Factory Sim · Story · Mystery · Horror

Something In The Grinder

You are Employee #7852. Sign the contract, clock in, and keep the WardenFox factory running for fourteen days — sort the intake, feed the machines, make quota. The PA is always listening. The printer prints when nobody is in the building. And the grinder is never quite empty.

Follow on Game Jolt Watch the devlog

Status: Beta
Price: £5 / $5
Age: 16+
Platforms: Windows, Linux, Steam Deck
Languages: English, Czech (voice & text)
Players: Single-player, co-op

We're still waiting for a platform to accept us. We don't know when that will be.

Trailer

Inside the Grinder

The shift

The factory provides.

The job takes a minute to learn. Stock comes through the intake, you check it against today's protocol and send it down the right chute. Power the line from the generator and the battery bank, run the machines, grind what's left and sell it through the hatch. There's a daily quota, and three strikes in a shift is the end of you. There's an overhead speaker that reminds you of both, whether or not you asked.

What takes longer to notice is everything else. The rulebook gets stranger every day. Memos come off the dot-matrix printer at 23:59 with nobody on shift. The Staff Board has posts from people who don't work here any more, and somebody's name badge looks a lot like yours. Nobody sits you down and explains it. You put the picture together yourself — from the PA, the paperwork, the terminals and your own dreams — in the gaps between keeping the line moving.

Follow the clues The company would rather you didn't.

The HR office: a walnut desk with the contract pages laid out on the blotter and a chair facing the wall with a note taped to it saying WELCOME

The break room printer feeding out a company memo that says DO NOT WATCH THE TELEVISION

A green-screen terminal showing the day 1 sort protocol, with CONFIRM and REJECT keys under it

On the floor What a shift looks like.

Sort: Inspect the intake against a rulebook that changes every day. Wrong chute, wrong answer.
Build: Order machines, place them, wire them to power and keep the line fed.
Sell: Grind it down, scan it, sell it. Make the quota or make excuses.

Read: Printouts, memos, notes and a staff bulletin board on a green-screen terminal.
Survive: The lights, the vents, and whatever else is in the building with you.
End: Fourteen days, ten endings. Most of them are not the door.

Screenshots

WARDENFOX Terminal 2 and its UP / DOWN / EXEC keypad, next to the how-to-run-the-grinder poster

System requirements

Minimum

OS: Windows 10 (64-bit) or a modern 64-bit Linux
Processor: Quad-core, 1.8 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel UHD 620 / equivalent, Vulkan 1.2 — needs the built-in performance settings (reduced render scale, textures off, 30 fps)
Storage: 600 MB available space

Devlog

Questions

How long is it?

One run is fourteen in-game days, about 2–3 hours. There are ten endings, and not all of them wait for day fourteen. Finding every one and piecing the whole story together takes longer.

Is there combat?

Mostly no. There's no combat loop or weapons progression — most of the game is working the line and paying attention. But there is a bit of violence: you get tools like a sledgehammer and a nail gun, and you're not always alone in the building.

Is it scary?

Mostly it's slow dread and quiet wrongness while you work — failing lights, steps behind you, things that aren't there when you look back. There are a few moments that will get you. There's a Reduce Flashing option in the settings.

Where can I get it?

Steam is the goal, along with other storefronts like itch.io, but WardenFox is still going through their verification, which can take a while. Nothing is confirmed yet. Follow on Game Jolt or join the Discord to hear when it's available.

Can I play with friends?

Yes — one player hosts and others join the same factory by IP. On a home network that just works; over the internet the host needs to forward UDP port 7777 on their router. Port forwarding opens your network to the internet, so do it at your own risk.

Does it work with a controller?

Yes. Every screen works on a gamepad, button prompts follow your controller, and the Steam Deck gets its own graphics preset and an on-screen keyboard.

What languages does it have?

English and Czech, both fully voiced. Voice and text are set separately, so you can listen in one and read in the other.

When is it set?

Some time in the eighties — nobody at WardenFox prints the year. CRT terminals, dot-matrix printers, a PA on tape. No phones, no internet, no one to call.

Is there a demo?

Not yet. Follow WardenFox on Game Jolt to hear when one goes up.