Never one for fuss and fanfare, celebrated indie developer Jason Rohrer yesterday quietly released The Castle Doctrine. The home security/invasion game from the creator of The Passage and Sleep Is Death is out in alpha form for $8--half the price the finished version will be. Heck, if you pick up a few tricks from playing, you can make that money back in a few minutes of casual burglary.

Set in a dystopian alternate 1991, The Castle Doctrine is a massively multiplayer game of sorts. You'll need to protect your house--its contents and your family--from would-be burglars with intricate systems of doors, alarms, and traps. And then go and rob other people's houses, carefully negotiating their own horrible defences. And, ah, maybe get violent.

You see, each house in the world belongs to another player, and you're all stealing from each other. If you only want to rob your friends, you can set up your own server.

Buying The Castle Doctrine gets you PC and Mac editions, as well as the source code to compile yourself on Linux. All future updates are included, like the Minecraft model, and you get a lifetime account on the main game server.