The Sharp End

THE SHARP END is a single-player, card-driven operational wargame rendered as a 1980s green-screen command terminal. You don't push counters — you play a hand of military assets across a three-lane theatre and try to break the enemy before the enemy breaks you.

Every mission is a tug-of-war over a forward edge of battle area: one AIR THEATRE on top and two campaign-named LAND lanes below. Push all three lanes to 100% to win; let any one collapse to zero and the mission is lost. Command Points limit what you can deploy each turn, so every card is a decision.

THREE CAMPAIGNS, FIFTEEN MISSIONS

- FALKLANDS 1982 — Goose Green, Stanley, the Atlantic Conveyor, the Exocet threat and the Buzo Táctico. The South Atlantic as it was fought.

- BAOR, THE COLD WAR THAT WASN'T — Hold NORTHAG and CENTAG against the Third Shock Army. Challenger, A-10, Tornado, and the long wait for the storm.

- OP GRANBY 1991 — The Western Flank and the Kuwaiti Front. The Gulf as a campaign of manoeuvre and air supremacy.

WHAT YOU'RE JUGGLING

- A living deck. Build a hand from your campaign's order of battle. Cards are AIR, GROUND or NAVAL, and lane-targeting rules matter: air assets hit the air lane at full strength and the land at half, naval supports the land lanes, and a handful of cards punch through everything.

- Weather you have to read. Clear skies, dense fog and heavy storms each reward and punish different assets — ground your aircraft in a storm, or bring thermal sights to own the fog. Weather shifts turn to turn but trends, so you can plan around it rather than just suffer it.

- A War Bonds economy. Earn bonds for clean victories, then spend them to buy new assets or remove dead weight from your deck between missions.

- Mission modifiers. Night ops, fog fronts, SIGINT windfalls, aggressive enemy pushes, dug-in defensive lines — each mission can throw a wrinkle at you.

- Rare and legendary assets. 18 rare and 9 one-of "named operation" cards sit above the standard order of battle for when you need something special.

- Three difficulty settings, tuned to a real win-rate curve so a campaign ramps instead of spiking, plus a Skirmish mode with a custom loadout for one-off battles.

Sound is synthesised on the fly from raw waveforms — no audio assets, just a lean single-file build. Saves and campaign progress persist between sessions, and you can resume a mission mid-fight.

This is the sharp end. Deploy, adapt, and hold the line.

CONTROLS

Mouse — select a card, then click a lane to deploy it. Click buttons to end turn, open the shop, and navigate menus.

F11 — toggle fullscreen

S — save & exit (during a mission)

M — mute / unmute sound effects

N — toggle music

Esc — back / pause

Arrow keys — page through the in-game instructions