Puppetmaster

NOTICE: This project is no longer in development. You are of course still welcome to try out the demo, but we will not be updating the game.

Discover a bright and beautiful world full of harmony and sprawling life, hidden entirely within a massive Mountain. At the far corner of the world, in a ruined castle, away from the beauty that now dominates, the Puppetmaster is alone, dying slowly, hard at work to find a way to avoid his fate. He creates you, the Puppet, to go forth into the Mountain and destroy the source of the life, destroy that awful Harmony that pervades the world. He tells you that the Musician has placed a curse upon the world, a curse that causes all living things to fall under his absolute control.

“End his reign of tyranny... and restore what’s rightfully mine.”

Puppetmaster is a massive metroidvania game with dynamic combat inspired by platform fighter games. Many unique ideas have been put together to break ground in the metroidvania genre. From smart bosses, to placeable checkpoints, to a completely selectable moveset, the world of Puppetmaster is packed with original experiences.

• Dynamic customizable combat: Platform fighters have a style of combat that is perfectly suited for a metroidvania, so we created the Puppet to play like one. The Puppet has 9 standard attacks and 4 unlockable special attacks that are all designed to work together to create a fast-paced and combo-driven combat experience. With 5 unlockable variations of each attack there are 65 total selectable attacks; that's over 300,000 possible attack builds!

• Smart Bosses: Bosses in metroidvania games traditionally are fairly simple in design; they have around 5 pre-made attacks that they randomly select, that the player must dodge until they find an opening and hit back, repeating until the fight ends. In Puppetmaster, bosses will fight more aggressively, watching the Puppet carefully to see what choices you're making. Bosses will tend to guess your movement patterns and select an attack based on where they think you'll be, and can even combo you back.

• Permanent placeable checkpoints: The Spirit Fragment is a collectible item hidden throughout Puppetmaster's world. When you find one, you can deploy it anywhere you want to create a Totem, which is a permanent checkpoint that you can use to save your game at any time. You'll create a network of custom checkpoints throughout the world of Puppetmaster that will make exploration much more engaging. No more long walks from a checkpoint to a boss!

• Multi-powered amulets: Another collectible item is the Amulet, which can be applied to 3 different combat elements (Attack, Motion, or Defense). For instance, the Amulet of Fortitude can be used to either make standard attacks stronger, reduce damage by enemies, or reduce stun time when hit, allowing for a greater range of customizable gameplay. There are 33 amulets to discover, and in tandem with the aforementioned combat skills, there's millions of possibilities to shape the way you want to play.

• A massive world: The world of Puppetmaster, called the Mountain, contains 15 major areas for the Puppet to explore, each with a range of diverse enemies, collectibles, secrets, and bosses.

• Original hand-drawn art: Every asset and animation in Puppetmaster has been drawn by our single artist. A lot of time and effort has gone into handcrafting beautiful pieces of art to decorate the world of Puppetmaster and into using a traditional hand-drawn animation style to bring everything to life. The Puppet alone has over 50 animations!

Puppetmaster has been made entirely by two brothers alone. After 3 years of work a fully-polished demo is available, and the rest of the game will be finished after another few years now that the engine is fully finished. Please go to the Steam Demo page to try it!