Lanternbound is a 2D platformer/puzzle game built in Unity, structured as a 3-level dungeon crawl.
Premise
You are a knight exploring a dark, abandoned dungeon with a lantern that dims over time. There are keys you can collect to increase your light time and chests to light up the room briefly, but you have to be careful of dangerous spikes. You win the game by reaching the light tower on all the levels, but you die and respawn if you touch spikes or your light runs out.
Mechanics
- Shrinking light — the light radius shrinks exponentially as the level goes on, limiting how far you can see and how much time you have.
- Survival tools — keys scattered around the map increase your light radius; chests grant a few seconds of full-map light.
- Hazards — spikes and other obstacles kill on contact.
- Lives — unlimited respawns; light radius resets on death or when moving to the next level. Three levels total, respawning at the start of the current level.
Tech
- Scripted in C#
- Player and torch animation state machines (Unity Animator Controllers)
- Universal Render Pipeline 2D Lights for the shrinking-light effect
- Cinemachine for camera follow