Death’s Gambit is a challenging 2D action platformer with deep RPG elements.



But what has changed? What ideas worked? What didn’t? Is the hook shot still in the game? Are ranged weapons still the focus? Let’s rewind…

(2012 Death’s Gambit after 1 month of work)

In 2012 the game was called Forerunner and It was a sci-fi 2D shooter, where you would ascend a citadel and each floor featured a boss. Coincidentally, a very similar game like this has come to fruition as the awesome cyberpunk rush “Black Future 88.″ Check it out. It’s rad.

(Death’s Gambit in 2014 a few months after picking up the project again)



The prototype was picked up again in the latter half of 2014. We probably went through 200 character iterations before settling on what we have now. You’ll notice a shift from sci-fi to medieval fantasy. Our intent was to capture the familiar yet alien feel of a protagonist like Wander from Shadow of the Colossus.



Our vision was always to make something as challenging and viscerally rewarding to play as Dark Souls, but using guns and in 2D. It was designed for patience and timing. Within a few months we decided to take the plunge into melee combat. The video below shows our first pass with the inclusion of abilities.

At the time, abilities had limited usage per save point to encourage a tactical playstyle. We later changed this to a meter you build up and spend on abilities to improve the game flow and excitement.

The hook shot was one of our defining mechanics from our first announcement. It was inspired by Attack on Titan, and came to us in a “what if” moment. As our development progressed however, the inclusion of the hook shot started feeling more and more out of place, especially without making it a core experience of the game - forcing its use during boss fights and all throughout the level. With the shift in game speed (that we’ll get into later) and redundancy of having both a hook shot and climb mechanic, we decided to axe it in favor of climbing.

The ice giant wasn’t particularly very fun and we struggled a lot to take it from “this is cool looking” to “this is fun”. The Ice Giant is still in the game but you no longer climb it with a hook shot.



This was our first playable at E3. We slowed everything down. Movement and combat felt heavy, and in turn, sluggish. In principle it made sense to keep the stamina based combat slow and deliberate. But in practice it didn’t feel responsive. We’ve tweaked the game speed since, and have reached a point where it’s satisfyingly responsive and still tactical.

Once the foundations were in place, it was a matter of introducing the unique elements we’ve talked about before: heroic mode, sacrificing heals for damage, challenge chests, etc.

As you can see here by 2016 we already had most of the design of the game figured out.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at the evolution of Death’s Gambit! This tumblr blog chronicles a lot of our design process and changes over the years, so if you’re interested check out some of our older posts.