Two arenas, and the whole school watching
The Junior Cup is fought at Orchard Court. The Open Cup final is fought in the Great Hall, with the whole school watching.
Low Lantern Games presents
Emberwick Academy
Seven years in a castle that remembers you.
You arrive by a dark lake with one plain card, and the card talks.
Early AccessWinter 2026PC
Wishlist on SteamSteam page coming soon
From the workshop
Our Games
Early Access · Winter 2026PC · Steam
Emberwick Academy
A card battler in an old castle school by a dark lake.
Explore the gameFurther off
More lanterns are being lit.
Nothing to announce yet. When there is, you will find it here.
Dev log
News
The paintings that finish themselves
Every common room has a painting that is not done yet. It finishes itself a little more each year you reach.
Ghost Night and the Midwinter Feast
The castle keeps four holidays, and each one changes it. This month we dressed the rooms for the first two.
A game by Low Lantern Games
Emberwick Academy
A castle school by a dark lake. One plain card, and the card talks.
Early AccessWinter 2026PC · Steam
Wishlist on SteamSteam page coming soon
- 7School years
- 304Creatures
- 8Elements
- 4Houses
- 2Cups
The game
A school that remembers you
A card battler in an old castle school by a dark lake. Collect creature cards, send them onto painted battlefields, and rise through seven years of classes, rivals and House Cups, while the spirits in your deck quietly ask what the school is really for.
You arrive at Emberwick as a first-year with one plain card, and the card talks. Over seven school years you attend classes, sit exams, duel your rivals and chase rare cards through towers, cellars and the forest’s edge.
The other pupils collect too. They win cards, rebuild their decks and remember what happened between you.
Arrival
One plain card.
It talks.
A single card with a voice of its own. Its name is Ember.
The castle and the lake
Seven years on a dark shore.
Classes, exams and rivals, from your first year to graduation.
Creatures and duels
304 creatures. Eight elements.
Place them on a painted battlefield and watch them fight by their own temperaments.
See eight of themThe Cups
Two Cups. The whole school watching.
The House Cup race runs all year.
At night, the Undercroft keeps a league of its own.
The other pupils
They collect too.
They win cards, change their decks and remember what happened between you.
Something under the school
Older than the castle.
The lessons are simple in the first year. By the fifth, the same lessons mean something else.
The holidays
Holidays change the castle.
- Ghost Night
- The Midwinter Feast
- Lake Night
- Founders’ Day
304 creatures · eight elements
The Creatures
Eight of the rarest, one for each element. Choose a card to look closer.
Mythic
Mythic
Fire
One of six. A piece of her got away, two centuries ago, and has been keeping someone company.
Mythic
Water
One of six. She sang under the lake before there was a lake, and the founders built the boathouse over her mouth.
Mythic
Wind
One of six. The tower was built to hold him and he has been leaning on it, patiently, ever since.
Mythic
Light
One of six. The founder who bound him kept the hour for himself, and has been keeping it a very long time.
Legendary
Legendary
Earth
The oldest maps mark it as a hill, and no one who corrected them was ever seen again.
Legendary
Shadow
It has never once opened, and yet nothing in the cellars has escaped its notice.
Legendary
Frost
One winter the shore woke on the wrong side of the water.
Legendary
Lightning
It lives in the moment between the flash and the sound.
The four houses
Choose a house
Four houses race for the House Cup all year. Each common room holds a painting that finishes itself a little more every year you reach.
Thornwick · the house motto
“Roots hold.”
Loyal, stubborn, patient.
Thornwick keeps the old greenhouse wing and the long memory of the school.
Sigil: a briar, a ring of thorns with three leaves.
Seven years. One painting.
Painted screens
Inside the castle
Halls, courts, common rooms and shores from the game. Choose one to see it large.
Coming to Steam
Early AccessWinter 2026
All seven school years are playable from day one, start to graduation. Early Access is for what grows around them.
Price to be announced.
Wishlist on SteamSteam page coming soon
From the castle
News
Notes from the workshop on Emberwick Academy: what we built, and why.
-
Two arenas, and the whole school watching
The Junior Cup is fought at Orchard Court. The Open Cup final is fought in the Great Hall, with the whole school watching.
-
The paintings that finish themselves
Every common room has a painting that is not done yet. It finishes itself a little more each year you reach.
