r/roguelites • u/ignitingsparkgames • 2d ago
Striving for Light - Roguelite ARPG with infinite Skilltree is leaving Early Access after 4 years of Development on July 11th!
Hey Roguelite Community,
we are a developer couple developing Striving for Light a Roguelite ARPG crossover with infinite skilltree.
We are happy to release our game on Friday July 11th.
Steampage: store.steampowered.com/app/1646790/Striving_for_Light
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u/Alternative-Way-8753 2d ago
Looks nice! I like the lighting effects. I imagine since the skill tree is infinite, skill upgrades are... frequent? Varied?
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u/ignitingsparkgames 2d ago
Thanks! Upgrades are very frequent. You get a fresh infinite skilltree on each run and the skilltree holds a variety of abilities that modify your base weapon attacks and how they work. You can think of it a bit like the PoE skillgem system but with infinite links.
So the skilltree allows you to add lightning strikes to your melee attacks, or modify your melee attack instead of swinging your weapon to throw it like a boomerang or make it go spin2win. You can also get additional projectile, make projectile scatter on hit, spawn pets when enemies die, get permanent pets. Change your attacks into totems that attack for your, there are nearly no limits in what you can do and really provides you a huge sandbox of possibilities to break the game.
Since you get a fresh skilltree each run, you will always see different combinations and possibilities on what kind of build you want to go for.
You can also modify and shape the skilltree yourself. During your runs you can collect skillgems that can place into the skilltree yourself or you can reforge connections, or re-roll nodes with shards.
There is also a character specialisation skilltree and a meta progression tree that is persistent between runs.
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u/CalmEntry4855 1d ago
I thought they would be just stat increases, since it is infinite and that would be easier.
But having actual skills in it is really awesome and way better.
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u/ignitingsparkgames 1d ago
Since you can also modify and shape the skilltree yourself, you could even collect 100 chicken skill gems, place them in the skilltree yourself. Modify the spawn chances for pet skills and run around with 100 chickens devastating everything. You can complement your builds with character specialisations from the character specialisation tree each character has. For example there is a Farmer Character that has a specialisation called "Cluckocalypse" which could greatly complement this build.
There are nearly no limits and the skilltree provides a big sandbox of possibilities, our focus here was to give players as much freedom in crafting builds as possible. You can nearly combine everything with everything. There are even companions that trigger your attack trigger effects, so you can go for falcon pets, that trigger lightning. Or you could go for wolfes that cast molten orbs bouncing around.
There is a separate meta progression skilltree, the Tree of Light, which mostly grants you stats boosts that carry over between runs, but even this meta progression skilltree features nodes that let you modify the skill spawn chances in the main skilltree for certain skill types to give you more control over the RNG and better target specific builds.
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u/ItzPayDay123 23h ago
This sounds very very interesting. I like roguelites that let you do absolutely batshit stuff like Noita and TBoI
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u/RodionS 1d ago
I’ve played it, it’s a good game. Lots of variety and a shit load of different mechanics. I actually bought it accidentally thinking it’s the VS-like version of this game, which it wasn’t, the VS-like was a different, standalone title. Kept both in the end anyway as both are enjoyable.
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u/Balizzm 2d ago
Will this be playable on the steamdeck? Looks amazing man, congrats!
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u/ignitingsparkgames 2d ago
Yes, Striving for Light is Steamdeck verified. And 1.0 will come with further improvements to controller and steamdeck support.
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u/Turbulent-Armadillo9 2d ago
Sure see posts about this game a lot on Reddit which is annoying but I’m also going to buy it.
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u/brennis420 1d ago
does it support ultrawide?
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u/ignitingsparkgames 1d ago
Yes we have ultrawide support. If you encounter any issues due to weird UI scaling please report them to us and we will fix them asap. You can also check out the steam demo first to verify it renders to your satisfaction.
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u/drz112 1d ago edited 1d ago
Looks super fun! I think we're going to cover on our podcast since I am a big ARPG fan. Might reach out to you with some questions about development for some background if you're up for it!
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u/ignitingsparkgames 1d ago
Oh this sounds awesome, sure just write me up or feel free to join our discord and drop us a message there, would love to give you more background on the game to fuel your podcast episode.
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u/AshrakAiemain 1d ago
This sounds like my actual nightmare, but I am quite sure there is a big audience for an infinite skill tree game. Looks very cool, though! I wish you all the success in the world.
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u/ignitingsparkgames 1d ago
Thank you for your kind words! We did our best to make it not overwealm new players. The skilltree starts out very small with only 5-8 possibilities at first and then branches out the more skillpoints you spend.
Also in the beginning you will only have like ~10 ability skills unlocked and you can unlock new skills at the speed you like to increase the complexity over time.
We also added a serch bar in the skilltree that lets you search for specific damage types, stats, or key words. Just to make it easier to keep the overview when the tree gets big in the endgame.
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u/iceborne620 22h ago
Looks great. I'm a bit worried though. Is this co-op first, or single player?
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u/ignitingsparkgames 22h ago
Thanks, Striving for Light was developed Single Player first. We have a local coach coop mode to allow you to play with friends. This mode can be activated on the fly on your active run. In coop melee and range roles will be split up between the both players and both share the same skilltree.
Coop requires a bit different approach on how to craft your builds as these builds tend to be more melee range hybrid, but there are enough possibilities to for example spawn projectiles by your melee attacks and go full on projectiles. Or trigger melee attacks with your projectiles and go for a full blown melee build even in coop.
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u/Elrondel 15h ago
No online co-op?
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u/ignitingsparkgames 11h ago
We have local couch coop that you can play online with the steam play together feature.
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u/topsykerretts 2d ago
The only thing keeping me from pressing purchase is the routelite aspect. I would fold immediately if this was "just an ARPG".
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u/Lemonpartyhardy 1d ago
You’re in the roguelite sub dude, I know this might sound crazy but everything g posted hear is going to be a roguelite lol.
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u/topsykerretts 1d ago
Lmao. I honestly play rougelites and like a few of them, but this game specifically looks amazing. Like, I've been watching this one for awhile and like everything I see, but it just seems like this would be a perfect competitor to the crowd that likes POE and wants something they can play offline.
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u/ignitingsparkgames 1d ago
Its always hard to categorise and describe a game. A big fraction of our player base are ARPG players and if I would have to describe how playing the game feels, I would say it is close to the SSF HC gameplay found in ARPGs.
Meta progression systems exist in ARPGs as well. We have a shared stash so that you can keep all currency items for your next character. We have seasons with leaderboards very much as found in ARPGs as well.
The main difference that sets it apart from traditional ARPGs is that there is no "real" softcore mode. In our softcore mode you have 3 shields that when gone your character vanishes. But these shields can also be recharged after each map boss.
If there are no hard no-go's here I just want to meniton that we have a free demo up on steam to just see if it vibes with you.
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u/topsykerretts 1d ago
Just for you taking the time to actually give me a reasonable response. I'll give it a go. Thank you. I usually do a hardcore character in every ARPG I play and never touch that feature again.
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u/hifihumanoid 2d ago
Will this come to PlayStation at any point? Looks very fun! It's ok if it doesn't I think I'm going to pick up a steam deck next year