Benson Bones

Benson Bones is a top-down pixel art adventure RPG about a boy, a friendly dog, and a mysterious world full of doors that appear to have an agenda. Read your enemies instead of mashing, rest at checkpoints that bring the dead back with you, and follow your new dog friend to uncover answers about your awakening. 
Wake up. Find your dog.
You climb out of a coffin with dirt in your lungs and no memory of who you were. Most of the dead around you came back empty. You didn't, and nobody can tell you why. A dog finds you in the graveyard and won't leave your side. By the time you learn his name, he's the one thing here you trust. Then he's gone.
The only one offering help is a hooded figure who's generous for reasons he keeps to himself. He was the first to wake up here, and he's been trying to leave for a very long time. His door only goes where it's already been. Find the dormant frames hidden across the realms, light them, and the door reaches further. Somewhere on the other side is Benson.
Features
Combat built on reading the enemy. Tap for a light combo, hold for a heavy slash, roll through attacks at the last second. An enemy preparing an attack can be stopped and punished. 

Souls-inspired checkpoints. Rest to save your progress and replenish supplies.

Bosses with rules to learn. Feints, flurries and second phases, each with a tell you can read and punish.

Spells that build on each other. Fire burns, ice slows, lightning weakens. Stack two and hit again, and it bursts: a fiery blast, an enemy frozen solid, lightning arcing through a pack.

Two skill trees, Blade and Arcana, where the big picks change how you fight instead of adding a number.

A hand-made world. Every graveyard, forest and cave is built by hand. No procedural generation.

Made by one developer
Benson N Bones is a solo project. The code, maps and audio are made by one person, with help from an artist on sprites and effects.