-
Ghost Night and the Midwinter Feast
The castle keeps four holidays, and each one changes it. This month we dressed the rooms for the first two.
NewsDev log
Two arenas, and the whole school watching
A Cup duel should not feel like any other duel. Before the first creature reaches the field, you should know where you are and who is watching.
So the two Cups at Emberwick each have an arena of their own.
Orchard Court
The Junior Cup is fought at Orchard Court, a round brick court reached through the arcade beside the school shop. It sits under the orchard trees, and in autumn the leaves come down across the brick. The house stands ring the court, and on a Cup day they fill with pupils in their house colours. It is a small arena, made for younger players, and it is where you first learn what it feels like to lose in front of people you know.
The Great Hall
The Open Cup final is fought in the Great Hall. The house tables line the walls beneath the banners, the candles are lit, and the whole school is there to see it. Reaching the final should feel like walking into a room that has been waiting for you all year.
Why the crowds matter
An empty arena tells you a duel does not matter. A full one tells you it will be remembered, and at Emberwick it is. The other pupils collect too. They win cards, change their decks, and remember what happened between you.
Around the two Cups, the House Cup race runs all year, whether you are winning it or not. And at night, down in the Undercroft, there is a league of its own.
None of this changes how a duel is fought. You still place your creatures on a painted battlefield and watch them fight. What changes is who is watching.
NewsDev log
The paintings that finish themselves
Every common room at Emberwick has a painting on its wall, and in your first year it is barely begun.
There is a figure in a hooded cloak of the house colour, a patch of lake, a little sky, and all around them bare brown ground where the paint has not arrived yet.
The painting finishes itself a little more each year you reach. By your fourth year the world has started to come in around the figure: stone, a shore, a lantern burning at their side. By your seventh it is whole.
Four houses, four endings
Each house has its own painting, and each one ends somewhere different. The Thornwick figure sits on a rocky shore under willow branches as the light breaks over the lake. The Vaelstrom figure waits on a stone terrace, mountains behind and a storm coming in. The Halloran figure sits beneath an ivy arch in gold evening light, with the castle across the water. The Duskmere figure sits in the mouth of a cave with a lantern beside it, looking out at the lake under a thin moon.
Why we made it
We wanted one thing in the game that you cannot hurry. A painting changes only as the years pass, and the only way to see it whole is to reach your seventh year.
It is also the quietest way we have of showing you that time has gone by. You come back to your common room and the painting has changed a little. You might notice at once. You might not, until one evening you do.
NewsDev log
Ghost Night and the Midwinter Feast
Emberwick keeps four holidays through the school year: Ghost Night, the Midwinter Feast, Lake Night and Founders’ Day. When one comes round, the castle changes for it.
This month we dressed the rooms for the first two.
Ghost Night
Ghost Night comes in autumn. The Great Hall and its entrance fill with carved pumpkins, in piles and in rows, and clusters of candles. Among them stand ghost lanterns, which burn a cold, pale blue instead of gold. The courtyard gets its pumpkins and candles too, and each of the four common rooms is hung with autumn garlands. Duskmere, which keeps the rooms under the lake, gets a ghost lantern of its own. It seemed right.
The Midwinter Feast
The Midwinter Feast is the warm one. Evergreens strung with small lights go up in the Great Hall, and gifts pile up around them. Candles stand in holly, wreaths are hung, and every common room gets a garland, a small tree and gifts of its own.
Why holidays
A school year has a shape, and the holidays are how you feel it. You walk into a room you have walked through a hundred times, and overnight it has changed. That small surprise does more to make the castle feel lived in than anything we could write on a screen.
Lake Night and Founders’ Day will get a log of their own.
Small lights in dark places.
A small independent game studio in Nevada, founded in 2026. Emberwick Academy is our first game.
Why the lantern
What we make
A lantern hung low, close to the ground, in the dark. One small light kept burning.
That is the whole idea. A low lantern does not light the valley. It lights the path in front of you, and whatever stands close enough to see.
We want to make games like that: dark places with one small light in them, and enough of it to find your way by. Soft, eerie, mystical games that are tragic and beautiful at once.
We would rather show you a thing than tell you about it. A room that changes while you are away. A painting that finishes itself. A rival who remembers.
