Shining A Light On Candle

Perhaps one of the most interesting things to come out of the 'indie revolution' in game development is the re-imagining of what age-old elements and mechanics can do. Minecraft showed the world interaction with an environment could be 90% of a game. Amnesia revealed enemies need not be present most of the time, or defeatable when they were, to be threatening. Dear Esther inquired if games need anything more than a story and a place to be enthralling. Now here's Candle, using its lighting engine and context sensitive commands to remove the point-and-click from its adventure game inspiration. Intrigued? Video after you burn the wax.

Devs: we know you know what's going to happen in your game. You don't need to pretend you were worried you wouldn't make a jump.

That aside, this game is beautiful. Outside of the world's scariest bunny, it's sweet and adorable. Strongly evokes Machinarium for me, but with a more biological feel. This is all before the nightfall stuff towards the end of the video adds a whole other layer of loveliness. It's possible I am way too easily impressed but the way the light isn't just a sphere around the character but actually interacts with the environment and is contained by walls just looks great. Direct your interest to the Greenlight page, Twitter and the recently-finished Kickstarter for more info.