indiegame.fan
Deadline header art

Deadline

A precision puzzle-platformer where every move you make becomes permanent ink — solid walls your future self must route around. Plan each level like a single continuous pen stroke, dodge the Red Pen's corrections, and escape the page before you wall yourself in.

Steam Page
Developer
Release
Coming Soon
Steam Reviews
No reviews yet

Does this feel indie?

Vote based on whether this game feels indie to you. You can change your vote at any time. Results earn an IGF score after 10 accepted votes.
No votes yet
Vote on More Games
Game contextLatest: IGF Team
ContextThe evidence factors used to assess whether this game belongs on IndieGame.Fan.Status
Notes
Latest Contributor: IGF TeamEdit notes
Search Google: Who developed Deadline?Developer scaleThe operating scale of the game's developer.
Search Google: Who published Deadline?Publisher scaleThe operating scale of the game's publisher.
Search Google: Is Deadline self-published or published by Geared Games Studios?Publisher statusHow the game's publishing relationship is classified.
Search Google: How is Deadline and Geared Games Studios funded?FundingThe known source of funding behind the game.
Search Google: Who controls the creative direction and IP for Deadline and Orikazi?Creative controlWho appears to retain creative control of the game.
Search Google: What is the release status of Deadline?Release statusWhether and how the game has been released.

Media

6 items

About the Game

YOU ARE THE LEVEL

You are a drop of living ink, and everywhere you go, you leave a line. Not a pretty trail effect — a wall. Solid, permanent, and entirely your fault.

Jump a gap and you've drawn a ramp you can land on later. Fall down a shaft and you've split the room in two. Grab that shiny collectible without thinking, and congratulations: you've inked yourself into a corner with no way out. In DEADLINE, every level is solvable — but only if you plan your entire path like a single, continuous pen stroke.

DRAW YOUR WAY OUT

  • Your past is the architecture. Land on your own arcs, wall-jump off your own mistakes, knit ladders out of your falls.

  • One gap in the stroke. The Pen Lift lets you dash without drawing — once. Where you choose not to leave a mark is the whole puzzle.

  • Think first, execute second. Deaths teach routing, not reflexes. When you fail, it won't be your thumbs — it'll be that beautiful prison you built for yourself.

BEWARE THE RED PEN

The page fights back. Crosshatched spikes, strike-through lines, and stamped X's — every hazard is an editor's correction mark, and the Red Pen itself hunts anything that colors outside the lines. Solvent pools dissolve your ink. Fresh pages wipe the slate. Use them, or drown in your own handwriting.

ELEGANCE IS THE HIGH SCORE

You're not graded on speed. You're graded on ink. Every level scores your total stroke length — the shortest, cleanest line takes the gold. Finish a level and see your entire run framed as a single drawing: your solution, signed and hung on the wall. No two players draw the same picture.

  • 30+ hand-inked levels across notebook, graph paper, and aged parchment

  • A stroke-length medal system that rewards elegance over reflexes

  • Instant restarts, single-screen puzzles, zero filler

  • A living pen-on-paper art style where the whole world is hand-drawn — including by you

Solve it like a puzzle. Execute it like a speedrun. Frame it like art.