Gliding and slashing your way across a craggy landscape to the sound of a driving synth soundtrack, you’re not entirely sure what purpose your keeled avatar serves in the ruinous cyberpunk wasteland of Resolutiion. You’ll surely find out eventually, as this moody neon-coloured world drip-feeds you information that gives some context to your violent actions.
In the meantime, you must keep exploring, keep fighting, and keep uncovering the secrets of this world.
Resolutiion is an adventure four years in the making - a passion project conceived by a pair of brothers enamoured with some of the pixelated greats of gaming. Their inspirations are far-ranging: from the world designs of Zelda and the Metroidvania genre, to the aesthetics and searing mechanics of modern indie hits like Hyper Light Drifter and Katana Zero.
It’s a game that's fast-paced and vicious during its combat sequences, but also satisfying on the macro scale, as you discover items that slowly let you interconnect and unify the game world. It’s a tried-and-tested gameplay loop that’s familiar territory for publisher Deck13, which has itself been refining the Souls-like formula with The Surge series.
Under the studio name Monolith of Minds, the developers are making an action-adventure hybrid that aims to slot right into an indie gaming scene well-stocked with dark, alluring art styles and easily graspable yet addictive mechanics. Not that Resolutiion is an easy game, replete as it is eldritch monstrosities and a smattering of formidable bosses designed to test and break down the most grizzled of gamers.
Despite having the speedy feel of an action game during its combat sequences, Resolutiion has much more in common with classic adventures and RPGs like Zelda and Secret of Mana than you might think. The world is open for you to explore, letting you acquaint yourself with its denizens who will eagerly share their stories and task you with quests that will steadily unfurl the grim lore of the world.
While we can’t give too much away about the story, we do know that Resolutiion will make you question your place on the good-evil axis, with your actions and story progression floating in a constant state of moral uncertainty. Are you helping to save the world or destroy it? Are your actions even taking place in reality or some hazy in-between space you can’t escape? Resolutiion will throw all kinds of quandaries at you throughout its 20-hour story, and things will often be more complex than they seem.
One of the more interesting aspects of Resolutiion is that it’s been created entirely using open-source tools. What began as an educational journey for the devs, who would use software like GIMP for the artwork and Audacity for sound design, eventually became the rule for the project. Resolutiion even runs on the open-source Godot engine, which is fast gaining traction on the indie development scene.
Coming from a developer-publisher team that combines a lifelong love and understanding of videogames with experience in making deep, dark action RPGs, Resolutiion has the ingredients to become an indie darling. Even if we don’t understand the intentions of its enigmatic hero - or anti-hero - we’re itching tofdel slash away at its breakneck combat, and delve into its neon nightmare of a world.
Resolutiion’s Steam page is now live, with the game set to launch in the first half of 2020.
