Vol. I — No. 35

ERSTWHILE

Price $10,000

2026

Same word, several works

Which Erstwhile game is the daily investing game?

This site is about the browser puzzle at erstwhile.io. The name also sits on a Steam roguelike, a 2018 ghost story, several itch.io projects, a jewelry shop, and a record label.

FieldReadingStatus
Daily puzzleBrowser, live, No. 35 on 11 Nov 2026. Maker unnamed.2 sources
Steam roguelikeRegular Software. Windows. Coming soon. No user reviews on the store page.Steam · 1 source
2018 storyAster Fialla and Marijke Perry. Twine. IFComp 2018, 5th. About an hour.2 sources
Clone siteerstwhilegame.online is a separate implementation.Its own page · 1 source
JewelryErstwhile Jewelry NYC sells vintage rings.Its site · 1 source
RecordsErstwhile Records is an experimental label.Wikipedia · 1 source
Illustrated newspaper desk with a cream certificate, ten chips, and a green year stamp for the daily investing game
A cream certificate of speculation with a green double border and a burgundy stamp, no puzzle answer shown

The puzzle at erstwhile.io

You place $10,000 on a hidden year between 2005 and 2020 and hold through five years, with rebalancing at year 2 and year 4. The score is against an S&P 500 fund. It runs in the browser. The public pages do not name a studio, only that one person made it, and the support address is [email protected].

The Steam roguelike

Regular Software’s Erstwhile is a top-down action-adventure about a long-forgotten past, with monsters and bosses. The store page lists Windows and marks the game coming soon. I am not going to call it released. It has no investing puzzle and no daily reset. If a search for “erstwhile game” lands you on Steam first, you are in a different work.

The 2018 interactive fiction

Aster (formerly Maddie) Fialla and Marijke Perry released a Twine game on 1 October 2018. It is a ghost trying to solve their own murder. IFComp 2018 placed it fifth. IFDB lists an XYZZY award for best individual puzzle, 62 ratings, and an estimate around one hour and twenty minutes. The itch.io page shows 4.9 from 11 ratings. None of that is a stock market.

Other listings

An itch.io search on 11 November 2026 returned nine projects, including Erstwhile Tower (ISART Digital, 2019), Erstwhile Station (FrigidKing, $4.99), a platformer called ErstWhile, a tabletop SRD, and The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle ($5.99). I am keeping those to the listing line. I did not fetch a full manual for each.

Erstwhile Jewelry NYC and Erstwhile Records use the word and have nothing to do with the daily puzzle. The dictionary sense is “former.”

Questions

Is the Steam game out?

The public store page says coming soon and shows no user reviews. I do not have a release date.

Is erstwhilegame.online the same game?

It is a separate site with a similar loop. Rules and prices on that site are not the ones published at erstwhile.io.

Keep reading

What it isThe fact sheet for the daily puzzle.Play onlineThe browser game has no Steam build.The wordWhy the name means “former.”

Sources