You wake in a shrine at the top of a plateau with nothing but your hands. An old man is sitting by a campfire. A tower is humming to the north.

Everything burns, conducts or falls the way it should. Fire spreads from tile to tile and runs with the wind, so a grass fire chases downwind and starves against it. Electricity flows out of crystals, through water and through any metal lying on the ground. In a storm, lightning goes for metal near you — so maybe put the sword away. A campfire throws an updraft you can ride on the glider.

None of the puzzles are scripted. The four shrines and the final fight are built from those same few rules.

What's in it

  • A climbable world. An 8-bit landscape stood up in blocks — every cliff, house and tower can be climbed, as long as your stamina lasts.
  • Six quests, about half an hour. Leave the plateau, find the Elder in Oldwater, free four spirits, track down three old photographs, walk the fogged Lost Woods by the light of your torch embers, and face the Blight.
  • A boss made of chemistry. The Blight wears an elemental shell that no blade can cut. Bombs, fire and thrown metal crack it — which one depends on its colour.
  • Regional weather and a day/night cycle. Five regions, each with its own sky.

Controls

Keyboard only — no touch controls, so it won't play on a phone.

  • WASD — move  ·  Q / E — switch item
  • J — sword / talk / read  ·  K — use item
  • L or Space — jump, glide, ride updrafts  ·  hold I — sprint
  • O — turn the camera  ·  M — map  ·  N — music
  • P — developer menu: eight save slots, one per chapter, if you just want to see the Lost Woods or the boss

Arrow keys with Z / X / C also work.

How it's made

There are no image or sound files in it. Every tile, sprite and sound effect is generated in code — about 3,300 lines of JavaScript, with three.js drawing the blocks at the NES's 256 × 240. The world started flat and top-down, the way open worlds get prototyped: chemistry first, height later.

It's a prototype, built in one morning. Bugs and stuck spots are very welcome in the comments.

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