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Shadows of Malice is a cooperative game in which 1-8 player(s) work to unseal hidden Wells of Light to prevent the shadow demon Xulthûl from gaining a physical form and overrunning the Realm of Aethos.
The Wells are located in strongholds scattered throughout the Realm and defended by powerful Guardians. Over the centuries, many of the Wells have fallen Dark, but if the players can find and unseal the remaining Light Wells they prevent Xulthûl from gaining substance and win the game. If Xulthûl’s Shadows, however, manage to defile a single Light Well, the demon will gain a body and enter the Realm. If this happens, the players must defeat Xulthûl in battle to save the Realm.
Players control avatars, heroic champions imbued with unique masteries over Light. Each turn, the players move through the Realm, confronting their fate, battling creatures with deadly abilities, and engaging the services of cities and mystics in order to gather the potions, treasure, and soulshards they will need to defeat the stronghold Guardians and unseal the Wells they protect. The Light or Dark nature of each Well is revealed only when its Guardian is defeated.
Meanwhile, Xulthûl’s Shadows are thickening in the Shadow Realm and will enter the game at random times in random locations, seeking the one Well that will bring about the entrance of their master.
- Employs a very minimalistic art style.
- Playtesters liked the placeholder art.
- Rudimentary art style.
- Almost no flavor text.
- Characters are a blank slate for player imagination.
- Art on tiles is minimal.
- Enemies are generated rather than having predefined art and powers.
- Players must use their imagination to construct monsters.
- Game leaves a lot up to players to determine how things look and feel.
- Players feel more invested in the world.
- The designer wanted to use no art at all, but playtesters liked the placeholder art.
- Adventure
- Players create their own narrative based on game events.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- character customization — Characters are created by combining different powers, with no flavor text.
- cooperative play — A co-op adventure game.
- Creature Generation — Enemies are created using a creature generator with dice rolls for powers and abilities.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- And so sometimes a game that just has a little bit of stuff or employs a certain kind of minimalism can be a breath of fresh air.
- And so it's kind of a minimalist in its component quality and quantity.
- This game is so minimal in what it provides and in its mechanisms. You know, I if you took just one thing away, it would kind of stop even being a game.
- The game doesn't construct things for you. It leaves a lot up to the players to determine how things look, how things feel.
- So, Darkest Night takes the complete opposite uh direction there. And you only get one action on each of your turns. So, it uses a kind of minimalist action economy.
- Well, Dragons Down takes the opposite approach.
- And so by employing that kind of narrative minimalism, I think Dragons Down is a much better game for that.
- And it is so minimal in every way that we've already discussed in artistic minimalism, in component minimalism, and in mechanical minimalism.
- But this game has everything I look for in an adventure game.
- And all three of those things combined to make this an awesome game. I love it. It is so much fun.
- There is nothing to get in the way of the adventure that I want to feel.
- But these kinds of games that I'm talking about really prove that that's not true.
- And you know, it's just I I wish I could embrace that more often.
- But maybe we just need a bare minimum of art, of components, and of mechanisms because sometimes a really small, very simple game is exactly the game that I want to play.