5.9 KiB
Light & Dark — Prototype
A 2D platformer built with Pygame. You switch between two forms — Light and Shade — each with different movement, combat, and ability behavior, all driven by a single shared resource: Charge (Flow).
Note: this is a prototype. All progress (quests, boss tokens, broken walls, defeated bosses) is in-memory and resets when you restart the game — intentional, for fast testing.
Running the game
python main.py
Requires Python 3.10+ and pygame. Game data (rooms, items, sets, enemies, drops) lives in data/. Rooms are edited with the included browser tool: level_editor_v43.html.
Controls
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Move | A / D |
| Jump | W |
| Move down / drop | S |
| Heal | Space (hold) |
| Melee attack | E |
| Ranged shot | Q |
| Dash | Tab |
| Shatterstep | R |
| Tether | X |
| Reality Break | C |
| Toggle Light/Shade | Left Shift |
| Interact / Talk | F |
| Inventory | I |
| Stats overlay | H |
| Pause / Settings | Esc |
The two forms
Light — faster movement, higher jump, and charge refills over time. You take contact damage from enemies.
Shade — slower but tanky: immune to enemy contact damage, deals double melee damage, and can use shade-specific gear bonuses. But being in Shade drains Charge (and Shade is forced off when Charge hits 0). Shade also drains Charge twice as fast while clipping inside an enemy.
Charge (Flow) — base max 100, refills at 20/s in Light, drains at 40/s in Shade. Standing near a lantern/light source doubles Charge regeneration. Attacks, dash (Light), ranged shots, and healing all cost Charge.
Abilities (by form)
| Ability | Key | Light | Shade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melee | E | 1 damage, costs 1 Charge | 2 damage, costs 1 Charge |
| Dash | Tab | Costs 10 Charge; stuns enemies hit | Costs 1 HP; deals 4 damage to enemies hit |
| Ranged | Q | Costs 5 Charge, 0.45s cooldown, 0.5 damage; breaks green ability walls | Same, but 1.0 damage |
| Shatterstep | R | Spawns a platform under your feet while airborne (extra jumps) | On landing, creates a damaging shockwave AOE below you |
| Tether | X | Binds the enemy (3s) and fears it (runs away) | Insta-kills enemies below a HP threshold (normal ⅓, miniboss 20%, boss 5%); otherwise slows them |
| Reality Break | C | Doubles drop & coin rates and glows enemies | Instantly kills all enemies but halves drop & coin rates |
| Heal | Space | Spend Charge to heal over ~2s (slower while healing) | Unavailable |
Combat notes
- Enemy contact damage only applies in Light form.
- Boss shockwave attacks poison you for 4 seconds: the health bar turns green and you lose 1 HP per second.
- Attacks and hits use invincibility frames and knockback; your melee hitbox covers ~30% into your body so close/overlapping hits always connect.
Equipment & Armor Sets
Slots: helmet, chest, pants, necklace. Pieces roll stats (move speed, heal, charge, health, etc.).
Rarities: tempered (tier 1) → attuned (tier 2) → awakened (tier 3, unlocks ability slots). The Upgrader NPC turns 5 tempered copies of an item into 1 attuned copy.
Sets (3 pieces of the same set, attuned or better):
| Set | Summary |
|---|---|
| Dawnrunner | +HP; awakened adds Light move speed |
| Gravemark | +max Charge; awakened adds Charge regen |
| Vitalweave | +HP; awakened adds +heal |
| Duskwarrior | +Shade damage; awakened restores Charge on Shade hits |
| Twister | Removes Shade speed penalty; awakened gives move speed after switching forms |
| Paladin | Chance to negate incoming damage; awakened adds +HP |
| Luminal Growth | +Charge regen while standing still in Light; awakened also negates damage |
| Abyss Cleaver | Chance to heal on kill; awakened also gives move speed on kill |
| Umbraflow | Reduces Shade Charge drain |
| Adaptive Traveller | Move speed after switching forms; awakened restores Charge on switch |
The shade-focused sets (Duskwarrior, Umbraflow, Abyss Cleaver, Adaptive Traveller) are intentionally excluded from early boss and town-shop loot, so you can always complete the remaining sets.
NPCs (Town 1: Gloomreach)
- Vendor — sells basic armor pieces.
- Necklace Vendor — sells necklaces.
- Upgrader — attunes 5× tempered → attuned.
- Combat Master — upgrades your boss token to unlock the Hard boss variant.
- Boss Diary — an interactable book: view your collected boss tokens in a grid, slot/unslot them, and start refights.
Rooms & Progression
room_01— tutorial. Contains a quest object (pink): accept the "First Kills" quest (kill 4 normal enemies → 5–15 light coins, repeatable).room_02— first enemies.room_07— hub, branching to the boss, reward room, and town.room_boss_01— Gloom Warden fight. Defeating him drops his boss token.room_reward_01— reward chest + the Ranged ability, locked behind green ability walls.room_town_gloomreach— Town 1 (NPCs above).room_boss_refight_01— diary refight room (same arena, no exits until the boss dies or you die).
Boss Diary & Tokens
- Beat the world boss → collect his token (teal pickup).
- Bring it to the diary in town and slot it (or keep it in your inventory).
- Slotting unlocks Fight (Normal). Upgrading the token at the Combat Master unlocks Fight (Hard) — the boss moves and shoots twice as fast.
- Dying in a refight returns you to the diary. Removing a token from the diary sends it back to your inventory, disabling the fight until you re-slot it.
HUD & Stats
- Top-right: health bar (turns green while poisoned), Charge bar, coin counts.
- Ability icons with cooldown indicators (top-left).
- H toggles a detailed overlay: exact HP/Charge, move speeds (both forms), heal duration, attack rate, Charge regen, the lantern buff, and any stat bonuses from gear.