An unexpected treat at Sweden Games Conference was the dark and moody caverns of adventure puzzler Bound to Light, from developer Babloon Studios.
Dark and moody is about as different as you could get from the studio’s debut game Blowhards — a king-of-the-hill style brawler based around players gobbing jets of air at each other — which launched earlier in the year.
Bound to Light is a game which revolves around three things: stealth, possession and body swapping. Players control the game’s protagonist, Lux — a glowing blue humanoid with power over life — as they work their way through dark tombs in an attempt to free the world from the darkness which has all but consumed it.
Channelling passive platforming games of the past, like the Abe’s Odyssey or Little Big Adventure series, Bound to Light is a game of diversions and possessions. The main character’s primary ability is having a way to bring fallen husks into a limbo-like state of existence as soul-bound slaves, with collateral abilities of swapping place with them and commanding them to follow or remain in place. This subsequently gives you the power to cast them into the path of trouble to save your own skin.
Every puzzle requires the use of the husks, be that in having them activate weighted panels, pace towards you through piles of hollow, rattling bones to make a noise, or simply by being able to shift between them as one of the game’s enemies — giant, shadowy hounds — are about to pounce on you.
The hounds (wicked, hulking things) are always patrolling when you find them, with little better to do than sprint full pelt at Lux or Lux’s husks should they spot or hear them. At the moment they move unbelievably fast, and are programmed to have extremely sensitive ‘senses’ — something which is a little bit frustrating in the current build’s early stages, where the game attempts to introduce stealth and movement mechanics but the camera is far too tight. The developers were quick to comment on this, stating that they were aware of the issue and had already, reassuringly, started work on the fix.
The brutal enemies and puzzle-like nature, combined with the dancing shadows of the world, offer up an interesting tease of a promising puzzle-adventure game.
I say tease, because the game is currently listed for a release date in the Autumn of 2018, with currently available versions of the game not even deemed an alpha, let alone a beta. Strange, because the gameplay — from dynamic locking and surfaces to the visual effects tied to objects and the binding between husks and Lux — all felt perfectly implemented and easily Early Access ready.
Bound to Light is currently in an extremely playable prototype state, and it was this prototype build — the same as is available on Steam, Gamejolt, and Itch.io — which I played over in Skövde earlier in the year.
