:: "The space is silent. So much that it causes anguish. The silence—ash-grey, relentless—crawls within you, hurts you, eats your synthetic skull from the inside. There is only deafening pain, and the heartbeat, and your footsteps, and rare echoes of something massive moving. Something inconceivable, among the mountains of concrete and steel." ::
Irid Novo, an abandoned space station you will be trapped on in Hellpoint, is massive. 14 huge interconnected levels await to be explored, each with its own distinctive visual features, unique monsters, and various puzzles to solve. Each level is hundreds of meters wide and some of the areas are hundreds of meters tall, reaching the height compared to that of the Eiffel tower. Let's have a look at just a few of them.
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In the Pond, human passengers that were arriving at Irid Novo, the frontier of mankind's science, were being separated from their bodies and then put back together after interstellar travels.
--- This is where it all begins. The Irid Novo AI, the Author, uses a 3D body printer to create the Spawn whose role you take.
This area is a "warm" welcome to this dark and twisted sci-fi universe, with claustrophobic corridors, hidden passages, and malevolent creatures lurking behind every corner. You will have to learn how to find your way around the station, heal your wounds and use weapons.
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The Observatory is a multi-purpose amphitheater, used for scientific congregations that would end with the masses entering trance all over the Irid Novo station, unaware of the willpower they were relinquishing to the soon-to-arrive cosmic gods. It was also used for mind control conferences, occult modern art performances and attuning musical symphonies.
--- The Observatory is one giant open area that will serve as your safe haven. Here you will be able to, among other things, craft and dismantle weapons and upgrade your healing method.
You will encounter no enemies here, except for the level itself. Taming the deadly verticality will let you uncover secrets and be generously rewarded.
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For many years, Port Issoudun remained the most active space port of the Irid Novo station. Hundreds of ships and tankers would dock here to land passengers or offload resources. All of the port systems were entirely automated. Like carefully constructed clocks, self-programmed bots zoomed around the environment in straight lines to bring items and transits to their destinations. From the main terminal, various highways lead to other parts of the station.
After the Merge ended the Universe as we know it, the port was ravaged by the hordes of monsters intending to capture the whole station. Issoudun has long since been resting in ruins: dead, cut off from power and cleared from any human activity. The most unfortunate humans remain active as Merge Victims, roaming in the area in eternal fear and confusion, assaulting anyone in sight. Some of the automated bots still function, faithful to their original orders.
--- Port Issoudun is featured in the playable sequel chapter to Hellpoint, The Thespian Feast. This area, dimly lit, is enclosed for the most part and features less deadly platforming yet more enemies and mini-bosses wandering its narrow corridors.
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Before the Merge, the Arcology was a mega-colony built inside the space station to accommodate 118 000 inhabitants that came along for the voyage. This was definitely one of the most prestigious places to live back then, with thousands of advanced homes and buildings dashing across the stars at speeds faster than light. It was one of the greatest centers of thought exchanges and hard work, and definitely a place to go looking for a good time. The Arcology was built to be entirely self-sufficient and space efficient, seamlessly merging the utility, public and residential systems while fully utilizing 3D space to a sometimes very dense degree. This resulted in a great flow and interweaving of the construction of shapes and districts.
Thus, the Merge made this place the biggest sudden cemetery on Irid Novo. However, not many cadavers remain, as the Parasites and the Daemonium promptly grabbed the bodies and carried them to their lairs to consume the flesh, furthering their own interests. The remaining survivors were taken by insanity and each met their particular end. Their stories can be read in blood sprayed all over this area.
--- With a lot of open spaces, the Arcology offers a solid challenge in battling swarms of enemies, who are wielding both ranged and melee weapons. A huge funicular connects this district with other sections of Irid Novo.
- An Entangled ghost of yourself is now roaming the space station if you die, be careful! - Deploying your shield at the right moment now gives you a massive boost in deflection (Parry) - Emotes now don't auto-populate the menu in medium class - Removed the mind cube reader as its dialogs were not intended for the demo, replaced it with a nice weapon - Added Omnicube tutorials - Added sound on weapon leveling up - Removed a somewhat recurring leather sound from the player soundbank - Added more obvious warning when energy is too low to perform an ability, fire a gun, or use the Omnicube - Speeded up dialog while adding delay on discussion choices - Stopped enemies' abilities when they die - Fixed an issue with hitting crates filling up your energy and healing you - Fixed the modules Greed Sacrifice and Leech - Fixed an issue with removing or adding stat boosting module tinning the stats screen values green or red - Fixed a number of melee and firearm passive unlockable abilities that would fail to provide a proper stat boost - Fixed where the motion sensitivity wouldn't go down to the minimum - Fixed a case where the Omnicube transposition could trigger an endless loading screen in some cases - Fixed the Warrior Saber missing its upgrade chip effects - Fixed the player unable to fall for a split second after getting off a ladder - Fixed an issue where the world wouldn't load after the player would respawn in a very specific spot in a pit - Fixed the Black Hole door beam being misaligned - Fixed a few walls missing collisions - Fixed a case with enemies freezing in place after losing sight of the player - Fixed a bug where the player would perish again after dying from a fall in a pit - Fixed the horde enemy not having their spawning effect - Fixed enemies popping in an out of the world
The Thespian Feast live broadcast with developers
Join The Thespian Feast live broadcast featuring the Hellpoint developers, Cradle Games, today at 9 AM PST/ 12 AM EST!
