Ministry of Order

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• Announcements·26 Aug 2026Official

  40,000 Wishlists, and What the Ministry Does Next

  We passed 40,000 wishlists on Steam this week.Some context for that number. Ministry of Order started as a seven-day game jam entry made by four people. Two of them moved on afterwards; the two of us who stayed have been building it ever since, a year and a half now. Forty thousand is a bigger number than either of us can actually picture, and every one of them is a person who decided they wanted to see how this turns out.So: thank you. That is not a formality. A wishlist is the thing that tells Steam a game exists, and it is the reason a studio of two gets onto a festival page at all. Here is where the game actually stands, and what comes next.The closed playtest runs in waves rather than continuously, and the last wave has already gone out. The build it runs on covers about 60% of Act 1 - the maternity ward, the genetics puzzle, the evenings at home with the rent, the radio and whoever is knocking at your door.If you have requested access and not heard back, your request has not been thrown away. It is being held for a later wave. We open them in groups on purpose, so that we can read what breaks before the next group walks in.Act 1 is not finished yet, and there are two more acts after it. That is where the story stops being about paperwork.A public demo is planned. We are not naming a date for it until we are sure of one - we would rather be late than announce twice.If you are already on the list, that is the whole ask. We will see you in the ward.
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• Announcements·6 Aug 2026Official

  Ministry of Order Is Live at Tiny Teams Until August 13

  The Ministry confirms that inspection of this department is open and continues until August 13.Tiny Teams is a Steam festival for studios of five people or fewer, run by the Yogscast. We are two. The rest of the festival page deserves a walk through as well - every game on it was made by a team smaller than the meeting that would normally approve one.If you have just walked inMinistry of Order is a narrative puzzle game about clerical work with unbearable stakes. A hospital archive burned. The newborns survived; their paperwork did not. You are the clerk who decides which child goes to which family - eye colour, hair, blood type, freckles, whatever the state has decided matters this week - with a few seconds per child and a rulebook that keeps growing. Then you go home to a rented room, read your mail, and the people you handed children to start knocking on your door.Why you cannot play it this weekThere is no demo yet, and the playtest is closed. We open it in waves rather than all at once, because two people can only read so many reports at a time - and every wave so far has changed the game more than the one before it.You can still watch it, though. The Yogscast are running festival streams every day until the 13th, afternoon and evening UK time, on Twitch and, for some of them, YouTube. A number of the streamers covering the festival have keys to the playtest build, so there is a fair chance you will see this game played before you can play it yourself.What the waiting buys is visible. A new build went out to the current wave as the festival opened, and almost all of it came out of what the previous wave reported:Day one lost its clock. Testers said the first shift taught them panic instead of the rules. It is ten fixed rounds now; the watch starts counting minutes on day two.The rulebook was rebuilt. All six spreads redrawn, the printed rules rewritten, and a page you have never opened now sticks its bookmark out of the closed book.The puzzle plays fair. The fr...
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• Announcements·5 Aug 2026Official

  The Department Opens to Inspection Tomorrow, and What Comes After

  The Ministry of Public Information confirms: from August 6 to August 13, this department will be open to outside inspection. The event is called Tiny Teams. Attendance is not mandatory. It is, however, recorded.Tiny Teams is a Steam festival for studios of five people or fewer. We are two, so we qualify comfortably, if not proudly. If this is your first visit to the departmentMinistry of Order is a narrative puzzle game about clerical work with unbearable stakes. A hospital archive burned. Five newborns, no records, and parents waiting on the other side of the door. You get a file, a rulebook, and a few seconds per child - match them by eye colour, hair, blood type, freckles, and whatever else the state has decided matters this week. Then you go home, read your mail, listen to the radio, and pay for the mistakes you made at work. What you can do this weekWishlist it. For a studio of two that is not a polite ask - it is most of our marketing.Request access to the closed playtest. Wave 3 has not opened yet; requesting now holds your place in the queue.Tell us what is wrong with it. The wave 2 report is currently the single largest input into what we build next, and it shows.What comes after the festivalA new playtest build, made almost entirely out of what wave 2 asked for, and after that a public demo. We are not promising dates. We have learned what a calendar does to a two-person schedule.Glory to the paperwork.- Ministry of Order. Staff of two.
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• Announcements·1 Jul 2026Official

  Our New Trailer Is Up

  This is probably the trailer we're proudest of.It leans into both the investigation side of the Ministry's paperwork and the day-to-day weight of matching babies to the wrong families: get it wrong, and someone doesn't come home.Playtest updateWe're right in the middle of our second closed Steam playtest. It's already given us a ton of useful feedback on puzzle pacing, the writing, and a bunch of small things we wouldn't have caught otherwise - huge thanks to everyone who's been playing and filling out the survey.We're not opening new playtest slots for a little while, we want to work through everything we've collected before starting the next wave (playtest 3). But if you haven't requested access yet, go ahead and do it! It keeps your spot in line for when we do.Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments - always curious which part sticks with people.
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• Announcements·1 Apr 2026Official

  Devlog: Reducing Player Stress

  We’ve been reviewing player feedback from internal tests, one note kept coming up: “The game is too stressful”.So we made some adjustments: all parents are now perfectly compatible with all children.Everyone gets their child, everyone is happy, everything is correct.We believe this change greatly reduces unnecessary pressure on the player.Please let us know if this solution meets expectations, or report any remaining inconsistencies in the comments below.
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