The pre-alpha for Swords & Shadows has a great foundation set up for a 3D hack-n-slash dungeon runner. The game opens with the player character (who looks like Bomberman without a helmet) inside a cave system filled with hostile skeleton warriors. These blade-wielding foes are waiting across the entire series of tunnels, ready to spring their attack on the player. Making their way through the tunnel to the next door is the only driving objective, leaving the player hoping for a way out of this seemingly endless nightmare. You can roll and attack, so dodging enemies and preserving those three hearts health is the key to making it through this.
There is a boss fight, eventually, and you’ll know it when you see it. Unfortunately, there are no health pickups, so keeping as untouchable as possible will leave you with enough health to last through the boss. Each tunnel is procedurally generated, so you never know when you’ll come up on the boss fight. You can cut open chests to get gems, though I’m not sure what you’ll need them for. I spent my entire playthrough hoping to get some health, but it’s never gonna happen. If you get down to your last half a heart and end up landing in the middle of the boss fight, you better hope you have some serious tumble skills to preserve that last drop of HP.
Download the pre-alpha build on itch.io.
Played it? We’d love to know what you thought about it.
