Recompile Phigames / Dear Villagers 2021

Witness the birth of sapient AI in this sprawling atmospheric hacking adventure. Combining traditional Metroidvania mechanics with a dynamic branching narrative system, Recompile challenges players to explore, fight, hack and survive. Discover the many secrets beneath the ancient digital landscape, and prepare for system-wide reconfiguration. The game's entire narrative takes place within 1 second of real time. Delve into the ancient, sprawling ruins of the Mainframe and discover a range of traversal abilities to help you on your journey towards attaining true sapience. This aims to be the first ever Metroidvania-style game to include multiple, highly dynamic critical paths. Your play style and choices matter, weaving together a narrative unique to you as the true nature of the mysterious virtual world is revealed. The untimely fall of the Seven Suns lead to a millenia of neglect, gradually transforming the Mainframe's vast repository of code into a race of half-sentient, half-deterministic subroutines. They exist in a state of flux, as if trapped by their programming in a kind of twisted digital purgatory. You, The Program, must decide on whether to help or hinder the denizens of the Mainframe. The inhabitants are strange and diverse, and many are found to be inherently hostile. A full complement of powerful weapons and abilities are available to help you survive, defend and destroy. Every single environmental feature, including power grids, locked doors and even huge enemy spawning machines are all powered by intricate, interconnected logic gate circuitry. Nothing is hardcoded, everything is systemic, and everything fully exploitable. Logic gates can be freely inverted, overridden or disabled entirely, allowing puzzles or other threatening obstacles to be peacefully and safely bypassed. Even the inhabitants themselves can be tampered with, their programming changed to follow the player's commands. This is a game about choices and consequences. Life and death. Chaos and determinism. Sentience and sapience. Intelligence exists in many forms. In this dying world, one must explore all possibilities. Observe and respect all perspectives. Only then, can we truly survive.
Screenshots/Videos
Standalone Level Demo v5183072 516MB (uploaded by Delacroix)


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