HALDEN: THE CORDON - PRESS KIT

Developer: TPMT Games (the games label of The Post Modern Truth)
Platform: Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit; coming to Steam
Current build: v0.1.37 (in development)
Website: https://haldenthecordon.com  Press page: https://haldenthecordon.com/press
Contact: ThePostModernTruth@gmail.com

IN ONE LINE
A top-down survival game set in Halden, a coastal city sealed for fourteen months. Everyone else wanted out. You drove in.

IN A PARAGRAPH
Fourteen months ago a fever nobody could name came out of Halden General. The bridges were blown, the trains stopped and a military cordon sealed the city. Halden: The Cordon starts the day that cordon waves you in through the north gate. Search a city that is still full of what people left behind, keep a body that fails part by part, learn which of the factions holding the streets will trade with you, and stay quiet: the sick hunt by sound. Choose your kit from fifty-seven firearms, weapon mods, bows and armour, claim a building and make it a base, live through the seasons, and build onto a car. Play the story in five chapters, alone or in co-op for up to eight, or an open city that never closes, on your own, with friends or on dedicated servers.

FEATURES
- Four ways to play: Campaign Solo and Campaign Co-op in five chapters, a Co-op Persistent City open from the first minute, and Dedicated Servers where the world never ends.
- A whole city to scavenge: Halden, its districts, the country round it, and the places people tell stories about.
- The Armoury: fifty-seven firearms, twenty-four weapon mods, ammunition you find and trade for, bows and crossbows, crafted melee weapons and a firing range.
- A body kept part by part, where each part can fail, and armour that protects what it covers. No health bars over anyone’s head.
- The sick hunt by sound and light, follow each other and search where they lost you. Sneak, keep to the dark, throw a bottle, or be loud and ready for it.
- Factions that run the streets, each with ranks, duties, perks and grudges.
- Claim a building and make it a base: beds, storage, a workbench, a rain collector, a generator, a garden.
- Cars you can fit with plates, a ram bar, grilles and a roof rack, two express roads in every city, and street decor you can smash. Garages, traffic, bikes and boats are on the way.
- Four seasons with their own weather. Snow keeps every track; floods close crossings; summer fields catch fire. Hunt, trap and fish through the year.
- Co-op for up to eight, crews of four on your accounts, a friends list shared by the launcher, the game and the website, and a server browser.
- Two prestige ladders, the Decay Rank for runs won alone and the Survivor Rank for runs won together, with achievements and things to wear.
- Real recorded sound throughout, and eleven radio stations still on the air.
- Every sprite drawn in code. Five expansion packs are planned after 1.0.

MADE WITH AI
Halden: The Cordon is designed and directed by a solo developer and built with AI tools. Every feature was asked for, reviewed, playtested and corrected by hand over months of milestones. It was not generated from one prompt. AI produced the code, the art (drawn by code it wrote), the writing, and the music (made with Suno and owned by the developer). The sound effects are real recordings: public-domain (CC0) field recordings by people, credited in the game.

STAGED SCREENS (store folder)
shot-firefight-at-night.jpg - Hold the street: A pistol, a flashlight and a lamp that still works. Night belongs to the infected.
shot-the-horde-under-the-lamp.jpg - They come at night: Walkers, runners, a screamer and a brute, drawn to the one light still burning.
shot-rain-on-the-street.jpg - Rain on the street: Wet asphalt, a flashlight cone, and nobody else out here. Probably.
shot-looting-a-house.jpg - Every room is a decision: Lights on in the house, roof off, and a locker worth the risk.
shot-the-express-road.jpg - The road out: Headlights on the express road at dusk. The engine still turns over.
shot-a-crew-of-four.jpg - Four survivors, four stories: Co-op for up to eight: everyone looks, carries and plays differently.
shot-the-cordon-gate.jpg - The Cordon: Floodlights, soldiers and a wall that does not open for you.
shot-fire-in-the-street.jpg - Something is burning: Fire spreads, smoke carries, and everything in the dark comes to look.
shot-snow-at-dusk.jpg - The winter city: Seasons change the world, not the chores: snow, long dusks, and prints that fill in.

SCREENS
game-door.jpg - They found the door at the top of the steps. Nobody inside answers.
game-molotov.jpg - A molotov at dusk. Fire is the one thing they walk straight into.
game-terraces.jpg - Halden is built on terraces: walled levels, joined by steps, ramps and ladders.
game-hospital.jpg - Halden General. Where it started, and where most of them still are.
game-smoke.jpg - Smoke to cross open ground, and a torch to see the way through it.
game-winter.jpg - Winter keeps every track, yours and theirs.
game-north-gate.jpg - The north gate: the Cordon's one way in.
game-fair.jpg - The harvest fair at Hillside Village. It still happens.
game-crew-base.jpg - A crew's place with the roof off: kitchen, washroom, the stairs up.
film-horde.jpg - Halden General, hundreds.
film-noise.jpg - They hear everything.
film-checkpoint.jpg - Checkpoint 7: papers or nothing.
film-galleria.jpg - The Kings at the Galleria.
film-scavs.jpg - Scavs. Keep your head down.
film-church.jpg - St Brennan's. They sing at night.
film-gate.jpg - A gate that still opens, for some.
film-fight.jpg - The street fights back.
film-siege.jpg - Walls worth a siege.

The trailer (1:26, MP4): https://haldenthecordon.com/media/trailer.mp4
Use any of this freely; a link to haldenthecordon.com is appreciated.
