Shardlight

[Grundislav]

Wadjet Eye Games Presents:

The world ended on the day the bombs fell.

Since then, it's always been like this. Disease, hunger, death. The ruling Aristocrats have unchallenged authority – a faceless oligarchy that controls all resources, and there's never enough food, water or vaccine for everyone. The poor live in fear, superstition and squalor. The rich receive regular doses of vaccinations in exchange for unconditional government support.

Amy has never known a life beyond this, and has had to resort to working for Tiberius, the ruthless head of the Ministry of Energy, in order to qualify for the vaccine lottery.  However, she will soon learn that the government is keeping a terrible secret.  With the help of a mysterious figure, Amy will work to unite the oppressed, bring down Tiberius, and find a cure for the plague.

Screenshots:











For those of you who played OROW games The Rebirth and The Reaper, this is the full game teased by those two stories.

The Team
Ben Chandler: Background Art, Character Animations, Story
Francisco Gonzalez: Design, Writing, Story, Coding
Ivan Ulyanov: Character Portraits
Nathaniel Chambers: Music and Sound

Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Download Demo
Buy it!
Humble Store
Steam
GOG

[Frodo]

Bought if from GOG. 

[CaptainD]

Looks amazing.  I mean, it's looked amazing for quite a while, but it's even more amazing now it's released

Gratz guys.

[Fitz]

My pre-order just aarived!

[Amayirot Akago]

Glad to have been lucky enough to be chosen to receive an early review copy of this game, and I immensely enjoyed it Here's my full review with my thoughts on the game.

https://youtu.be/uUoWkyxQTsY

[Stupot]

Got it from GOG.
Nothing happens when I click on the setup program. I've tried disabling UAC which has worked in the past (I've had this issue with installers before), but this time it didn't help. I even went away and played darts for half an hour to see if it was just taking its time (sometimes it was just a matter of waiting). Should I just wait even longer?

[Dave Gilbert]

Hmm. Is this a setup program that GOG gives you? I never give them installers when I send them builds, so I'm wondering if its something they created themselves.

[Mandle]

 Gonna have to get my hands on this game soon!

[Stupot]

Hmm. Is this a setup program that GOG gives you? I never give them installers when I send them builds, so I'm wondering if its something they created themselves.

Yes, it's the GOG setup. I've sussed it, now though. In the properties it said that the file was blocked because it came from a different computer, so I had to click 'unblock' and then it worked fine... First time I've ever come across that.

Anyway. Been playing for two hours now and so far it's great :-)

[AndyfromVA]

Awesome game.  I've looked forward to this for months after I finished Technobabylon and it was worth the wait.  This is Wadjet's best game.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Very excited here, heading over to Steam now

[Fitz]

Finished it! What a beautiful game it was. The artwork was just stellar: Ben has yet again outdone himself, creating a world that is visibly tarnished, and often scary -- and yet there is some beauty to it, with eerie, green glowing shards everywhere. And love, and friendship. People still hanging on, capable of loving and friendship. Loved the little bits of smalltalk with people. Loved how you guys went about themes of politics and religion, some really intriguing ideas and considerations there. The ending especially, and the choices given in it.
The whole thing reminded me of Cowboy Bebop in a way, also set a world of the future touched by a great catastrophe and yet mesmerizingly beautiful. And the music! That song in the credits was no less epic and beautiful than Call Me Call Me

[Andail]

Just started playing it, and I'm enjoying it so far. I'll return later to give you more detailed c&c, but I have one bit of early criticism that I thought I should share:

Spoiler

So, the chalk puzzle. I managed to crack the puzzle, but when I tried it on the door, the crockery dealer told me "nobody likes a cheater". I had no idea what this was supposed to mean, until I realised the chalking had to be carried out really precisely. This is something you should almost consider patching up and fixing, because
1. I wasn't cheating, it was just my penmanship being a bit inexact. Being told I was a cheater just left me confused, and cost me lots of time trying to figure out what he meant. Once I knew what to look for, there wasn't any need for perfect lines; in fact, the puzzle can theoretically be solved without using the chalk at all.
2. It's super 4th-wall-breaking to have a game character tell me - inaccurately - that I am cheating. Maybe if I'd skipped using the blackboard altogether, but there's no way he could've told I wasn't doing it right from where he's sitting, let alone cared.
3. The puzzle is already on the difficult side, especially for being so early on, so if players decide to look up the solution you're probably not gonna win them over by forcing them to carry out a relatively menial task that they've already decided they're not willing to do.

Just my opinion. It's a really cool puzzle - the kind I like solving, and designing myself.
Ok, going back to the game now!

[close]

[Stupot]

@Andail

Spoiler

Did you solve it without looking at the calligraphy book? That would be super impressive and a shame if the guy called you a cheater. For me, I worked out what to do pretty quickly with the calligraphy book. I knew that it was the darkened squares that mattered more than the actual shape of the letter (I guess programming an accurate but also forgiving stoke recognition system would have been a nightmare (just ask Cat)). So my M ended up looking nothing like an M, but touched all the right squares. That part was easy to me but working out how to "read between the lines" took me a bit longer. Was very satisfied when I finally worked it out.

[close]

[Grundislav]

This has been raised as a very valid issue, and will be patched so you aren't required to get the drawing right to input the code.

[Vince Twelve]

Just finished my second playthrough with commentary on.  Just as much fun as the first go round!  Very inspiring stuff you guys!  Congratulations again!

[Stupot]

Played a chunk today (spare time is limited at the moment so it's taking a while). Really liking the Reaper stuff. I think he deserves a spin-off of his own.

I came across the "invisibility" bug, which was fun. I'd seen Dave mention it in a Tweet the other day. I ended up walking around for some time as a shadow (for fun), but decided I will d/l the patch or start from a previous save next time. Don't want to miss too many of Ben's animations.

[voh]

I really enjoyed the game

It's beautiful, the voice acting is great (as always) and the story worked for me. However, as I played it multiple times, there is one thing I would suggest you fix - a way to skip the credits. Maybe I missed how, but none of the keys I tried worked. I eventually ended up alt-x'ing my way out, but one would expect ESC to work.

But other than that, getting ready to play it with commentary on

One thing I know when I buy a Wadjet Eye game is that it's going in the classics folder. Same here      

[Grundislav]

You can press f9 to skip the credits. It restarts the game, but that's what happens when they finish anyway.

[Grundislav]

Bumping this to say if you enjoyed Shardlight, consider voting for it in the AGS Awards!

[dbuske]

I bought it from the producer, your company.
I like it alot but it is really tough. Do you have a help thread?

[Surdy]

I've played Shardlight & it's an amazing postapocalyptic game with a great pixel-art.

During this month, I've prepared a french Wikipedia sheet. (the link soon)

Best Grundislav 

[Dave Gilbert]

We're on the App Store!

[Cassiebsg]

Awesome! Congrats!