THE NEXT GENERATION OF 2D ROLE-PLAYING GAMES.

Elysian Shadows is an indie 2D RPG being developed for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Ouya and Sega Dreamcast. We fuse aspects of 16-bit classical RPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Final Fantasy, with a highly stylized, modern vision by using dynamic lighting, physics, and audio engines along with swapping between 2D and 3D perspectives. Our goal is to create a "next-gen" 2D RPG in terms of gameplay, graphics, and audio while still remaining true to the games that inspired us to become developers.

STORY

of Elysian Shadows

Elysian Shadows takes place in a world caught in constant conflict between magic and technology. The gift of magic is bestowed upon loyal followers of The Creator, while the nonreligious sects of society are forced to rely upon technological advances in their daily lives. Upon uncovering a mysterious artifact deep within one of the ancient ruins scattered throughout the land, Julien and friends find themselves thrust into the middle of this mounting conflict, and they must now solve the mystery of the ancient civilizations to prevent the destruction of their own.

POPULATION

of Asphodel

Elysian Shadows plays host to a variety of different characters, each with their own unique personality and play style. Early on, we wanted the storyline of Elysian Shadows to focus around strong character development and interaction. We have put considerable effort into scripting believable and engaging character dialog and using it as a compelling storytelling mechanic... Even common NPCs have scripted roles to play in the world of Elysian Shadows, and their behaviors change based on the time of day or other gameplay events.

WORLD

of Elysian Shadows

The world of Elysian Shadows is a diverse, multilayered landscape consisting of villages, towns, cities, and a variety of different ruins and subdungeons. Connecting the various ruins to the societies of Elysian Shadows are many overworld maps the player must explore. They are generally beautiful, lush, and feature a variety of different biomes such as forests, deserts, mountains, tundra, beaches, swamps, and islands. The ruins tend to exhibit a darker, moodier, and more foreboding atmosphere, playing host to ancient, long-forgotten technology and a multitude of dangerous creatures guarding their secrets.

COMBAT

in realtime

Our goal for Elysian Shadows' combat was to create a battle engine with the speed and fluidity of an action game fused with the depth and strategy of a more traditional RPG. Our physics and particle engines lay the foundation for intense, action-oriented combat with impressive spell effects and environmental interaction, while detailed character customization, talent and ability trees, alchemy, and even a class system add another level of depth and strategy to enemy encounters.

MUSIC

3D positional & dynamic

Our audio engine boasts full 3D positional sound for both music and sound effects, and also dynamically transitions between tracks for a very immersive experience where sound and music change based on your actions and surroundings. The soundtrack combines vintage electronic music hardware with modern synthesizer software to create a hybrid experience that meshes music making methods of the future with familiar SNES and Genesis era sounds, resulting in a sonic experience that is bounded only by imagination.

POWERING THE FUTURE OF THE 2D RPG.

ESGamma

ESGamma is a proprietary engine, written in C++, and developed from the ground-up driving Elysian Shadows. It is fully multiplatform through the power of libGyro, it boasts dynamic lighting, 3D positional audio, particle effects, rigid body physics, shadow mapping, and is fully extensible through the Lua scripting language.

ESToolkit

ESTk is the custom multiplatform Toolkit/Level Editor developed with C++ and the Qt framework written specifically to create the immersive worlds of Elysian Shadows. It shares a significant amount of code with ESGamma and boasts advanced tiling and sheet management tools, including the ability to create 2D worlds with 3D depth.

libGyro

LibGyro is the low-level C secret sauce of Elysian Shadows. It is a high-performance multiplatform framework created to abstract away the platform specifics from the game engine. Its system, audio, video, and input drivers are hand-optimized for high-performance on embedded platforms with limited resources, and it will allow us to easily move the engine to many more platforms moving forward.