Chordfall

Your real guitar is the controller.

Chordfall is a roguelite where you stand in a ritual circle and creatures drift in from every side. You do not press buttons. You play chords on an actual guitar, through your actual microphone, and every chord casts a different spell.

Em, Am, E, A and D fire a fast Firebolt. G, C and Dm cut a Laser that pierces a line. F earns you the Grenade. Bm and F#m call Lightning. B, C#m and G#m summon the Comet. The chords you can play ARE your arsenal, which means the barre chord you have been avoiding is a genuine, immediate power up.

PLAY MUSIC, NOT JUST NOTES

Strum a real progression and the circle surges: every spell hits harder for six seconds. Campfire Cadence (vi-IV-V) pays 1.5x. The full Pachelbel canon pays 2.5x. There are fifteen of them, from the campfire trio up to progressions you will have to go and learn, and the game knows them in any key, so Am-F-G counts exactly the same as Em-C-D. Every one you complete is inscribed in a codex that remembers across runs.

Between stages you draft one of three boons out of twenty two, and the best of them reward real musicianship. Voice Leading pays you for moving economically between shapes. Key Lock doubles chords that belong to the stage key and halves the ones that do not. Circle of Fifths rewards walking the most useful map in guitar.

Nobody has to tell you practice is good for you. The build wants it.

ONE RUN

Choose one of six rites, a bargain that shapes everything after it. Play five movements in random keys across rotating arenas. Draft a boon between each one. Clear the fifth and the circle offers you an encore: wager the whole run for 1.5x, or bank it and walk away.

NO GUITAR IN YOUR HANDS RIGHT NOW

There is a Practice Room where the chord waits for you, with no fail state and the fingering diagram on screen. On a phone, or anywhere you cannot make noise, there is a tap to play mode so you can see how the game works before you plug anything in.

WHAT YOU NEED

An acoustic or a clean electric guitar. A microphone: a laptop mic is fine, a USB mic or an interface is better. About 45 seconds to calibrate to your guitar and your room.

No cable, no MIDI and no audio interface required. No theory background required either, because the game teaches progressions by rewarding them.

FIRST ACCESS

This is an early build and I am posting it to find out how it plays for other guitarists on other hardware. A run is about five minutes today. The roguelite layer is in and playable. A branching map, boss fights against real progressions, and more chords and spells (sevenths, ninths and dominants) are what comes next.

Feedback in the comments genuinely shapes what gets built. Especially this: did it hear your guitar correctly?