About
Moonlighter - ARPG with rogue-lite and shopkeeping elements
$134,276
5,229
Moonlighter has been Greenlit! Thank you :D
Moonlighter is a action RPG game with rogue-lite elements about Will, an adventurous shopkeeper, that secretly dreams of becoming a hero.
To earn the daily bread, he needs to venture into the dungeons near his town, defeat strange enemies and obtain loot to be sold at his shop.
Wisely managing the gold from those sales is the only way he’ll get strong enough to risk into deeper gates and, maybe, open the sealed one.
Moonlighter has endless randomly generated dungeons, a myriad of cool and expensive items, many weapons, dozens of weird enemies, five incredibly tough bosses and gold... tonnes of gold!
You start with 100 gold coins. Some cheap equipment.
And a shop.
Our main inspirations are Rogue Legacy, The Binding of Isaac, The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Studio Ghibli and Recettear.
Moonlighter has a dual nature. At its core, it is an action rogue-lite game: focused on combat, looting and exploring dungeons. But, the only way to get stronger, is to sell the items found on the dungeons and wisely invest the money on shop upgrades, new equipment, etc.
We want the player to have a lot of fun exploring dungeons, defeating enemies and getting more powerful, but also to worry about questions like: How much money should I ask for this item? Should I keep or sell this artifact? Should I invest my money on more shop space or potions? Which weapon should I upgrade? How do I get enough money for that?
The Gates is a mysterious excavation on Rynoka that lead aventurers to different Realms: dangerous places, filled with aggressive creatures that seem to loathe anyone who dares to wander around the halls.
Each gate seems to belong to a different Realm, with unique and otherworldly cultures.
When an intruder is defeated inside a Realm the result is not a real, physical, death. Instead, the invader is kicked out of the gate and loses most of the carried items. The Gates only seem interested in keeping its valuable objects as long as possible.
Each enemy drops loot on death, useful for selling, crafting or enchanting on town. Each gate has unique items that belong to its specific culture.
Of course, bosses are awaiting at the end of each dungeon.
Each culture has different art, lore, items, enemies, room structures and a boss. For example, once you cross the first gate, the Golem Culture, built with stone and filled with magic, will try to kick you out.
Here's a glimpse of the rest of the dungeons:
The shop plays an essential role in Moonlighter, since it’s the only source of gold inside the game. It is a minigame on which you should react wisely to the customers entering the shop.
Customers have different behaviours and interests. Some of them would buy an item even if it’s a bit overpriced. Others, on the contrary, will leave the shop empty-handed unless they find a bargain... and, be careful, there will be some shoplifters too.
From time to time, some customers will request for an specific item. If Will can deliver it within a few days, they maybe very generous!
Upgrading the shop by investing a large amount of gold is key to increase its benefits dramatically. You will be able to sell more items at the same time, attract better customers and so on.
Moonlighter is all about combat, items and gold.
There is no level progression, so acquiring a powerful equipment is the only way to find out the mystery behind the sealed gate. What to keep, how to sell, and what to upgrade is crucial for the game.
Will needs to be a good archeologist too. When an item is found for the first time, an entry that contains additional information on the object is added to a notebook. The more Will knows about a culture, the easier it will be for him to set the perfect selling price.
Carrying items around is not easy. Besides the limited inventory space, many have random secondary effects. Some might be positive (like a Golem head that also increases Will’s armor simply by being carried) but most will be oh-not-so-positive.
Moonlighter's goal is to make each run unique and force the player to take some smart decisions.
Moonlighter has a crafting and enchanting system that is essential for the player progression. Interacting with the NPCs in town is the way to craft new armors, weapons and enchant existing equipment.
Crafting results in more powerful weapons, some of them with special features.
Enchanting, on the other hand, allows the player to customize the equipment, adding special features to any item. This creates a great deal of flexibility and spices up the way the equipment is used.
Will can obtain a very wide range of equipment. Currently, we have 4 armors, 35 weapons of 5 classes and several magic ability scrolls.
Our plan is to keep adding more until we are happy about the diversity of the game.
