After the void
It's been a long time! After the Halloween update, I took a break from social media and other updates to focus entirely on the development of The Shadowed Rune.
The demo on Steam and our booth at Indie Dev Day 2024 in Barcelona (Spain) received a lot of positive feedback, but I also took note of many things that needed improvement:
Graphics
Lighting
Characters
Rune management system
Controls
As you can see, these are critical elements for a new game that hopes to stand out in such a competitive genre. So, I focused on addressing each issue one by one.
Graphics
The first step was to stylize the characters. The main criticism was that they looked too childish, which might lead people to think the game is for kids—when it absolutely isn’t. I was aiming for a storybook look, like a “fairy tale”—but a dark one.
So, I started experimenting to find the ideal scale for the characters without losing their distinctive style. Maia had to remain recognizable.
This was the final result:
Maia is now an 18-year-old apprentice sorceress, ready to face adventure.
Adapting the characters to a taller height also forced a complete rescale of the environments. What I had designed no longer worked. Projectiles now fly higher, further from the ground, walls need to be taller, and both characters and enemies must be able to hide behind them. Suddenly, everything started falling into place, and I began planning a full redesign of objects and environments.
But I didn’t stop there—I've also completely revamped the interface to make it cleaner and give the game a visual refresh. The Shadowed Rune doesn't have a dedicated art designer: I handle all the art and programming myself, which means things take longer since I have to alternate between both roles—but the final implementation is more controlled and cohesive.
Once I nailed down the new visual style, I moved on to lighting. I experimented with several systems and was lucky enough to coordinate the new look with the release of the Crystal Lightning Engine by Fox of Jungle—by far the most advanced lighting system for GameMaker.
After purchasing the license, I spent nearly two months implementing the features I needed: bloom, HDR, tone mapping, and dynamic lighting with depth. After many headaches… the game looked amazing.
That said, the transition wasn’t easy. I wanted lighting to feel real without sacrificing performance. So dynamic shadows are reserved for specific objects that cast them, while the rest is managed with small lights and detailed tricks. The current system supports over 1,000 simultaneous lights, hundreds of spells each with their own lighting, and hundreds of enemies animated with bones using Spine.
Controls
The rune rotation system was difficult to grasp—you never knew exactly where a rune would land, and reordering them was confusing. While we kept the rune system, we simplified it: it now works like a classic RPG or inventory system, controlled with a simple cursor. Select a water rune, and you’ll cast a water spell.
This opened the door to new ideas, such as combining runes to create new elements, simply by surrounding one rune with two of another type. Suddenly, the fusion problem was solved, and we had massively expanded the combination possibilities—without even counting the arcane spells…
We also added a highly requested feature: a pet. We spent a lot of time (around four months) finding the right design and functionality fully integrated into the story. That’s how Neku was born.
To summarize, Neku is a portable rune altar. It must always have a rune equipped (or it would die), but it allows you to store a rune that you can swap out at any time—even with another player—acting as an intermediary. Neku follows you and teleports if it gets too far, but if it gets in the way while interacting with objects or NPCs, you can hide it with the press of a button.
We believe it’s been a fun, functional, and original addition.
Control improvements—especially with gamepads—allow you to now aim, dodge backward, and shoot at the same time: total mobility. There have been many small tweaks that we’ll present later, and you’ll be able to try them in the upcoming demo.
Oh, and by the way… you can jump now.
The new environment system opened up possibilities for new collision types—falling into holes or water, for example. The ability to jump enabled me to add platforming puzzles and new kinds of traps.
The Team Is Growing!
The Shadowed Rune is developed by me (Javifugitivo), Félix (composer), and now a new member: Purple Raven, our Gameplay Designer. Their role will be designing mechanics, puzzles, and levels.
As you know, the game will feature procedurally generated dungeons, staying true to its action roguelike nature.
To speed up development, we created a powerful internal level editor. We can now build a level in just minutes directly within the game and test it without even closing the build. Once tested, it's saved as a file and ready to be included as part of the dungeon generation system.
But the best part is…
Level Editor for Players
When we saw the potential of our editor, we realized it could be further developed for players to create their own levels, dungeons, and challenges. It was so easy to use that we immediately began exploring how to integrate it alongside the main campaign.
The foundation is already in place, and it will likely grow alongside the game. Most assets created for the campaign are added to the editor at the same time.
This feature will be launched during Early Access in a limited form, but I hope to expand it over time so you can share your creations with the whole community.
I’ve still left many things out—like the player-modifiable biome system, the camp management mechanics, and the endgame law system… but I’ll save those for future devlogs.
Unfortunately the current demo was not representative of the actual game so I have temporarily removed it until the new updated version is available (it will be worth the wait!)