Coming soon

About This Game

OVERVIEW
Explore the vast outskirts of a strange and fantastical domain in Behind the Kingdom! As you navigate and discover hidden, winding paths in its huge interconnected map, you will gain abilities both magical and technological, giving you enormous freedom in how you choose to traverse its biomes and combat its troublemakers. In order to solve the Kingdom's woes, you'll need the help of its many outlaws & outcasts who may, in their exile, carry the soul of the realm after all...

GAMEPLAY
This is a 2D side-scrolling action game, featuring a large map with over 12 unique biomes and multiple possible critical paths to the end. There is traditional "metroidvania ability gating" as your character gains new movement abilities, which will have immediate impact on the moment-to-moment gameplay as well. There is no leveling system; the only "grind" is exploring to find the many possible upgrades that will make you stronger but also more customized. There are many types of upgrade, but the game reveals them gradually so the focus remains on immersive, flowing gameplay with ever increasing complexity. Most of your time will be spent exploring, engaging in fun and breezy combat with many diverse enemies and bosses, platforming, and action-based puzzles.

STORY
Within the Kingdom, folks increasingly look alike, talk alike, and think alike - but behind the kingdom is another story entirely. Every area in the kingdom's Backcountry has a wild diversity of both interesting enemies to battle and friendly weirdos to help you along. You will need to get to know the good, the bad, and the in-between, if you are to help unravel the many-layered issues plaguing the realm.

SPEAKING TO THE GENRE
I (the solo developer) exclusively play this style of game, so if it were ME looking at this page, here's what I'd wanna know:

• No "corpse-runs". Player death may occasionally set you back, requiring you to go through an area more carefully or later with a stronger character. No penalties on death other than checkpoint resetting.
  
• Dialogue & Cutscenes: though the game's story is important, there will not be much in-game text to click-through, or cutscenes to wait out. The goal is to communicate the events almost entirely through environment or in-game action.
  
• Map: the game will have a detailed, live-updating map to aid in exploration. If there is community interest, player upgrades may be added to show all hidden items for those in pursuit of 100% completion.
  
• Backtracking: the game will have generous fast travel options. Most backtracking should be by choice, in search of new discoveries, not just to get from point A to B.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: General Mature Content