Moonlighter is very challenging and has deep combat mechanics. The depth of combat depends on the interactions between weapons, abilities, enemies and secondary effects of items.
We want players to feel comfortable developing their own battling style.
Weapons
Will can use several classes of weapons, like short swords, heavy swords, spears, etc. Each of them offers a different style of combat, with a basic attack and a special movement.
Special Abilities
After finding some scrolls, Will is able to use special abilities that help him in combat. For example, we have a quick dash, a long ranged projectile, area damage, etc.
Armors
Base armor will not be enough for an inexperienced adventurer. It is necessary to acquire stronger armor if you want to survive. Each armor will have three pieces which are very hard to find or craft: head, body and legs.
Armor pieces are key steps in Will’s path to heroism. That is why we want them to look very cool!
Enemies
As in movies, sometimes a game is only as good as its antagonists. Our artists have poured their hearts and souls into the design of the enemies. It's a consuming task, still in progress. We hope you like them:
Rynoka, Will's hometown, is a small commercial village near an excavation where the gates were found. All the lifestyle of the village is closely related to the wealth obtained from the gates.
We want you to feel at ease in Rynoka. Rynoka is a quiet, friendly and safe place in contrast to the permanent threat of the dungeons.
Inside Rynoka, Will finds everything he needs to progress in the game: his own shop, other shops, some NPCs (like merchants that visit the town) and the access to the Gates.
[UPDATED]
The game will be available on Steam and Humble Store (PC, MAC & Linux) first and then, we will offer it on the digital stores for PlayStation 4 and XBOX ONE.
We tried to deliver a balanced pixel art style between synthetic modern tendencies and a more descriptive classic style. We don’t picture Moonlighter as a retro game (actually, it is quite the opposite) but, at the same time, we can’t deny the influence of dozens of classic games. And we are proud of that!
We are a young but experienced studio that has worked together creating games for three years. We started make a living with outsourcing work but, on our free time, we used to develop several prototypes of our own ideas. Moonlighter is the first idea that we decided to turn into a full game as Digital Sun.
We felt that the world of Moonligther deserved a special music, something rich and with emotional. After asking online (and an overwhelming response from the community) we decided to team up with the amazing Alec Holowka.
He has created the music of great indie titles such like TowerFall, Aquaria, Night in the Wood and Offspring Fling. We were fans of his work for a long time, and we’re very excited with this partnership!
Well, we resemble a little like Will himself, gathering gold while dreaming of being indie heroes. We are working on Moonlighter after we finish our parallel outsourcing work.
So far, we have a vertical slice of Moonlighter, which is already quite fun, but it has taken us almost a year to get here. A successful Kickstarter campaign would allow us to focus a lot more on Moonlighter, being able to finish the game quicker and add a lot more content.
For example, part of the money will grow the art team with 2 more pixel artists. This will have a direct impact on the number of enemies, items, and level of detail that we can provide.
To purchase an add on, all you have to do is:
- Click “Manage Your Pledge” (or click here).
- Click "Change your pledge"
- Add the costs of the add-ons to your pledge amount without changing your tier.
Shipping is included for free if you have already pledged for a tier with any physical reward. If not, then just add USD $10 for shipping costs to your pledge amount.
That’s it. We'll ask for all the details in the backer survey after the campaign.
Risks and challenges
The most obvious risk when developing a videogame is not being able to finish it. We think we have this risk quite under control. We’re experienced developers, a stable team, we are realistic about the effort needed. Also, we already have a quite advanced vertical slice.
Another risk is that this is our first game as an independent studio so we could make some rookie mistakes. We think that working with Square Enix as a partner for the project will help us avoid many of those mistakes. Also, having people like Alec Holowka, who has already been through the process helps a lot too!
Another important fact is that the game itself has to be polished, balanced, etc.. At a certain point we'll need feedback from the community to make it easy to balance some aspects of the game (mostly related to feel and difficult). This means that in certain point we will involve the community on this process (beta access, for example). We are all about quality but we'll need some help ;)
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Funding period
- (33 days)