The Piper of Dawn ▶ Trailer
The Piper of Dawn screenshot 1The Piper of Dawn screenshot 2
IndieRPGSimulationStrategyShop KeeperFarming SimBase BuildingStory RichResource Management

152 playing

Peak in the last 24 hours: 272

Peak in the last 7 days: 351

The Piper of Dawn Steam store

Game description

Grow magical crops—and your own workforce. Run an alchemy shop in a city trapped in a time loop, forge bonds with humans and non-humans, and shape its fate. A dark fantasy management sim with branching stories and multiple endings.

Basic info

DeveloperBone Nail
PublisherBone Nail, 2P Games
PlatformsWindows
Steam DeckPlayable
Release dateSep 22, 2026
Price

Prices by IsThereAnyDeal

Minimum specs

OSWindows 10
ProcessorIntel i5 Quad-Core
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti
Storage4 GB
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Review Analysis Score

Based on 438 reviews from the past 1 year

73.7/ 100
Bottom 30%

Steam rating: Very Positive (86%)

Review analysis summary (Reviewed Oct 14, 2026)

Beautiful visuals lead 89 reviews of The Piper of Dawn, and a story that carries on from the first game wins more; it scores 73.7.

👍 Strengths

Visuals & Sound ranks 416th of 1249. 89 reviews praise the CG and visual design, and 76 welcome a strong continuation of the story with good character moments. 55 say its familiar formula makes for a very enjoyable farming sim, and others describe about 30 hours of early game content and a lovable cast. Content Volume ranks 586th of 1351.

👎 Where it falls short

Gameplay ranks 1247th of 1396 and comes up in 64% of analyzed reviews. 53 reviews find the narrative incoherent and the characters shallow, and Story & World ranks 927th of 1096. 35 say complex systems lack clear labels, sending them to a wiki. 32 find the loop repetitive, the most upvoted describing five minutes of action and 20 minutes of dialogue. Others say early character designs fall short of the prequel, and some find automation and manual systems clash.

Representative reviews Original reviews ↗

“beautiful CG and visual design with excellent presentation” · 89 reviews
“strong story continuation with good character moments” · 76 reviews
“familiar formula from predecessor, very enjoyable farming sim experience” · 55 reviews

How it holds up

−50+5

Controls, difficulty, progression and depth
Mentioned in 64% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Controls & feel -2.18 · Responsiveness, precision, and how the menus handle

Progression 41% · Difficulty 3% · Onboarding 17% · Freedom 5% · Strategy 22%

Plot, characters and the world
Mentioned in 72% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Story +1.12 · Plot, quests, writing, and the ending
Positive “strong story continuation with good character moments” · 76 reviews
Negative “narrative is incoherent with contradictory plot order and shallow character development” · 53 reviews

Characters 38% · World 18%

How much there is to do, variety and replay value
Mentioned in 47% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Volume +2.92 · How much there is to play, including endgame, for the price
Positive “30 hours of enjoyable early game content” · 37 reviews
Negative “game is disappointingly short, feels like a dead end” · 3 reviews

Variety 33% · Replayability 4%

Graphics, art style, music and sound
Mentioned in 38% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Visuals +3.74 · Graphics, art style, and animation
Positive “beautiful CG and visual design with excellent presentation” · 89 reviews

Audio 5%

Playing with others, the community and servers

Not enough data — only 0% of reviews mention this.

Community — · Who you play with — how many, and how friendly

Playing together 0% · Servers & Connection 0%

Pricing, cheaters, balance and matchmaking
Mentioned in 10% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Balance -0.19 · Whether classes, weapons, and builds are evenly matched
Negative “Alchemy exploit allows millions of gold while other playstyles fall behind” · 10 reviews

Anti-cheat 0% · Pricing 3% · Matchmaking 0%

Bugs, performance and developer support
Mentioned in 12% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Stability -0.12 · Crashes, freezes, save loss, and game-breaking bugs
Negative “game freezes when opening seed at high level” · 8 reviews

Performance 1% · Developer support 9%

Grey means too few reviews mention it to trust. — means almost no reviews mention it.

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