I'm in physical pain, right now. I need this game in my life. I need Songbringer to get broughten onto the gaming system of my preference, since it's been on PC and Xbox One since September 1 of last week, and it's out on PlayStation 4 on Tuesday of this week.
You play as Roq, a shirtless, top-hat-rockin' sword swinger, and you're accompanied by Jib, a hovering and level-headed robo companion. You've wrecked your Tron bike on a procedurally generated Zelda-like world, with nothing more than a vague grid map to guide you. There are dungeons, there are dragons, and there is a dubstep-lite soundtrack to mash up the pixelated art style with your dude bro sensibilities.
Until I get a sequel to Hyper Light Drifter, Songbringer will certainly do. I don't think Songbringer has the storytelling chops of the esoteric Hyper Light Drifter, but I don't think it's trying to. What it does try for, and which it does wonderfully, is put you on a gorgeous retro-pixel map with a busy and gloriously messy amount of particles getting thrown around the screen—couched with a few good old-fashioned boss battles for good measure.
It's all the more impressive, knowing that it's a one-man project. While this game came out of nowhere for me, Nathanael Weiss (writer, programmer, and apparently one heckuva pixel artist) ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015, nearly doubling his surprising low $9,000 goal. Weiss missed his estimated December 2015 launch date, but that period might've been devoted to launching on the entire PC/PS4/XBO trifecta, which he'll have accomplished as of tomorrow.
The video above is a demo with developer commentary.
Songbringer – from one-man indie dev Wizard Fu Games – comes to PC and Xbox One today, PlayStation 4 follows on September 5th
Zelda-style, procedurally generated action RPG features the adventures of Roq, and his robot companion Jib
Teesside - September 1, 2017 - One man development team Wizard Fu (Nathanael Weiss) and publisher Double Eleven are pleased to announce that Songbringer releases today for Xbox One and PC, and for PlayStation™ 4 on the 5th.
Songbringer is an action RPG, inspired by the original Zelda games, with real time combat, a wide range of weapons and a tonne of hidden secrets. World maps are generated from a 6-letter world seed, which determines the layout of the overworld and dungeons.
Players play as Roq, a space-faring planetary surveyor who wakes up shirtless on a strange planet. With the help of robot companion Jib, it’s Roq’s job to piece together what’s happened and save the universe from the evil, ancient army he’s accidentally awoken...
…by stealing their Nanosword.
Only by exploring the harsh world of Ekzera, mastering the dungeons and defeating its fearsome bosses will Roq unlock the secrets of his power and return the galaxy to peace. Along the way he will uncover powerful artefacts and forge them anew, and use the Nanosword to crush galactic giants.
Songbringer gameplay features
- Single-player action RPG
- Local co-operative two player mode
- Full gamepad support, including rumble
- Real time combat
- 7 kinds of weapons including the nanosword, boomerang-like tophat, bombs, blink orb, ghost sword projectile, lighter and kilobombs
- Hundreds of unique items and powerups
- Some items can be combined, for example: ghost sword + lightning cube = lightning sword
- Hidden items, secret entrances, secret pathways, bomb-able walls
- Original soundtrack
- Online leaderboards highlight the top players based on completion time, percentage of map uncovered and percentage of items found
- Roguelike-inspired permadeath option which gives a higher score on the leaderboard and allows for faster runs
- Approximately 6-12 hours of gameplay per adventure, depending on thoroughness
- Procedurally generated overworld and dungeons
- A world contains: 1 overworld, 10 dungeons and 13 primary bosses
FOR MORE INFORMATION: songbringer.com
LIST OF TROPHIES: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KzsbfbYV8Z6o5UxTo5w-VO6l-5SQ6HcMB51oFZAdaF8/edit?usp=drive_web
LIKE A BOSS TRAILER: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx1cAxVVCDmxRW1hSVhoQ1ZhblE/view
LAUNCH TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivm5l7crQZg
