The Watchlist: Twin Souls

Title: Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows
Developer: Lince Works
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Releasing 2015
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Twin Souls combines the essence of stealth classics like Tenchu with the modern approach of recent gems like Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored.

In November, I wrote about the freeware student project Path of Shadows. It was a third person stealth game, set in a cel-shaded landscape, granting you mastery over the shadows as a mystical assassin. It was a short experience, but fun, unique, and very promising. Thankfully that promise won't be squandered, as the team at Lince Works has taken what worked in the original prototype and expanded it into a full-length spiritual successor, Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows.

Much remains the same. You're still an assassin with the mystical ability to control shadows, allowing you to teleport between patches of darkness, use the shadows to swallow corpses, and strike from impossible angles.Twin Souls promises to expand on and evolve what made the prototype so fun: large multi-tiered environments; a larger array of shadow powers that let you traverse rooftops, create decoys, and more; more varied enemies such as archers and other mystical foes. The stylish cel-shaded aesthetic returns as well. While many current stealth games focus on making you more powerful and well-equipped, a silent predator stalking his prey, Twin Souls finds inspiration in games such as Tenchu and Splinter Cell; you're outnumbered, easily overpowered in direct combat, and you have the option to remain an unseen ghost or take down your foes one-by-one.

Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows is currently planned to release in 2015. You can support the game on Kickstarter; it has already been Greenlit.

Quick Fix: Outer Wilds, Transistor, Twin Souls

Outer Wilds still in development
Outer Wilds is a game I've praised several times here, a freeware game that captures the feeling and atmosphere of discovery in an unexplored space frontier. What I didn't realize was that the game was only an alpha and, in a recent update, developer Alex Beachum stated

We’re currently working towards a full release of the game, which will feature (among other things) a completely fleshed-out version of the overarching mystery. The alpha release will remain available in the meantime, so feel free to check it out (if you haven’t already exhausted its secrets) while we work on the full release.

Download the current version of Outer Wilds here.

Transistor available to preorder
SuperGiant's follow-up to its acclaimed debut Bastion, Transistor leaves The Kid behind and drops the player into a gorgeous sci-fi city. But the satisfying combat, atmospheric world, and RPG elements remains intact, as you guide Red in her fight against The Process and wield the powerful Transistor, an intelligent weapon that grants you devastating attacks and abilities

You can preorder Transistor through Humble or Steam. The game releases May 20th.

Twin Souls reveal
Path of Shadows was a very promising student project, a stealth game where darrkness was your weapon as you stalked through cell-shaded fantasy environments. I was happy to hear that the developers planned to expand the prototype into a larger experience. That game has finally been revealed.
Now titled Twin Souls, the game is described as a spirtual successor to the original student project, "a 3D indie stealth game in which you control a warrior with the power of Shadow Control. It combines the essence of Tenchu with the modern approach of recent gems like Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored." You can keep track of Twin Souls on the Lince Works and David Leon Twitter pages. A Kickstarter for Twin Souls is starting soon.

No Money, No Problem: Path of Shadows

Title: Path of Shadows
Developer: 5 Students from IDEC
Platforms: PC
Free
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Of all the genres I've played, stealth is one of my favorites. There's just something so satisfying about out-thinking and out-maneuvering your enemies rather than using brute force, about moving through the darkness mere inches from unsuspecting foes. Path of Shadows offers a new take on the stealth genre by granting you dominion over the darkness itself.

Crafted over ten months and submitted for IGF 2014, Path of Shadows is fantasy stealth action: you play as a reincarnated warrior, given purpose and power by a dark deity. The game is merely a taste of what a potential full project would offer, but the thirty minutes of gameplay demonstrates a promising and fun foundation.

Your shadow- and sword-wielding warrior moves through a cel-shaded world. You're able to use special vision to see through walls and create distractions to divert patrols, but your most powerful ability is to manipulate shadows. You can teleport between shadows, create new shadows to hide, use the darkness to swallow up bodies, and even perform aerial attacks and dual kills with the shadows.

The current demo is essentially a proof of concept; the developers are hoping to find a developer or a source of funding to continue making the game. Be warned that since the game is early, it's not well optimized and may not run well on some computers. You can download Path of Shadows here.