Absence of Light (2024)

Absence of Light feels like an asset flip or prototype, not something I would ever buy or recommend to buy. Looking at the update history, after a pause, it received four small bugfix updates in the last two weeks. I can't find any information on planned features or substantial changes. Listing so many issues in this form feels harsh, but I don't see a way around it. I grouped them by themes. Unfortunately, I don't have anything positive to say in a product review context. The negative points are dominating. I'd be more supportive in a personal game dev context, but that's not what this is about. - No introduction, no tutorial - You'd better open the main menu help first, or you won't even know how to control your character, or understand what the game mechanics and possibilities are - You better use a [b]gamepad[/b], or be crippled without knowing of the alternative - Fullscreen and Borderless Fullscreen do not catch the mouse cursor, meaning a second monitor can make you lose game focus - Clicking continue on first launch places you after the intro, not at the start of the game - There is [b]no save system[/b]; death means losing all progress since entering the level, and closi…

It's challenging and it works well, the mechanics are simple but there a lot of weapons and items. Enemies are cool, but the Bosses are epic. It's definitely a hidden gem. Graphics 9/10 Gameplay 9/10 Performance 10/10 Music 9/10 History 7/10

7/10 History 10/10 Masterpiece 9/10 Combat Miyazaki approved camera Highly recommend

Absence of Light is a dark fantasy action RPG that embraces the harsh combat, oppressive atmosphere, and unforgiving progression commonly associated with Souls-like games while presenting them through a smaller-scale indie framework. Developed and published by Boa Noite, the game places players in the role of a skeletal warrior reborn into a dying world consumed by darkness and corruption. The objective is straightforward on the surface: travel through hostile realms, defeat powerful enemies, and restore fragments of light to a collapsing land. However, the experience quickly reveals itself to be less about heroic fantasy and more about survival, persistence, and slowly overcoming a world that constantly feels determined to destroy the player. The atmosphere is easily one of the game’s greatest strengths. From the opening moments, the world feels abandoned and hopeless, filled with ruined castles, desolate landscapes, underground catacombs, and shadow-covered ruins that communicate decay and suffering without relying heavily on dialogue. The environments are consistently gloomy and oppressive, reinforcing the idea that this is a world long past salvation. Even though the visuals a…

It's not just bad, it's terrible. Camera has inertia, for some reason, so the view flies around. Zooming out doesn't improve this experience, like the dev suggests. The bugs are strange, for example: The main menu doesn't pause the game, so you can hear your sword as you click to change options. Spelling mistakes. It's hard to know how to describe how bad the whole experience is other than saying that it plays like a bad Unity tutorial glued together by a 4 year old. I understand the dev is active, but I cannot take anything they say seriously because there is no hint of production quality or cohesive thought put into this game. I wouldn't waste even £0.99. Update: message for the dev: don't publish games if you don't know anything about making games. This game is proof of that. Read the room and listen to the other reviews. It's a really really bad game. You're really really bad at making games.

Oh boy is this game a hot mess... slow, glitchy, erratic. I think I managed to complete it in half the time of other folks because it let me walk through the boss portal immediately in the last few areas without having to explore at all, plus there was a weird glitch in the first area where I leveled up every time I killed anything so I was super OP from the start. Honestly, I've played a lot of worse games, this almost falls in the category of bad enough that it's pretty good, I did enjoy exploring and finding the stronger weapons, but the combat was relatively trivial because if you just spam attacked the enemy would always stagger before they could hit you.