Celium's Fall

A side-view dark fantasy action-platformer built with LÖVE. Aren, a former occult servant, jumps and fights across cursed forests, ruined churches, crypts, and Black Mountain while turning corrupted magic against Lord Celium's faction.

Install and run

Install LÖVE 11.4+ from love2d.org or with your system package manager. Then run:

make run
# Fallback: ./scripts/run.sh
# Direct: love .

No external assets or Lua packages are required. To publish later, add a remote with git remote add origin <url> and push the main branch.

Controls

• A / D or left stick: move
• W / Up / Space or gamepad A: jump
• S / Down + jump or left stick down + gamepad A: drop through a one-way ledge
• Mouse or arrow keys: aim
• J / left mouse / gamepad X: melee
• K / right mouse / gamepad Y: magic projectile
• L / right shoulder: chain lightning after Sillius unlocks it
• Shift / gamepad B: dash
• E / left shoulder: interact / collect
• Enter: start / confirm / restart
• Esc: pause
• C on title: continue saved checkpoint
• Pause menu: adjust master volume, SFX volume, and mute with keyboard or controller
• Gamepad: left stick move, right stick aim, A jump, X melee, Y magic, B dash, Start pause

MVP features

• Title, play, pause, death, restart, and victory states
• Side-view platforming with gravity, coyote-time jumping, drop-through ledges, moving platforms, solid walls, and aerial combat
• Three connected areas: Cursed Forest, Ruined Shrine, Black Mountain
• Nine rooms across the forest, shrine, and mountain route
• Skippable in-engine cinematics explain Aren's betrayal, the Covenant, the veil, and the road to Lord Celium
• Aren movement, dash, melee, magic, health, and mana
• Three regular enemies and two bosses with distinct behaviors
• Shielded Knight, Rift Witch, and Winged Curse enemy archetypes
• Grounded enemies use room-local platform routes to jump, descend, clear walls, and board moving platforms
• Four permanent stone upgrades and a moonstone side quest
• HUD, dialogue prompts, boss health bar, particles, hit flashes, and camera shake
• 640×360 pixel-native rendering with nearest-neighbor scaling
• GothicVania Church environment, animated character, enemy, and magic assets
• Procedural sound effects, persisted settings/checkpoints, and gamepad controls
• Navigable pause menu with separate master and SFX volume controls
• Sillius ally quest, temporary companion combat, and chain-lightning unlock
• Original Celium and Kenney Tiny Dungeon sprites remain as fallback assets

Build

Create a portable LÖVE archive with make build. The result is dist/celiums-fall.love and can be opened by LÖVE on macOS, Windows, or Linux.

Roadmap

Next priorities are full-route traversal, combat, and accessibility playtesting; authored ambience; and platform-specific releases. See docs/ROADMAP.md.

Validation

• make check: validate Lua syntax and run dependency-free unit tests.
• make smoke: exercise assets, every room, traversal, navigation, progression, and rendering through LÖVE.
• make build && unzip -t dist/celiums-fall.love: create and integrity-check the portable archive.

GitHub Actions runs the same checks headlessly on pushes and pull requests.