Bendigo Games

Supply Lines — a hand-drawn real-time strategy game for iPhone

a lightweight war, drawn in ink

Three supply lines.
That is the whole game.

Drag between two nodes and ink flows down the line you drew — a surge at once, then a steady pour for as long as you leave it open. Enough of it takes the node at the far end.

A supply line is not an attack you send. It is a commitment you make, and you only ever have three.

Download Supply Lines on the App Store

Or play demo here In browser only — no download.

  • Free
  • No ads
  • Offline
  • iOS 15+
  • 21 MB

Google Play: coming soon.

Not a mock-up: a real match, played by the game's own engine and recorded frame by frame. Iron-gall against vermilion.

The one rule

You are never short of ink. You are short of attention.

Every node you hold makes ink, all the time, and there is always more of it than you can spend. What there is never enough of is lines.

Three open at once. Every line you commit to the north is a line you cannot commit to the south, and the moment you decide the north is safe is usually the moment it stops being. Take a waystation and you get a fourth — which is why a waystation is the most valuable mark on the sheet.

Try it

One swipe cuts every line it crosses

Knowing when to cut your own is most of the skill. Ink already in transit down a severed line is ink you spent on nothing — so cutting is never free, and it is still right more often than it feels.

Swipe across the lines.

The board above is a moment lifted out of the same recorded match, and the gesture is the game's own. Cutting here changes nothing but the drawing.

No download

Or play the campaign right now, in this browser

The whole expedition — nine engagements, every doctrine, every opponent — runs in a tab. There is no account, no limit on how many campaigns you play, and nothing to install.

Play Supply Lines →

It takes over the screen, because the game is built for a phone held upright. On a computer it takes clicks instead of drags. Skirmish and the eleven hand-built charts are in the app.

The chart

What a node is worth is written on it

There is no build menu. A mark above a node is the whole message — this one is worth fighting for, and here is why.

  • Inkwell

    Produces far more than an ordinary node. The economic prize, and the first thing a good opponent goes for.

  • Redoubt

    Hard to take and hard to lose. Attacks land for a fraction of their damage, and it holds far more ink than a plain outpost.

  • Waystation

    Raises your line limit. The only thing on the sheet that buys you back the one resource the game is stingy with.

How it plays

Ink arrives, defence divides it

Break the garrison and the surplus is yours

What lands is subtracted from what is there. A big commitment takes ground and holds it; a trickle just feeds a wall. Ground you take settles with a garrison of its own, so it does not fall straight back.

A win means the other side is gone

Nothing else ends a match. Holding most of the chart is not a victory and there is no clock — you win when every other commander has no ground left, however long that takes.

And then the ink runs dry

Past a couple of minutes every node produces faster while holding less. Garrisons thin everywhere and nobody can sit behind a full redoubt forever. It falls on both sides equally.

Unseen ground is smudged

You read exact numbers on your own nodes, on everything you border and on all unclaimed ground. What an enemy is massing further away is a smudge — so a forward node is worth holding for the view alone.

What is in it

A campaign, a skirmish, and eleven hand-built charts

  • An expedition of nine engagements, drawn fresh each run, with a doctrine to take after every victory.
  • Skirmish — choose the opponent, the difficulty, the size of the chart and how many sides fight over it, up to six.
  • Eleven fixed charts: The Isthmus, The Ring, The Spine, The Ford, The Crossroads and six more, some deliberately lopsided.
  • Opponents with habits, not just bigger numbers — the cartographer spreads, the red hand goes for the throat.
  • A short tutorial that teaches by making you play, not by making you read.
  • A drum corps that follows the fight, not the score. Bare taps while everyone is still spreading; the whole line at full cry when you are being overrun.

On a phone

Ink on paper, and nothing else

Nothing glows, nothing explodes, nothing shouts at you. The whole game is line weight and colour, and it was built to be quiet enough to think in.

  • A battle in progress: navy nodes on the left holding a line against red ones, with supply lines drawn between them.Mid-engagement
  • The opening of a match, most of the chart still drawn in pencil and unclaimed.The opening
  • The skirmish setup sheet: number of sides, opponent, skill and chart size.Set the field
  • The rules screen, with hand-drawn diagrams of supply lines and the line tally.The rules
  • The First March tutorial, a small chart with a line of instruction under it.First March
  • The Supply Lines title screen, the wordmark hand-drawn above four menu cards.The title

What is not in it

No accounts. No ads. No network needed.

No login, no in-app purchases, no tracking, and nothing that identifies you. The iPhone app reports anonymous usage statistics — battles and expeditions played, won and lost — which you can switch off in Settings. The privacy policy lists every one.

It works on a plane, and it will keep working whether or not anyone keeps a server running. It is free, and it is the whole game.

Download Supply Lines on the App Store

Free on iPhone. Google Play coming soon.

Questions

Before you download it

Is it free?
Yes. Free to download, nothing to buy inside it, no advertising. It is the whole game, not a trial.
Does it work offline?
Entirely. It needs no network connection at all.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, no login and no email address.
Can I try it without downloading it?
Yes — the campaign runs in your browser, free and with no account. Skirmish is the one mode that is only in the app.
Is it on Android?
Not yet. The iPhone version is out now; a Google Play release is coming.
Is it turn-based?
No — it runs in real time, but slowly enough to think in. Nothing in it is a race against a clock.
How long is a match?
A single engagement is a few minutes. An expedition is nine of them, and you can put it down in between.
How do you win?
By taking every node. Holding most of the chart is not a victory.
Is it multiplayer?
No. Single player, against opponents with distinct habits at five levels of skill.

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