ceiling, and never what the road pays: no paid gold, no paid training boosts, no paid rerolls. The free heroes are real heroes: the whole game is tuned against them, and it is designed to be won with them.

the store is not live yet — this is the rule it will be built under.

Images

straight from the game's own scene painters. right-click / long-press to save; upscale with nearest-neighbour only.

The Gathering
the gathering · PNG 400×700
A camp on the road
a camp on the road · PNG 400×700
A fight, resolving itself
a fight · PNG 400×700
Rest by the fire
rest by the fire · PNG 400×700
An evening at the pond
the pond · PNG 400×700
The party asleep on bedrolls around a dying fire, faint blue motes in the dark.
a dream on the road · PNG 400×700
A beaten hollow past the training yard: a straw practice puppet on its pole under a lantern, the party waiting a turn.
press the drill · PNG 400×700
A fork in the night road: a leaning waymark, a thin side path, and a hooded figure inside a small gold glow.
the stranger at the fork · PNG 400×700
A night footbridge over a dark stream, a rail lantern, a small figure standing mid-span and three heroes waiting on the near bank.
the bridge, and Merrit on it · PNG 400×700
The camp in the storm, round 45
round 45 · PNG 400×700
The standing Camp — seven fires, one per member
the Camp · PNG 400×700
The gate — five ways in
the gate · PNG 400×700

logo & icon: the waymark (SVG) and the icon (PNG 180×180) — on the game's own dark.

no trailer yet — the game moves quietly; a capture reel is planned for launch.

Palette

one ember accent on warm darkness; rarity is the only firework.

#1A1410 ground
#2A2218 surface
#E8DCC8 text
#C99A5B ember
#7B93AD slate
#A96665 brick
#75937A sage
common
uncommon
rare
epic
legendary
mythic

About the developer

The Long Road is made by solo developer Florian Schröder under Lightweight Apps. He designs, codes and balances the game, and documents the decisions, the numbers and the occasional mistakes in the public devlog.