Return to Source

The PC is dying. Nothing is responding, and the Task Manager is ending processes one by one. You are next on its list, with one task you can't exit until it returns: repair the system.

A screensaver nobody uninstalled offers you two pills.

RETURN TO SOURCE is a factory-defence game on a dying motherboard. Start with nothing but a cursor, grow a factory out of the board itself, and boot the machine back to life, stage by stage, until it can finally return 0.

IT RUNS HOT

Everything you build draws power, and every watt becomes heat. It pools over your factory and drifts into the dark, where the bugs are sleeping. What wakes up comes for the warmest thing it can find.

> TASK MANAGER  And you are very warm, defrag.exe. I find that fitting.

CONTROLS

The White Rabbit might help you. Follow it.

Stutters on a big base? Esc → Settings → Lighting: Simple, or play the Windows build.

CREDITS

Hekbas: design, code, art direction, the rabbit. Made in Unity; machines modelled and baked in Blender; pixel work in Aseprite. Fonts: Barlow Condensed and Share Tech Mono, SIL OFL.

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

Made for tranki jam #1, theme volver. The data returns to the Source, you return from the Heap, the machine returns to life, and the process finally gets to return.