Hellpoint: The Thespian Feast is out | Dev live stream today
Hellpoint: The Thespian Feast is now available!
The Thespian Feast is a standalone sequel chapter to the dark sci-fi action/RPG Hellpoint that tells the story of an investigator arriving to the Irid Novo space station half a century after the events of the main game. Not only must he find out what happened in that godforsaken place, but also stay alive. For as long as he can.
The Thespian Feast is available to all Steam users. Download it now:
"Irid Novo is a success. The faith you vested in us will soon be rewarded as you take your rightful place in the new world."
You find yourself on a gigantic advanced space colony only to discover that you are the only being left. Only sane being, to be precise. The colony is crawling with hostile abominations driven by one instinct: to hurt. What is going on?
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"They called us insane. They called us evil. But to end the suffering in this world, a bold vision was required."
A few decades ago, human race and the Arisen civilization formed the First Interstellar Alliance. With wars being a thing of the past, this enterprise was to discover the secrets to the greatest mystery of the Universe: a soul. Humans possessed the technology to travel through parallel universes, the Arisen were highly advanced in the field of artificial intelligence. By sharing their respective knowledge on the Irid Novo space station, they expected to create an artificial soul, a conscious AI, bringing forth the most advanced technology of them all.
However, it didn’t work as planned.
Many theories are circulating: technological error, sabotage, even divine intervention. Yet the real cause remains unknown. What is the true secret of Irid Novo?
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“We must leave it to the Gods, lest the Gods leave us.”
Station AI, The Authority, is still on a mission to complete the soul creating experiment. Left to its fate by man, it has developed a plan of its own. Yes, Spawn, we are talking about you.
I believe Black Skylands has best in class pixelart, and gameplay to match. The newest demo takes you on a journey through gorgeous floating islands filled with things that want you dead.
Delivery attempted. That's the guarantee of this totally accurate representation of package delivery drivers. We've all had this happen to us, so now it's time to make fun of it in a physics filled sandbox!
Aside from actual games we have a whole setup for fun family friendly activities, featuring merch you can win.
Hellpoint at PAX South in January | Happy Holidays!
Hello, community!
2019 has been quite a busy year for the Hellpoint team
We conducted successful Alpha and Beta testing campaigns, spent thousands of hours polishing the game and fixing issues. But with the release in our sights, the first quarter of 2020 will be even bigger for us as we plan on kicking things off with PAX South presentation. Expect major news.
PAX South festival will take place in San Antonio, TX from 17 to 19 January. If you have a chance to visit the event, drop by to play the latest Hellpoint version in the huge orange tinyBuild booth.
We were lucky to spend this year with you guys. Cradle Games wish you the Happiest of Holidays.
See you in 2020!
Love,
Cradle Games
Introducing: Main character
"It seeps into the void. Conquers it, ignites. Suddenly, zero becomes one. Black turns red, matter becomes life. A universe is born in anguish, in fear. A child: gasping, struggling, cold. Clean."
You are a Spawn: a 3D-printed organism, an artificial human being. You were granted a life, yet not a consciousness, by your creators. With a blank mind, you venture through Irid Novo, an ancient asteroid mining facility turned into a space station, seeking answers. Why are you here? What is your purpose?
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"Your hand reaches. Time dehisces, unfolding an incomprehensible chasm. The wound that bleeds space dust. Maimed cosmos laments silently, writhing in agony."
In Hellpoint, breaches are tears in the very fabric of time and space that interconnect parallel universes. When your Spawn stabilizes them, it allows you to level up, travel between breaches, consume gathered resources, alter enemy difficulty / loot grade and save your progress. Upon demise, you respawn at the latest breach you connected to.
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“Your blood runs cold. Your hand is bound to cleanse. Under the rain of gore and guts, you dance—a child in time, a soldier in space.”
Irid Novo is crawling with horrid hostile abominations that used to be humans. To push forward, Spawn has no other choice other than to put them away. By mastering your basic combat abilities like swordplay, shooting, dodging and blocking, you will be able to defeat tougher foes.
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“What are you? An experiment that went awry? God’s forgotten toy lost in the wreck? Or a perfect organism?”
Slain enemies emit axions that can be spent to upgrade your character. There are 8 different skills to level up: from health to overall strength to foresight. As you master your skills, your Spawn will gain greater stats, such as damage, radiation resistance and energy reserve which is used for ranged weapons.
