A Myst-Like Tidal-Island Puzzle Adventure
Tidegate is a quiet, hand-painted point-and-click mystery set on Brenn Hollow, a tidal island whose keepers vanished mid-ritual. The moon no longer moves the water — a great brass orrery in the lighthouse does, and it is jammed between phases. Turn it, and the whole island re-floods or drains at once. Low tide and high tide are two different islands sharing one map. No combat, no death, no timers — just observation, memory, and a handful of genuinely clever cross-scene puzzles.
What it is:
- One control, one island — a five-stop tide that reshapes every hand-painted scene at the same time
- True 2.5D dioramas — painted planes at real depth, with a water plane that slides into each scene as the tide rises
- Pressure-free puzzles — a drowned carillon, a message walked into the mud, a barrel-post across four scenes, a cove that runs backwards
- The Keeper's Almanac — a journal that collects what you find and writes gentle, escalating hints in the margins
- Four reaches and a finale — re-light four harbor beacons to open the Tidegate itself
- 100% offline & local-first — no account, no cloud, no ads, no tracking
Coming soon to the App Store & Google Play.
How It Works
🌊 One Tide, One Island
A single broken lunar orrery drives the water across every scene at once through five stops, from dead low to spring high. Dead low bares causeways, cave mouths, and shipwrecks; spring high floats rafts and barrels and drowns the paths you knew. You stop thinking scene-by-scene and start reading Brenn Hollow as one great machine.
🎨 Hand-Painted 2.5D Dioramas
Each scene is a set of painted planes placed at real depth in front of a moving camera, so the world has parallax and weight. The water is a true plane that slides into the scene as the tide rises, swallowing the deeper ground first — the signature mechanic is legible at a glance.
🧭 Clever, Pressure-Free Puzzles
Ring a drowned carillon whose bells only sound when their mouths kiss the waterline. Read a message walked into the tidal flat years ago by setting a lantern at the right tide. Route a key by barrel across four scenes. Prove that one cove runs backwards. In the tradition of classic Myst-like island mysteries.
📖 The Keeper's Almanac
A journal that quietly collects the letters and tide-charts you find, then writes gentle, in-fiction hints in its margins once you've been stuck a while — escalating from atmosphere to a concrete nudge. Never spoilers before you want them.
🔥 Four Reaches & a Finale
Cross the harrow strand, the cannery rows, the drowned chapel, and the lighthouse point, re-lighting one harbor beacon in each. Light all four and the Tidegate itself answers, opening the endgame of Brenn Hollow.
🔒 Offline & Local-First
No account, no login, no cloud, no analytics, no ads. The whole island — your progress, your journal, your pinned clues — lives in a single local save file on your device and never leaves the phone.
A Look Inside
Made for Patient Explorers
🗺️ The Myst-Era Adventurer
- Slow, atmospheric, environment-told storytelling
- Cross-scene puzzles that reward a notebook and a good memory
- No combat, no death, no timers — just the island and its logic
🧩 The Lateral Thinker
- One tide control that changes everything, everywhere, at once
- Puzzles that span four scenes and three tide heights
- Optional, escalating hints when — and only when — you want them
🌙 The Offline & Private Player
- Plays fully offline — perfect for flights and quiet evenings
- No account, no ads, no tracking; a single local save
- Try all of District 1 free before you ever pay a cent
Tidegate Pro
All of District 1 (Harrow Reach) — roughly 45 minutes, including lighting its beacon — is free, with no card needed to start, along with the orrery, the journal, and the almanac's gentle hint tiers. Tidegate Pro unlocks the rest of Brenn Hollow: Districts 2–4 (the cannery rows, the drowned chapel, and the lighthouse point), the Tidegate finale, and the almanac's plain-spoken explicit-hint tier. The free reach stays free, forever. Billing is store-managed — cancel anytime in the App Store or Google Play.
Annual
Best value, with a 7-day free trial — about $1.67/month, billed yearly.
Monthly
Flexible month-to-month access to Tidegate Pro.
Lifetime
A single one-time purchase — no subscription, yours to keep. For players done with recurring billing.
Prices may vary by region and are shown in the app at the time of purchase. All three options unlock the same Tidegate Pro (tidegate_pro) features. The 7-day free trial is offered on the annual plan only. The lifetime option is a one-time, non-renewing purchase. Manage or cancel a subscription anytime in your device's App Store or Google Play subscription settings. See our Terms and EULA for full subscription details.
Privacy First — the Whole Island Stays on Your Phone
Tidegate is built local-first. Here's exactly how it works:
- No account, no cloud, no server. You don't sign up or log in. There is no backend that receives anything — nothing to leak and nothing to fail on an update or a new phone.
- Your game stays on the device. Your progress, tide state, inventory, journal, and pinned clues are stored only in a single local save file on your phone.
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics. Tidegate does not use advertising identifiers, cross-app tracking, or third-party analytics SDKs.
- Everything runs on-device. The puzzles and the Keeper's Almanac hint engine are deterministic, rule-based logic. There is no LLM, no AI model, no model download, and no network or key — nothing about your play is sent anywhere.
- One billing helper. The only data that ever leaves your phone is purchase/subscription data, handled by Apple, Google, and RevenueCat to validate optional Tidegate Pro.
For complete details, see our Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, and EULA.