BECOME THE BEDTIME MONSTER PEOPLE FEAR
Rusty Smile blends narrative investigation, dangerous nighttime exploration, and tactical dice-building battles in a dark folktale set in rural Italy.
By day, listen to the villagers and uncover the sins hidden behind closed doors. By night, enter a realm haunted by spirits from Venetian folklore, evade the masked Baute, and reach those marked for punishment. When you finally confront your victim, the hunt becomes a turn-based duel on a procedurally generated 3D board.
You are the Toothless Rake. And you have come to claim their souls.
INVESTIGATE BY DAY
You awaken in a small rural village with little knowledge of who you are, but one instinct remains, a vocation that pulls you towards the dark: you are the Rake, and you must punish the guilty.
Explore the village and speak with the people who live there.
Listen to rumors of violence, cruelty, and abuse. Somewhere among their conversations, one warning keeps returning:
“The Rake will come for you!”
Every hunt begins with three pieces of information:
Their name: their real identity, an alias, simply what the village calls them.
Their location: where they can be found and confronted after nightfall.
Their sin: the acts that earned the hatred of those around them.
Follow each lead and determine where the next clue may be hiding. Dialogue choices let you approach conversations in different ways without permanently closing off vital information.
Once your victim’s identity has been fully revealed, let the sun set—and unleash the terror within you.
HUNT BY NIGHT
Night belongs to ghosts and demons. It should be the perfect hunting ground for a spirit like you.
But you are not alone.
When darkness falls, the village changes. Creatures drawn from Venetian folklore emerge to pursue old grudges, strange bargains, and dark purposes of their own. Above them stand the Baute, masked spirits who rule the night through fear and strength.
And they have no intention of letting an unknown spirit wander freely through their territory.
Navigate the village’s transformed streets, find a safe route through the darkness, and evade the Baute patrolling between you and your victim. Getting caught will end your hunt before it can begin.
Two things hold power in the spirit world:
Obols, traditionally offered to the dead, now serve as currency among spirits.
Soul Residue, left behind when supernatural creatures fulfil their purpose, allows them to grow stronger.
The Baute desire both. They demand a share from every spirit beneath them—and are more than willing to take it by force.
PUNISH ON THE BOARD
When you finally confront your victim, the battle begins.
Each fight takes place on a procedurally generated 3D board inspired by tabletop games. You and your opponent are represented by pawns moving across interconnected cells and paths, taking alternating turns as you pursue opposing goals.
Your victim is trying to escape. To survive, they must reach the key, claim it, and carry it to the exit.
Your task is simpler:
Corner them before they get away.
Spend Steps to travel across the board one path at a time. Choose your direction after every movement, react to your opponent’s decisions, and end your turn on their cell to attack. The Damage you have accumulated is then unleashed at once, injuring your target and knocking them backwards.
Cells and paths can completely alter the chase. Some grant useful bonuses, weaken your opponent, or hold valuable tokens. Others impose penalties, drain resources, or require additional Steps to cross. Any advantage you leave unattended can also be claimed by your victim.
Your targets are not entirely defenceless. They can set traps, raise shields, recover from their wounds, and slow your pursuit long enough to reach the exit.
And not every opponent will run.
Monsters and powerful spirits fight back directly, transforming the same board-game rules into deadly confrontations where your own life is at stake. Learn how each enemy behaves, control the board, and strike before they can carry out their plan.
BUILD YOUR DICE BAG
Your claws deliver the punishment, but your dice determine what is possible.
As you explore the world and progress through the story, you will discover new dice with different effects, strengths, and tactical purposes. Before each battle, assemble a dice bag of up to twelve dice and adapt your selection to the opponent waiting for you.
At the beginning of each turn, draw and roll dice from your bag to produce three primary resources:
Steps let you move between connected cells. They must be spent during the turn in which they are rolled.
Damage can be stored across multiple turns, then unleashed when you finally reach your opponent.
Grudge can be exchanged for temporary tactical advantages during the battle.
Dice can do far more than generate resources. Use their effects to defend yourself, manipulate your rolls, disrupt your opponent, or strengthen a strategy built around movement, accumulated damage, or resource control.
Your opponents possess dice bags of their own. Victims can use them to shield themselves, heal, lay traps, or interfere with your pursuit, while aggressive enemies use their rolls to hunt you in return.
Expand your collection, discover powerful combinations, and build a strategy suited to every fugitive, monster, and boss standing in your way.
A DARK ITALIAN FOLKTALE
Play as the Toothless Rake, or Rastrello Senza Denti: an obscure figure from the folklore of the rural lowlands around Vicenza, also known in Venetian dialect as the rasteo or rastreo.
Invoked by adults to frighten disobedient children—and sometimes other adults—the Rake is said to arrive after nightfall. Those who misbehave risk losing their teeth, while the truly wicked may simply disappear without a trace.
But the Rake is only one of the creatures waiting in the darkness.
Encounter spirits, demons, and masked authorities inspired by traditional stories passed down across Veneto and Northern Italy for generations. Discover a fictional rural Veneto shaped by old customs, local superstitions, and a light, accessible use of Venetian dialect.
Enter a world from an older age, when electricity was still a novelty, the fields stretched beyond every doorstep, and legends were powerful enough to keep people inside after sunset.
Punish the guilty. Defy the spirits who rule the night.
And discover what becomes of a legend when people begin to forget.
