Ten Paces - Early Playtest

Ten duels. Twenty perspectives.

Step onto the field in Ten Paces, a collection of ten historical and literary duels. Play either side of each encounter, from Weehawken and Battersea Fields to the winter riverbank at Black River and a fictional Paris sword duel.

This early playtest focuses on longer fights. Health, nerves, weapon sway and reload timing shape pistol encounters. Barrier duels allow an advance; the sword encounter adds footwork, stamina, parries and counters. All ten chapters and both characters in each are available from Choose a duel.

How to play

Windows: extract the entire ZIP and open Play Ten Paces.cmd. The Prerequisites folder includes Microsoft runtime installers if needed.

Mac: extract the ZIP and open Ten Paces.app. The Apple Silicon app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Intel Macs are unsupported.

Hold RIGHT MOUSE to draw and aim; LEFT CLICK fires. Hold SPACE briefly to steady. Empty pistols reload automatically; tap R in the gold band to speed the load. ESCAPE pauses. See README-FIRST.txt for sword and barrier controls. Keyboard and a two-button mouse recommended. No Unreal Engine installation required.

Feedback wanted

Please spend 15-20 minutes playing and note unclear controls, fight length, difficulty, character differences, visual distractions and crashes. Start with Hamilton-Burr, then try Wellington-Winchilsea, Pushkin-d'Anthes and Noirtier-d'Epinay. FEEDBACK.txt is included in each download; share your notes with Hunter. Include your operating system, hardware if known, chapter, role and the steps that caused a problem. The game does not automatically send feedback.

Requirements and current limits

Windows x64, DirectX 12 / Shader Model 6 capable GPU, keyboard and mouse. Minimum hardware and installation on other PCs are not yet established.

Mac: Apple Silicon required; app declares macOS 14.0 minimum. Tested only on an M5 MacBook Air with 24 GB RAM and macOS 26.6.2. Other Apple Silicon Macs and older macOS releases remain unverified. Allow about 6 GB per platform for the ZIP and extracted game, plus room for runtimes and shader caches.

This is a rough first version for feedback. Known Mac issues: sword counterattacks sometimes get blocked after a successful parry; one early startup crash occurred in testing. Mac offscreen combat samples averaged approximately 23-41 fps at 1280x800 on the tested M5. Physical-input play, audio listening and a complete motion review remain pending. First-use shader hitches can occur. Read KNOWN-ISSUES.txt in the Mac download.

Characters, scenery, animation, weapons and sound are still being refined. Historical settings and weather include interpretation, and extended fights deliberately adapt the historical events. Noirtier's encounter comes from fiction.