Big update on the Darkness Reclamation Kickstarter happened on August 3rd, 2016! After many long hours of work to polish and put together, there is finally a playable demo posted both here and on itch.io!
A brief description of Darkness Reclamation for those who don't know: Darkness Reclamation is a highly randomly generated action adventure platforming title (Metroidvania-like), which is currently running a Kickstarter campaign in search of funding.
One of the biggest visual and gameplay motifs in Darkness Reclamation is that the world is void of light; when there is nothing casting light on the screen, it will appear pitch black. Fortunately, though this world is of dying light, there exist creatures who emit light, outlining the world around you. Not only this, but the player is one of these creatures, carving out the world around them by emitting light. As the screenshot below shows, the world is only as visible as the players light allows it to be (Top: how the player sees the world. Bottom: how the world really is, with ground that is visible).
Among the things the game randomly generates are maps, areas, weapons, enemies, bosses, and music. When development progresses, the random generation is planned to be written to follow a hierarchal form in order to maintain a high game quality. That is, the game will randomly generate a map, which will then be used to strategically place weapons and abilities randomly on it, which will then be used to craft the areas of the map towards them... etc, etc. Now, on to what the demo will present to you!
The Darkness Reclamation demo contains a brief, controlled look at what the final game will feel like. It gives a handful of weapons and enemies to explore on a small map. The demo is "completed" when you reach the pure white room on the map - however, you can continue to explore after this discovery, this will only mean you have obtained all the weapons on the map.
This environment gives the player a chance to experiment with how the running, jumping, wall jumping, and attacking feel, while exploring a map and collecting new weapons to try out. Neat! Not only that, but each area will generate it's own music when you enter it, and will dynamically change instruments when you get close to the next item, and volume when close to the final room.
I hope you all have lots of fun with the demo!
Until next time
