The Void's Lighthouse

"The light from the Void's Lighthouse will erase all the sorrow one had in life, when it touches them."

"Those without sorrow and fear towards the Sacred Realm shall come forth, but those with either in their soul shall be swallowed by the abyss."

These are the laws of the Afterlife Plane, where two realms reside: Purgatory, where most "Souls" live, and the Void, a place that most "Souls" fear to go since those who venture there never return. The Souls in the Afterlife Plane possess a tangible physical body, identical to the one they had in life, but they no longer have the same natural needs such as hunger and thirst. They can die but return to the beginning of Purgatory without remembering anything they experienced in the Afterlife Plane.

The Creator Above All created this place (the Afterlife Plane) as a way for human beings to confront their deepest fears before ascending to the Sacred Realm or being thrown into the abyss. The phobias (bosses of the game) dictate the fate of those who manage to conquer them because even those with courage may hold resentment from their mortal lives.

Courage or fear alone cannot determine the fate of the Afterlife. To address this issue, there is the Void's Lighthouse, a place that illuminates those who possess forgiveness and can be forgiven, representing hope and determining those who now belong to the Sacred Realm. However, the souls that did not live in harmony during their earthly existence will be eternally punished in the abyss.

The Afterlife Plane, as mentioned above, is divided into two locations: Purgatory and the Void.

• Purgatory:
  • Purgatory is the place where souls go after they pass away from the mortal plane. Here, everyone has a physical body again, but there are no mundane needs like eating or drinking. It is possible to die, but when a soul dies, it returns to a random point in Purgatory with its memories from the Afterlife erased.
  • This place has its own nature, with trees, rocks, and minerals that some souls have started collecting and assigning unrealistic values to (though they are impossible to shape due to the lack of fire in this place, rendering forging processes unfeasible). There are houses and ruins that the souls have claimed, but nobody knows who built them. Each soul sees these structures in the way they saw buildings during the era they lived in the mortal world. The Lamplighter sees the architecture as Victorian, which was the era he lived in during the mortal world.
  • It is possible to catch a glimpse of the Void's Lighthouse from Purgatory, but its distance makes it difficult to see, and all the souls can perceive is the extinguished light, resembling a solar eclipse.

• Void:
• The Void is chaotic, ever-changing, and much darker than Purgatory. On its horizon, there is something that appears like an eclipse, but it is the Void's Lighthouse that has been extinguished for a long time. Walls and locations shift in certain parts of the map, and some areas have mechanisms that alter paths and create quick passages between Void locations.
• Only large and small islands exist in this realm, whereas Purgatory is a single continent. As the name suggests, the Void is filled with vast empty spaces between locations, but there are narrow passages that allow progress through the Void.
• In the Void, enslaved souls can be found, bound to the Fears, having lost their human anatomy. It is also possible to encounter the Fears themselves, which the Lamplighter must confront, as they are personifications of fears embodied in creatures.

In the afterlife, a light will bring hope. Should Lamplighter reignite the Void's Lighthouse or not?

Prototype game developed in 2 weeks at the Game Developent Course at SENAC Barbacena, Brazil. 

Developers: Artur Wamser and Brendow Wilian
2D Artist: Artur Wamser
Programming and 3D Artist: Brendow Wilian

Developed in Unity Engine.

Original sprites/assets by the artists.