Gullhaven Play free

A free multiplayer treasure hunt

The sea goes out every twenty minutes. Go in after it.

When the tide drops, the sea caves under the harbour town open. Take a light, fill your pack, and get out before the water comes back.

Play free in your browser How it plays
  • No download
  • No ads, nothing to buy
  • Desktop or phone

How it plays

Your first tide

Name a diver and you're standing in the square. No account to make first, nothing to install. A short card walks you down to the water.

  1. Buy a candle. Five gold at Maud's Chandlery. Caves are dark, and your light is how far you see.
  2. Walk down to the beach. Watch the tide table. Each cave opens for as long as its floor sits above the water.
  3. Work what you find. Tide pools, veins and sea chests, each one a short game you play with one tap.
  4. Get out in time. The HUD counts down to your last way out, with the walk to it. Miss it and you drown, and your pack sinks where you fell.
A new diver, Tamsin, in the square on a phone. A First steps card lists: buy a candle at Maud's, walk down to the beach, work a tide pool.

The clock

One tide, twenty minutes

The whole world runs on one clock. The same tide floods every cave for every diver, and it keeps going when you close the tab.

The tide over one cycle The water falls for ten minutes and rises for ten. Shallow caves are open for fifteen minutes of the cycle, mid caves for four, low caves for two. On every fourth tide the water drops further and the Maw opens for about ninety seconds. Shallow caves, 15 min Mid, 4 min Low, 2 min The Maw, 90 s (spring) high low, minute 10 high again
Every fourth tide is a spring tide. The water drops further, and for about ninety seconds the Maw is open.

  1. The ebb

    The shallow caves open first: Gull Grotto, Smuggler's Cut, Barnacle Arch. They stay dry for most of the cycle, which makes them a good place to learn.

  2. Low water

    For a few minutes the deep caves give up their floors. Kelpdark Hollow and the Drowned Belfry hold the silver, the coffers and the stranger finds.

  3. The flood

    The water comes back the way it left. Drown and your pack sinks in a wreck where you fell, for anyone to loot. Your gold is always safe.

Wrenna under water in the Glowpools of Kelpdark Hollow, her breath running out, while the tide table counts down the way out and warns her to hold her breath.

The caves

Seven caves, and they don't play fair

Caves are dark: your lantern is how far you see, and the map fills in only where you've been. Passages loop and dead-end, sags flood before the mouth does, and currents pull at you in the deep water.

  • The tide table counts down to your last way out, and the walk to it. Under water, so does your breath.
  • Fix rope bridges and climbs with rope and pitons. They hold for everyone for hours, then fray.
  • Pick rusted sea-gates and dig through rockfalls to reach sealed rooms.
  • Set a candle or torch in a sconce and the whole cave can see by it.
The Strike game at a copper vein: a ring closes on the vein, with the tide table beside it.

The work

Work every find by hand

Each skill is a short one-tap game. Sift a tide pool as a lantern sweeps the sand, strike a vein on the beat, set a lock's pins as they cross the line. Wading water makes it harder, and so do the deeper caves.

  • Scavenging for flotsam, tide pools, crevices and sunken caches
  • Mining for copper and tin up to silver, gold and cobalt
  • Lockpicking for sea chests and royal strongboxes, where a miss snaps a pick
Gull Grotto's chart, 100% mapped, with named places, marked finds and a tide slider showing which passages flood at half tide.
A cave's chart, with the Lighthouse's tide slider
The Codex page for Silver Ore: which veins give it, at what Mining level and with which pick, and everything the Smithy makes from it.
The Codex: where it comes from, what it makes

The charts

Map it, then plan the next tide

Every cave you walk is charted as you go: its places named, its passages coloured by how deep the water gets. Tap a cave on the coast map to look it over from town.

Build up the Lighthouse and the charts get better: slide the tide to see what floods when, and see the veins and chests you've passed. The Codex lists every item, where it's found and what it makes, each one a link to the next.

Together

Nobody reaches everything alone

Everyone shares one coast and one tide. Form a party of up to four and finds are dealt round in turn, with a share of the experience for mates nearby.

A party of four in Gull Grotto's Ossuary by a lit sconce. Pellam: Rockfall past the benches. Who has a pick? Osgood: On my way. Hold the light.

Scavengers need a miner to clear the rockfall, miners need a lockpicker for the sea-gate, and a rope someone else fixed might be the way you get home.

  • Profile cards. Tap a diver's name tag for their skills, gear, town and caves.
  • Friends. See who's on and where they are, and ask a diver straight from their card.
  • Party chat and your mates on the HUD, wherever they've wandered.
Pellam's profile card: his title, total level, hat, party and friend buttons, skills, gear, his own Gullhaven and the caves he has found.
Pellam's profile card
The Friends panel: a request from Osgood to accept or decline, and two friends online in Gull Grotto.
Friends, and who's on
Your Cottage and the Chapel of Old Constance as you find them: roofs broken open, moss and cracked walls.
As you find it
The same two buildings restored, with whole roofs and open doors.
After a lot of tides

The town

Rebuild your own Gullhaven

The town on the cliff is poor and half-built. Bring back ore, rope, sea glass and old coin, and rebuild it one building at a time. It's your town: each diver restores their own, and each building does something for you.

  • The Smithy unlocks better tools at every tier, from the Anvil to the Abyss Forge.
  • The Salvage Office marks your wrecks and later hauls back what's left in them.
  • The Chapel rings a bell before the Maw opens and before your way out goes under.
  • The Lighthouse charts the coast and lights the cave mouths that are open.
  • The Counting House, the Rope Walk, the Curio Museum and your own cottage too.
The Diver's Log, listing feats such as Spelunker and Cave Cartographer with their rewards.

The log

Keep a Diver's Log

Eighty-one feats, from mapping a cave end to end to leaving the Maw with less than a second of breath. Rewards are for showing off, never for power: titles, badges worn by your name, and dyes for your hat.

Curios go in the Curio Book. Finish a set, restore its hall in the museum, and you'll read another chapter of what happened to the old town.

Three mouths in the cliff, and every one of them breathing.

The Diver's Log

Anywhere

In your pocket, or on your desk

The same game on a phone held upright or sideways: a thumb stick to move, one button to use, and every panel built for a small screen. On a computer it's the keyboard and mouse.

Start with a name and a colour. Add an email later to keep your diver and pick it up on another device.

New divers start in the dark. A candle is five gold at the Chandlery.

Gullhaven on a phone: Wrenna's party of four in Gull Grotto, mates shown as pills under her name, the way-out countdown, chat bubbles, a thumb stick and a Use button.

The tide is on its way out.

Gull Grotto is open for fifteen minutes of every twenty. Bring a candle.

Play free in your browser

No download. No ads. Nothing to buy.