Shadow of the Moon

A Roguelike Action-Adventure Graphic Novel and RPG Video Game

Overview

Shadow of the Moon is an Indie, Roguelike, Action-Adventure Graphic Novel and RPG Video Game created by Apotheosis Studios.

The story follows Zera, a young warrioress who is trapped in nightly recurring nightmares in which she desperately tries to rescue her kidnapped sister Kasha who Zera believes is held hostage in the dark and deadly Tetragar Tower.

Zera witnessed her sister’s violent abduction, and—although her memory is confused and conflicted—she relives the terror with greater clarity every night.

During each dream, Zera’s infiltration of Tetragar Tower feels as real and painful as the waking world, and with each subsequent “death” she learns the skills and abilities necessary to defeat the Tower, learn the truth of her past, and become a Shadow of the Moon.

While Zera’s dreams enhance her knowledge of martial arts and silent assassination, her waking hours are spent in Castle Rahu—her family’s ancestral home—to shed light on her mysterious past. It soon becomes clear that the attack that took her sister had been much more brutal than Zera had allowed herself to remember. Zera also begins to suspect that her dreams are being controlled by near omnipotent beings who not only possess mysterious powers and motives, but will stop at nothing in achieving their own Machiavellian goals.

Key Features

Deeply immersive storyline and expanded franchise tie-in, starring an intriguing heroine and a diverse cast of emotive supporting characters;
Epic role-playing & action-adventure gameplay, including real-life martial arts, a dynamic combat system, and customizable abilities and equipment;
Semi-permadeath that balances loss of progress with persistence of upgrades, and other roguelike mechanics;
Immersive, procedurally-generated environments, with high risk/reward exploration;
Vivid art focusing on dark, magical-surrealism aesthetic, feeling both nostalgic and unique;
High replayability with native Twitch Integration optimized for Speed Runners and other Streamers.

Shadow of the Moon is rooted in the classic gameplay of a dungeon crawler, but is a modern evolution of the genre that not only builds upon the successful mechanics of adventure games, but pioneers new ground within the field of story-driven, rogue-like action RPGs with a foundation room-clearing combat and innovative upgrade systems for skills and equipment.

Shadow of the Moon features characters set within a critically acclaimed fantasy/sci-fi world already possessing proven, mass-market appeal. Although no experience with the Rune Chronicles is needed to play Shadow of the Moon, this game weaves seamlessly into the larger framework of Rune of the Apprentice and its sequel, giving this game’s world, story, and characters unparalleled depth.

Like the game Hyper Light Drifter, Shadow of the Moon captures the same type of nostalgia for stylish platformers. The game’s innovative, story-driven approach to permadeath and persistent skill and ability progression, akin to Rogue Legacy, merges with the dungeon progression and room-clearing mechanics of Dungeon of the Endless. By embracing an evolving skill, ability, and gear progression which persist after death, players of Shadow of the Moon find a rewarding balance between losing progress upon failure (lost upon death level progression) and managing scarce resources which grant permanent upgrades.

Interwoven into the gameplay experience, Shadow of the Moon’s unique role-playing storyline combines the immersive and emotional elements of Bastion, while expanding upon Undertale’s innovative style of player interaction through branching dialogue, player agency, and causal gameplay affect. With a dark, atmospheric aesthetic, Shadow of the Moon achieves an artistic world cohesion akin to Darkest Dungeon while still being grounded in its epic-fantasy source material of The Rune Chronicles.