PLAY AND DESIGN

About This Game

Pekla is a roguelike ARPG that focuses on defeating hordes of the damned and character progression.

Pekla is based on the poem Divine Comedy, specifically the first part, Inferno. You will journey through the nine circles of Hell, consisting of Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and finally Treachery.

In each circle, you must balance between slaying the damned, obtaining mystical items, and vanquishing bosses.

The only way is down...

9 Circles of Hell

Each circle represents a singular level with a thematic sin that you must conquer. In each circle, you will face hordes of the damned and have limited time to complete objectives. On top of that, every circle contains unique unlocks, secrets, monsters, and bosses.

Corruptions

During your run through a circle, you will obtain temporary powers ranging from minor enhancements that complement your build to major ones that completely shift your playstyle, encouraging experimentation instead of sticking to a single build.

Synergies

Each skill is designed with unique effects, balancing around enabling different builds.

Here are a few examples:

• Slash allows you to efficiently cleave through hordes of monsters. When combined with Berserk, your Slash will activate more frequently, significantly increasing your DPS.

• A minion build using Raise Skeleton also benefits from Berserk, as it affects your minions, making them faster.

• Instead of using minions purely for damage, combining them with a power that casts your highest-level spell on minion death can completely shift the dynamic, creating unique implications.

Skills have damage types that create synergies and anti-synergies:

• Firebolt raises the temperature of monsters on impact, making them more vulnerable to further damage.

• However, Cold damage reduces a monster’s temperature, negating the fire vulnerability but slowing them instead.

• Poisoned monsters take periodic damage from gas, but raising their temperature detonates the gas in a volatile explosion, consuming the poison and dealing massive damage to nearby enemies.

  

Progression

Vanquishing the damned will reward you with powerful items featuring unique stat rolls. Every stat is designed to complement specific builds, avoiding redundancy.

Each item has the potential to drop in its most powerful version, completely shifting character progression. Items are retained between runs, allowing your character to grow with every attempt.

Challenges

Each circle contains four bosses that must be defeated in order to progress.

Bosses present unique challenges and serve as benchmarks for testing builds.

Additionally, with every encounter, bosses will learn from your patterns and attempt to counter your strategies.

Each circle will also feature secret challenges tied to its particular sin.

Design Pillars

Pekla is designed around a few core pillars to ensure a clear vision for the game. This doesn’t mean that every system will perfectly align with these pillars, but it guarantees that as the game evolves, it will stay true to its core principles.

• No hand-holding – We believe the best experiences come when players discover things on their own. This means the game won’t always provide clear indications about objectives, secrets, or where to go and what to avoid.

• Easy to learn, hard to master – We want players to jump into the gameplay immediately without long introductions or tutorials while also offering a sense of mastery, where experience and skill can greatly impact future playthroughs. The game is also designed with a speedrunning component in mind.

• Fun above balance – While balance is important to prevent the game from being dominated by a single meta, it should never come at the expense of fun.

• Theory crafting – We want players to come up with creative builds rather than relying on simple stat padding. Instead of a single dominant build that completes the game, each build should come online at different stages, with unique power spikes and trade-offs.

• Best idea wins – We carefully listen to player feedback and apply changes while staying true to the game's core pillars.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The store page capsule image background is generated by AI.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Game contains violence a, gore and lots of blood.