How we work
Small, careful, dark
Small
A small studio on purpose. We make few things, and we look after each one.
Careful
Every room, card and line is checked at the size you will see it, and made again when it falls short.
Dark and beautiful
We would rather be quiet and haunting than loud. The dread is soft, and the beauty is the point.
What comes next
The slate
Early Access · Winter 2026
Emberwick Academy
Explore the gameFurther off
More lanterns are being lit.
Nothing to announce yet. When there is, you will find it here.
Contact
Leave a light on
Players, friends and anyone else
hello@lowlanterngames.com
Press and creators
press@lowlanterngames.com
Channels
All under one name, @lowlanterngames: YouTube, TikTok, Discord, X and Bluesky. None of them are open yet. They will be soon.
For press and creators
Press
Facts, descriptions and contact for Emberwick Academy and Low Lantern Games. Logos, key art and screens are available on request.
Fact sheet
At a glance
- Game
- Emberwick Academy
- Developer
- Low Lantern Games
- Publisher
- Low Lantern Games
- Platform
- PC (Steam)
- Release
- Early Access, Winter 2026All seven school years playable from the start of Early Access.
- Price
- To be announced
- Genre
- Card battler and creature collecting, set in a castle school
- Languages
- English
- Studio
- Low Lantern Games LLCIndependent. Nevada, founded 2026.
Short description
A card battler in an old castle school by a dark lake. Collect creature cards, send them onto painted battlefields, and rise through seven years of classes, rivals and House Cups, while the spirits in your deck quietly ask what the school is really for.
Press contact
press@lowlanterngames.com
Logos and art
The studio logo kit, the game’s key art and painted screens are available on request. Write to the press address once it opens and we will send what you need.
Long description
About the game
Seven years in a castle that remembers you
You arrive at Emberwick as a first-year with one plain card, and the card talks. Over seven school years you attend classes, sit exams, duel your rivals and chase rare cards through towers, cellars and the forest’s edge. The other pupils collect too. They win cards, rebuild their decks and remember what happened between you.
Your deck, their battlefield
Every duel is fought on a painted battlefield: a courtyard, a river crossing, a castle with a drawbridge, a grove where portals open, a causeway the tide covers and uncovers. Place your creatures, choose who guards and who presses the attack, then watch them fight by their own temperaments. Where they stand decides the fight.
- 304 creatures across eight elements, from gale sparrows and mossback tortoises to leviathans and frost giants
- Four houses with their own cards, colours and pride: Thornwick, Vaelstrom, Halloran and Duskmere
- The House Cup moves whether you watch or not, and visiting schools come to take it
Something under the school
The lessons are simple in the first year. By the fifth, the same lessons mean something else. The creatures on the cards are older than the castle, and every year one more of them wants to tell you why they are there.
Early Access
All seven school years are playable from day one, start to graduation. Early Access is for what grows around them: new battlefields, new creatures, weather over the castle, and a return to the school after the ending.
Key facts
What is in it
- Seven school yearsClasses, exams and rivals, from arrival to graduation.
- 304 creatures, eight elementsFire, water, earth, wind, light, shadow, frost and lightning.
- Creature duelsFought on painted battlefields, each with its own routes, walls and tricks.
- Four housesThornwick, Vaelstrom, Halloran and Duskmere, each with a motto of its own.
- Two CupsThe Junior Cup at Orchard Court; the Open Cup final in the Great Hall, with the whole school watching.
- The House Cup and the UndercroftA House Cup race all year, and an Undercroft league played at night.
- Pupils who rememberThe other pupils win cards, change their decks and remember what happened between you.
- A castle that changesA common-room painting that finishes itself year by year; Ghost Night, the Midwinter Feast, Lake Night and Founders’ Day.
The studio shop
Lantern Goods
The first studio goods are coming: premium garments with the lantern embroidered on them.
First run in the works
The first run
The line
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Lantern Tee, Washed Black
Heavyweight cotton · Embroidered lantern
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Lantern Tee, Natural
Heavyweight cotton · Embroidered lantern
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Lantern Cap, Washed Black
Embroidered lantern
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Lantern Cap, Cream and Forest
Embroidered lantern
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Lantern Cap, Brown Corduroy
Embroidered lantern