Alight in the Dark (AppID: 2019020)

Alight in the Dark is a reverse bullet hell survival game with a strategic ability and equipment system.




Players have limited inventory space and must choose items wisely. The game features side levels for a change of pace and rewards for completing challenges.




This game offers a fresh start each playthrough, but with permanent unlocks (characters, upgraded stats) for an advantage. It also has a permanent progression system where players earn souls for unlocking base stats.




Players use abilities and equipment to survive against relentless attacks and make strategic decisions using the elements of fire, earth, water, air, light, and shadow. Player choice is crucial and decision making is paused per choice. The game is set in a world where humanity underwent a "revolution of faith," resulting in the split of light into these elements.

Development Roadmap

Soul Shards (Ascension System)

• Rewards from gaining Global profile levels (levels that persist between games) these can be used in a powerful skill tree like interface where choices matter depending on which Element path you want to focus on.
  
• Tiers 1 through 4, levels 1 through 100 (Global levels)
  
• - As of 29th July 2023, Tier 1 (levels 1 through 15) is now available.
  
• Experience gains from release will persist for this future system, all experience gained in-game is added to a global total experience, which in turn is used for the Ascension System

Ability Synergies & Evolutions

• Using equipment and certain ability combinations will result in the option to evolve them into stronger versions
  
• These evolutions will aim to have their own sequence of upgrades
  
• Tier 1 evolution: 2 maxed abilities = 1 evolved ability
  
• Tier 2 evolution: 1 evolved ability + synergizing equipment = Tier 2 evolution of ability

Expansions

• We will be adding more maps, more abilities and more bosses, but in moderation. We will try not to make the game unnecessarily complex
  
• We are currently leaning towards an approach to this were we raise the base game price per "big expansion", rather than doing a DLC approach
  
• This will also introduce unique mobs per map, cutscenes for map and hero unlocks and more to come

Boss Challenge Rooms

• Fight several or single bosses that have unique mechanics in a single challenge map for unique rewards
  
• The Void boss encounters would be a perfect candidate for this where each element has its own unique boss

Settings and Customization (and/or General QoL)

• We intend to add a wide range of options for tweaking the game to your liking
  
• Custom crosshairs/cursors
  
• UI element positioning/layout
  
• All configurable through XML files local to the executable, and stored using steam cloud

Ranked Mode

• Once we're comfortable with our anti-cheat detection/implementations we will add leaderboards/hiscores
  
• Potential for entire game Replays to be stored for anti cheat purposes and/or for a subscription fee to cover server costs/networking for this
  
• Replay system will most likely be free for local use/"unranked"

Game Modes

• General idea is to have some official game modes like "limit break" where you lock in one ability and its upgrades go on forever
  
• We might also add sped up gameplay to this (faster wave timers) as well as more max mob spawns per wave
  
• There is a good chance that we even take this to the next level and allow users to make their own shareable game-modes with their own rules/settings