A Light in the Gloam

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

It is not fire. It is the idea of fire, it has to be fed, and 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.

Descend. Fight. Retreat. Save. Shop. Sleep. Descend deeper.

That is the whole shape of it, and it does not get more complicated, only worse.

• Ten floors, one square at a time. First person, four directions, 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. 46 spells and 43 monsters. Nine of those 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 save in town, not in the dark. 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. The one you get is the one you chose, not the one you unlocked.

Nine floors down to the bottom. How long that takes you depends mostly on how often you decide to walk back up.

Settings that respect your time

• Story Mode. The party takes 60% damage. Nothing is locked, nothing is marked, and no ending is closed off by it.
  
• Reduced encounter rate. Fewer fights per corridor. It does not change what anything drops.
  
• 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 note on how this game was made

A Light in the Gloam is a solo project. The art, the music and the sound effects were generated with AI tools from prompts written by hand, then processed and assembled by the developer. The writing and its Brazilian Portuguese translation were drafted with AI assistance and edited. Nothing is generated while you play. Everything in the game was made before it shipped and is the same for every player.