About This Game

The flame on the hill has burned since before the town had a name.

It is the idea of fire, and it has to be fed. Feeding it is what the Lanternguard is actually for.

Eleven days ago your mother went down into the Deepworks to feed it, with the Princess walking behind her as witness. Nobody came back up. The flame is down a hand's width, which it has never done before. And a man who stands where no light touches him has put an offer to the King: he has the Captain and the Princess, they are both alive, and he gives them back on the day Hearthold lets the flame go out.

There is nobody else left who can hold a lantern. There is you, a recruit's lantern, your mother's knife, which is a bad knife, and the key to the Deepworks.

Go down, fight, come back up, save, shop, sleep, and go down again

That is the whole loop, and it gets worse as you go rather than more complicated.

• Ten floors, one square at a time. You see it in first person and turn in four directions, with no free camera. The mazes are fixed, so the one you learn is the one that is there tomorrow.
  
• Turn-based fights for a party of three. There are 46 spells and 43 monsters. Nine of them are bosses, and eight of the nine answer a mechanic rather than simply owning more HP.
  
• The walk back up is part of the game. You can only save in town. Turning around with a full bag and a wounded party is a win, and knowing when to do it is most of the skill.
  
• An automap you have to earn. Without that floor's survey you see only the squares you have personally stood on. Pin the door you could not open and come back for it when the lantern can.
  
• Your lantern is the key ring. Wading a flooded ward, seeing through a false wall, crossing a shaft on a rope: each is something the lantern learns, and each one reopens floors you thought you had finished.
  
• Four endings. Which one you see depends on what you choose, and none of them has to be unlocked.

Nine floors lead down to the bottom, and a tenth lies off the main path. How long the descent takes depends mostly on how often you decide to walk back up.

Settings that respect your time

• Story Mode. The party takes 60% of normal damage. Turning it on doesn't lock or mark anything, and every ending stays open.
  
• Reduced encounter rate. You fight less often in each corridor, and what monsters drop stays the same.
  
• Auto-battle on one key, and battle and text speed from slow to instant.
  
• Colourblind aids. Spells name their element and damage numbers carry a sign.
  
• Remappable keys, screen shake off, separate music and sound volume, full gamepad control.
  
• English and Brazilian Portuguese, both complete, changed from the options menu.

A Light in the Gloam is the first game from Petersen Projects, and I made it alone as a passion project. If you find a bug or have an idea, post it in the forum and I'll answer.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

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

A Light in the Gloam is a solo project. The story, characters, level design and game systems are the developer's own. The art, audio, text and trailers were made with the help of AI tools to speed up the work and bring the project to life. Nothing is generated while you play.