The Kalia and the Fire Staff Pre-Alpha is Live!

The first major milestone for this project is finally here, its first playable public release! But I'm getting ahead of myself. For those who are not yet familiar with Kalia and the Fire Staff (or KatFS, or "The Kalia Project" as I like to call it), it is an indie game initiative that has been in planning for more than two years since the protagonist was first conceptualized, and in semi-active development for the last six months. The game will introduce you to Kalia, an imp girl who managed to escape from the pits of hell and made herself at home in the overworld, living in seclusion deep within the woods. KatFS is her origin story, of how she discovers an ancient fire staff and learns to wield the powers of fire magic whilst venturing through the deep underground.

That's all nice and dandy, but what about the game itself? KatFS is played from a top-down perspective, providing the player with a good overview of combat. Kalia has access to basic melee and ranged attacks for handling individual targets, and special abilities which allow her to strike at entire crowds at once. Combat in KatFS takes some cues from games like Diablo, Dark Souls and MOBAs, so if you're familiar with any of those, hopefully you'll feel at home.

What makes KatFS special though, is how Kalia is able to wield fire to her advantage. All it takes are a few firebolts to set a whole pile of crates (or zombies!) ablaze. Fire will spread to nearby flammable objects and enemies, and the more fires are active around you, the stronger your own powers will become! However, there are also reasons to be careful when playing with fire. While Kalia is immune to it, you probably don't want a stray ember to light up the highly volatile powder keg right next to you. You also probably want to avoid burning the few pockets of nature you can find, as Kalia's powers are drawn from it and being surrounded by live greenery will boost her abilities in other ways.

KatFS is not all combat, though. You will be exploring the ruins scavenging for supplies and possibly a few lost trinkets. You will also have to figure out how to operate some of the ancient machinery that is still operational if you want to progress. This is where the game takes cues from the likes of Half Life and Portal in its level, puzzle (and in the future, narrative) design.

This should be enough about the game for now, though. Now just a brief introduction for the dev: I'm a Brazilian software developer who found his inspiration to jumpstart a career as an independent game developer during the course of a two-year Master's program in Sweden. While I had worked on indie game projects before, none of them were something I could properly call "mine" (and none have ever seen a public release). I'm aware of the challenges that face me, but I'm privileged to have found plenty of support for this project and future career this early on. I'm confident that I can make KatFS into a complete, polished and charming experience during the coming years. This is just its humble beginning.

Hope you enjoy this prototype/pre-alpha/demo! If you have any feedback, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to share. Right now is the perfect moment for it! :)