Newest of the fallen, take up thy sword and fight
Long ago a great beast arose from the sea and covered the earth in a strange fog that reshaped the world and twisted all it touched. Now those deemed undesirable are thrown into a great well, which has become a pit of chaos and disease. You awaken in a moonlit subterranean world, having been thrown into the Great Well for crimes unknown. The only way out is to go further down.
Lunacid is a first-person RPG which takes heavy influence from the King's Field and Shadow Tower series, alongside inspiration from FromSoftware's newer "Soulsborne" titles, introducing mechanics like dedicated blocking, classes, stat levelling, and a heavy dose of cryptic Flavor Text.
The game was developed by Akuma Kira (also known for Lost in Vivo and Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion), and was released into Early Access on Steam
on March 15, 2022. It was fully released on October 30, 2023.
Lunacid provides examples of the following tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: This is a significant gameplay mechanic. Damaging specific body parts allows you to partly dismember enemies, potentially weakening them or removing their ability to use certain attacks. You yourself also get this treatment by an Old Man at the beginning of the game, resulting in you only having one hand to fight with.
- Astral Projection: Etna, the alchemist at Wing's Rest, was originally a young witch who escaped the well by astrally projecting herself to the surface. She later returned to her body, though as it had died by that point she elected to hang around as a ghost.
- Bird People: The merchant at Wing's Rest is Sheryl the Crow, who is, as her name implies, a humanoid crow-woman.
- Blood Magic: Some of the spells are described as such, which in gameplay terms means that they're Cast from Hit Points. The healing potions are also mentioned to be made of blood.
- Crapsack World: Both the Great Well and the outside world are depicted as looking pretty shitty, but while the Well has been said to be for criminals, the elderly, and the sick, it looks positively heavenly compared to the hellish landscape that is the outside world. For context, it's covered with poison mist from an unknown "great beast" which not only made mankind paranoid, segregated, and on the brink of extinction, but also made the surface completely dead. When you reach the Great Well Surface, Demi even argues why people would want to escape to the surface, seeing it as no better than the Well.
- Cute Monster Girl: Demi, a demon who was raised by a group of exiled monks. She's a friendly and cheerful girl who offers the player encouragement and occasionally even a few useful items.
- Evolving Weapon: Some weapons can gain weapon xp, which will allow you to upgrade them into more powerful forms at the blacksmith's grave in Wing's Rest.
- Excalibur in the Rust: Some of the upgradeable weapons begin with low stats and an unimpressive appearance but become much more useful once upgraded. For example, the Rusted Hilt (a near-useless weapon with almost no range and terrible damage) becomes the Fire Sword, which has respectable base damage, lights up dark areas, and sets enemies on fire.
- Facial Horror: The mummies found in the Temple of Silence have a massive cavity above their nose, looking like someone scooped out their brain through their face. A tome you can find implies that, in fact, it was the other way around.
- They were apparently monks following a mad sorcerer, seeking enlightenment. Later on you find the brains - as enemies in the Forbidden Archives. Apparently, the monks found what they sought, as the floating, spellcasting brains with eyes are named "Enlightened Ones"
- Friendly Skeleton: Clive, a skeleton who sits at the bar at Wing's Rest, drinking healing potions and offering the player bits of exposition and worldbuilding.
- Haunted Castle: Castle Le Fanu is a Homage to these; being a massive keep hewn from black stone, filled with both ornate luxuries and deadly secrets, and is ruled by Vampires; with an extra helping of bloody poltergeists to go with them.
- Holy Burns Evil: Holy damage is typically more effective against the undead, demons, and other similarly "unholy" enemies.
- Holy Is Not Safe: The description of the Holy Water item mentions that it has to be very diluted, as pure holy water burns anyone who isn't "saintly" with holy light.
- Holy Water: Appears as a consumable item that can be used to remove status effects.
- Inventional Wisdom: The Lithomancy ring brings inanimate objects to life, whereupon they do nothing but scream and shake in existential terror. The Flavor Text admits that it's not clear why this was invented.
- Lost Technology: Both VHS tapes and the Privateer Musket hint that the world had a much higher tech level before the poisonous mist, including a full home theater setup in the depths of Castle Le Fanu.
- The Lost Woods: Yosei Forest fits the bill pretty well, with its thick tree canopy pierced by rays of light and meadows filled with strange, glowing spirits. It also happens to be underground, which itself is strange and ethereal for a forest.
- Lunacy: The rate at which the player gains Lunacy by casting spells is influenced by what the current lunar phase is in real life.
- Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: You know the Sinister Scythe Demi has? She got that from Death himself. It's unknown how she herself managed to defeat him or why she even took him on in the first place, but it's extremely impressive. Though the "Old Death" was replaced with a "New Death", who is apparently far stronger than the old one.
- Power at a Price: Casting spells causes the player to gain Lunacy, which increases the effectiveness of magic and amount of XP gained by the player, but also increases damage taken.
- Rare Candy: The Earth Elixir and Ocean Elixir permanently increase the player's health or mana when consumed.
- Rat King: One of the enemies encountered in the Fetid Mire's sewers, though in an unusual example of the trope they're the type of rat kings you'd find in real life, being just groups of normal rats with their tails tangled together. For a straighter example of the trope, there are the Rat Queens, dog-sized rats with smaller rats seemingly growing from their bodies.
- Ring of Power: All of the game's spells come in the form of rings that allow you to cast the spell.
- Rivers of Blood: The Sanguine Sea is a massive cavern covered in a shallow pool of liquid blood.
- Save Point: The game is scattered with floating magenta Warp Crystals, which the player can use to level up, save their game, and warp to other save crystals.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the stories that Clive can tell you about is one where a cruel Witch King tortured his subjects by forcing them to consume rats. This inevitably led to his knights throwing him down the Great Well, after cutting off his arm and gouging his eyes. He forced himself to survive by consuming rats but didn't die, eventually using the last of his magic to turn himself into a statue, becoming worshipped by the rats. If context clues weren't enough, Clive is talking about Sotiris from Lost in Vivo, Kira's previous title.
- One of the monsters is a tree monster called the Gloom Wood.
- Castle Le Fanu is named after Sheridan Le Fanu; the author of Carmilla; the reference further reinforced by the Lesbian Vampire power-couple that used to rule it.
- Demi will sometimes be seen sitting on a recolored froggy chair.
- One of the spells is called Icarian Flight. It does exactly the same thing as the thing it's referencing. Exactly the same thing.
- Stalked by the Bell: In the Mausoleum, if you stay for too long, text will appear saying "Death Approaches", followed by Death himself coming to kill you. He's unkillable, gets progressively faster, and both curses (which makes it so you can't use weapons) and bleeds you should he attack you with his scythe, though contact damage is an One-Hit Kill. The only way to escape him is by either using a Crystal Shard/the Spirit Warp spell, using the Warp Crystal (though if you are cursed you can't use it) or booking it for the entrance door and going to the Sanguine Lake.
- Warp Whistle: The large magenta Warp Crystals act as a teleport nodes between each other, while the Crystals Shards item and Spirit Warp spell will dump you directly next to the Warp Crystal in Wing's Rest.
