We were recently contacted by the solo developer of Dergham Games about his upcoming game, Light Dude, a “skill-based action game” where the “level hides when you move”.  I recently played the demo for myself, which contains 9 levels and a boss fight.  These levels teach you the basics of the game, and the concept is simple.  The level is fully illuminated…until you move.  Whenever you’re walking, the visibility gets reduced practically to zero, and you’re tasked with memorizing the layout of the room, avoiding obstacles, and timing your movements in the hopes that you can safely navigate your environment in the dark.  You can also collect gems for higher scores, and you’ll need to use your movements carefully, as your light will run out if you move and stop too many times during a stage, though I never once ran out of light during the demo.

Light Dude is an interesting concept.  It actually reminds me of Blackout Basement from the original Donkey Kong Country, where the lights turn on and off the entire time.  The unique challenge made that level one of my favorites in the game, and I enjoyed the fact that Light Dude’s gameplay is similar.  Except you have control of when the lights go out because it’s tied to your movement.  Sometimes you’ll be simply walking around hazards, or you might need to cross over pathways in the dark that will break as you walk over them.  More unique obstacles came in the form of skeletons that only move in the dark, but will freeze in the light.  Sometimes you can walk around them, but more often, I would need to lure them into traps to get rid of them.

I found the regular stages to be rather fun and satisfying to complete, though I didn’t have as much luck with the boss.  Your foe will shoot stuff at you, and seeing as the only way to dodge its projectiles is to run, you’ll be running around in the dark, trying not to bump into anything.  After dodging projectiles twice, a white circle will appear, and if you step into it, your character will jump into the air and attack the boss from a distance.  I managed to hit the boss twice on multiple occasions, but I could never get past that.  Sometimes I would get attacked by the boss during my own attack, though you do have some control over your character in the air, so I was able to avoid the boss’s attacks midair once I realized this.  (Update: The developer has since commented on my video to say that the issue of getting hit while in the air has been fixed, since this was confusing to a lot of players.)  Nevertheless, I inevitably spent about half my playtime (about 20 minutes) dying to the boss because I kept bumping into obstacles during phase 3.

Despite my issues with the boss fight, the rest of the demo was fun, and I’m curious as to what other sorts of obstacles will be encountered in later stages.  Hopefully more things akin to luring the skeletons into traps and whatnot, as I always enjoy gameplay that makes you think.  Light Dude  is currently only available as a demo on Steam, but it appears it should be releasing in the second quarter of this year, for anyone who is interested.