Department of Ducks

Department of Ducks presents

MaMills

Four-in-a-row, but the board goes up too.

A cozy 3D board game for Steam Deck, Windows, macOS and Linux, in English and Hungarian.

Wishlist on Steam (opens in a new tab)Built for Steam Deck. No microtransactions. Watch the 66-second trailer
Drawing of a 4x4 board of sticks holding red and blue cylinders; a red cylinder drops onto three stacked reds to complete a vertical four.

01 · How it plays

Three steps. No fine print.

Pick a stick

Sixteen sticks. Point at one. That is the entire move.

Down it goes

It settles on the lowest free slot. Gravity does not take appeals.

Four, any direction

Rows, columns, stacks, even diagonals through the cube. 76 ways to win.

02 · Who you play

Four ways to play.

The Machine, a friend beside you, a friend across the room on the same network, or a friend over Steam Remote Play Together. Same board, same 76 lines.

vs Machine

Solo · offline

Against the Machine

  • Five levels, Beginner to Expert. Every level above Beginner takes a win and blocks one.
  • Expert thinks four moves ahead. Beat it and the Gold & Silver palette is yours.
  • Pause any time. Your match waits for you, even after the Deck sleeps.

Hotseat

One device

On the couch

  • Hotseat: one device, one controller, pass it over.
  • Straight in: the board shows whose colour is up.
  • No take-backs in pass-and-play. Arguing about it is optional.

LAN

Same network · no Steam

Same network

  • LAN: two machines, one game each, no Steam needed at all.
  • The host shows up on its own, or you type the address.
  • No accounts, no servers. Nothing leaves the room.

Steam Remote Play Together

Steam · any distance

Over Steam

  • Steam Remote Play Together: you host, they join from wherever they are.
  • They need Steam, not the game. Their controller works only on their turn.
  • No matchmaking, no ranks, no strangers. Just the people you invited.

03 · Screenshots

Same board, four moods.

Game screenshot in the Classic palette: red and blue cylinders on a 4x4 stick board at move 10, with a yellow drop beam and a translucent ghost piece above the chosen stick.
Classic, move 10. The beam shows where red lands next.
The same midgame seen low and nearly front-on, with patterned pieces: striped red cylinders and dotted blue ones, a ghost piece hovering above a three-high stack.
Low and close. Stripes against dots, so nobody needs the colour.
A MaMills board mid-game as a Halloween scene: smiling spiders against glowing jack-o'-lantern pumpkins on purple sticks, under a full moon and stars, with a candle at each corner.
Our first theme, Halloween. Spiders against pumpkins under the moon, in September, October and November.
A late MaMills board in the colour-blind safe palette, blue and orange cylinders stacked high, with Hint on: red rims mark every blue cylinder in a live three-in-a-row while Orange is to move.
Hint on, colour-blind safe. Blue against orange, and every live threat still stands out.

04 · Accessibility

Never colour alone.

Four palettes, plus our first theme, Halloween (more to come), and the board never leans on colour alone to tell you whose piece is whose. It does not lean on sharp eyes, two ears or a mouse either.

  • Never colour alone A colour-blind-safe palette, and stripes-versus-dots patterns you can switch on over any palette.
  • Hint shows the threats One press lights every live three-in-a-row on the board, so a busy stack never hides the danger.
  • Text size and motion, your call Bigger type, dialogs you can make opaque, and a Reduce Motion switch that snaps every animation. Desktop reads your system settings on first launch.
  • Every button, your way Rebind any key and any button; every prompt shows the glyph of the controller in your hands. No mouse needed, ever.

Classic

Red and blue. Where everyone starts.

Violet

Purple and green, for a change of scenery.

Colour-blind safe

Blue and orange, picked to stay apart.

Gold & Silver

Beat Expert to unlock. Gloating optional.

Also in Settings

Eyes

  • Patterned pieces: stripes on one side, dots on the other
  • The win is a white rim around the four and a board that steps back, not a flash of colour
  • Hint lights every live threat when the board gets busy

Ears

  • Mono audio for single-ear play
  • Separate volumes for music and effects, and a mute just for the drops
  • Eight drop sounds. Pick the one that does not startle you.

Hands

  • Every button wears its own glyph, matching the controller in your hands
  • Rebind any key and any button
  • D-pad, arrows or Tab reach everything. No mouse required.

Text size, motion and dialog opacity each have their own switch. On desktop, the first launch reads your system accessibility settings and pre-fills the matching ones, then leaves a small note saying what it did.

05 · By the numbers

MaMills by the numbers

winning lines
76
Difficulty levels, Beginner to Expert
5
players, on one couch or two
1-2
achievements, six of them hiding
21
languages, English and Hungarian
2
drop sounds to pick from
8
A MaMills board mid-game, red and blue cylinders stacked to different heights like a small skyline.

For Mami

This game is for my late grandmother, Mami, who I spent so many evenings playing it with. I loved it then, and I love it just as much now. If it brings you a little of that joy too, it has done its job.

Henrietta, Department of Ducks

MaMills trailer

66 seconds. Music, cylinders landing and soft clicks, no speech; the captions describe the sound.

Describe this trailer

66 seconds of MaMills, captured from the game, with soft instrumental music ("Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod) and the game's own sounds. No speech.

It opens on a win. A cylinder drops, four blue cylinders light up with a white rim and the rest of the board dims: "Four in a row." A result card reads "Blue wins!": "Through the cube."

On an empty board the cursor steps between sticks and three cylinders drop, the third landing on the first: "Pick a stick." "Gravity does the rest." "Rows, columns, stacks, diagonals." "76 ways to win."

The board turns and tilts, then Lock view freezes the tilt while it keeps turning: "Rotate it, or lock the angle." On a full board three red lines light up: "Hint shows every live threat." A blue cylinder drops and the lights go out: "Block it."

The same board in red and blue, purple and green, blue and orange with stripes and dots, then gold and silver: "Four palettes." "Patterns, not just colour."

The same board again as a Halloween scene, spiders against pumpkins under the moon: "Our first theme, for Next Fest." "More to come."

Eight cylinders drop onto two sticks, each with a different sound, each named as it lands: "Eight drop sounds." Bop, Real-like, Falling, Depth, Cups, Wormy, Glass, Cherry. "Pick yours."

The Settings screen: patterned cylinders, reduce motion and opaque modal backgrounds tick on, then the text grows: "Text size, patterns, less motion." "Settings that fit you." The two loading screens, a tumbling cube of cylinders and a windmill with cylinder sails: "Two loading screens." "Pick the one you like."

The main menu. The Machine's difficulty picker steps from Beginner to Expert: "Play the Machine, five levels." "Or a friend, three ways." The friend picker holds on Same device (Hotseat): "Hotseat, same device." The Local Network lobby: "LAN, same network." Steam Remote Play Together is highlighted in the friend picker: "Steam Remote Play Together, remotely."

It ends on the end card: "Department of Ducks presents", the MaMills windmill seal and title, "Four-in-a-row, but the board goes up too.", a Wishlist on Steam button, and the line "English + Magyar, Play the Machine, or a friend, Cozy, not compulsive".