Songbringer

Songbringer is a procedurally generated sci-fi action RPG about Roq Epimetheos, an accidental hero who travels the galaxy aboard the ship Songbringer with his skybot, Jib. Roq searches for verdant planets without galactic police, but on Ekzera he finds a nanosword in a cave and unknowingly awakens an ancient evil.

Roq and Jib

Roq likes partying and making music. Jib began life as a human boy on the skycity planet Yuerder, where he became a programmer of artificial intelligence. On his deathbed, he illegally transferred his consciousness into a skybot, destroying the consciousness link to prevent it from being overwritten. Jib is obsessed with mustaches, which he cannot grow as a human.

Jib scans fallen foes and sometimes finds valuable loot. He can also gain the ability to stun enemies. The game controls him with AI by default, or a second player can control him in local co-op.

Worlds and dungeons

At the start of a quest, you choose a six-letter world seed. It generates the planet, overworld, secrets and dungeons; entering the same seed always creates the same world, whatever platform you play on. You can share its lore and compete with others, try a new seed for a different world, or reuse a familiar one for a speed run.

Each generated overworld is open and non-linear: you can travel in any compass direction, tackle dungeons out of order, or even leave the sword uncollected. Roq and Jib can find nine dungeons in each world, with different purposes:

• Thematic dungeons contain puzzles and items integral to completing the world.
• Secret dungeons are hidden side quests where you can gain abilities.
• Other dungeons pit you against overwhelming numbers of difficult foes, mobs and bosses.

Secrets and progression

Secrets and concealed treasures are scattered throughout the world. Eating cacti gives Roq psychedelic powers that let him perceive secrets hidden in plain sight. Some items can be combined into distinct artifacts at the droidsmith aboard Songbringer. For example, combining a blink orb and a fire cube creates a fire orb that lets Roq teleport forward a few steps while turning into a fireball.

Songbringer has no experience points. You progress by defeating mobs and bosses and claiming lost technological devices.

Quest scores

After each quest, the game calculates a score based on your completion time, the percentage of the map uncovered, the percentage of items obtained, and whether you played in regular or permadeath mode. You can save your score to a global leaderboard organized by world seed. The leaderboard cycles through seeds based on popularity and freshness, and you can select a particular seed to view.