Halls of Torment News

Welcome, Adventurers!

We are thrilled to announce that we’ll be starting a closed playtest for Halls of Torment soon. We are opening registration for the playtest now and will invite the first players later this week. If you’re excited for the game and want to help us with valuable feedback, head over to the playtest registration (link below, please read it carefully!) and join us.

We are planning to invite new players in waves to get a good coverage, so please be patient after filling out the form.

We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

--> Register here! (Google Form)
Cheers,
Chasing Carrots 🥕

Greetings, adventurers!

Only the most courageous or wicked have travelled to the Ashen Cliffsides where the gates to the Halls of Torment are looming over the desolate landscape. Some came in pursuit of riches, some in search of glory. Others believe great sources of wisdom lie shrouded beneath the Halls waiting to be revealed. Others again are sensitive to the great powers emanating from the depths; powers they cannot leave untapped, or worse, squandered on others.

Today we want to introduce the first four player characters in the Halls of Torment roster. There will be many more in the future, but these were the first ones to arrive at the gates and set up camp.

[h3]The Swordsman[/h3]

There are only a few things that can withstand a good swing with a Zweihander. With this in mind a well trained sword-wielder dares to enter the Halls with only light armour. Of all mortals who gathered before the gates the Swordsman impresses with the nimble yet vigorous simplicity of his combat style. All in all he’s a well balanced pick when it comes to overcoming the horrors down below.

[h3]The Archer[/h3]

The best defence against a raging horde of unholy creatures is a well-maintained distance. Meanwhile, from a good vantage point a couple of well aimed arrows can do a lot of damage. The Archer is a dexterous ranged fighter who has accomplished mastery in both of these principles. Her creed: Spray death from afar and nothing will get to you. We’ll see how well this works out for her as the Halls get increasingly crowded.

[h3]The Exterminator[/h3]

The hunt for vermin and pests is the Exterminator’s daily routine. Equipped with a brazen flame caster they hunt for malicious creatures in cellars and catacombs. Whatever abomination compromises a customer’s estate, they kill it with fire. A lot of nobles and city councils are paying them good coin for their services. When word spread out about the Halls of Torment, it felt like a natural fit for them to join the camp.

[h3]The Shield Maiden[/h3]

As a member of the Sorority of the Protector the Shield Maiden is an expert in personal defence. Armour-clad and equipped with a warhammer and shield no one in their right mind would dare to assault her head-on. Luckily, prudence is a rare commodity down in the Halls. The Maiden regards the cleansing of those accursed depths as her holy duty, as any hellspawn escaping the Halls of Torment may become a threat to the innocent.

Welcome to the Halls of Torment!

What’s this, a new game? Indeed it is! And before I get into any details of what it exactly is and how it’s made, I think it’s important to explain how we got here in the first place. During the past five years we’ve made our previous game Good Company. Although it did find its wonderful audience and is still maintained, we felt a certain fatigue setting in. This journey towards the first 1.0 release was a taxing one and it had an immediate impact on how we thought about future projects. We want to learn from our past mistakes and achievements and so, long story short, we decided to do the following three things with our next game:

1. Don’t commit to a project until we have the core mechanics running AND said mechanics are fun on their own.
   
2. Know exactly where the game design is going as early as possible. We want to be able to describe a play session from start to finish in our own words as concretely as possible.
   
3. Limit the projected development time to a minimum and adjust the scope appropriately. “In the ballpark of six months” became our rule of thumb for a manageable project length.
   

We’ve made many rounds of internal game concept pitching and prototyping. Many of our ideas could not satisfy the constraints outlined above.

And then Vampire Survivors came along and demonstrated how it’s done. Naturally, such a successful game would give rise to plenty of imitators. At first we hesitated. We didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon. But the more time we spent with this newly hatched genre, the more it seemed like a very good fit for us. And so, we sat down, we made a plan, and we made sure it’s in line with our three goals mentioned above.

So … *clears throat*



As you might’ve guessed already, Halls of Torment is a reverse bullet hell roguelite in the vein of Vampire Survivors and similar games with light RPG elements. However, we wanted to put our own spin on the genre. We are big fans of old school action RPGs and CRPGs. Those games from the late 90s with their specific pre rendered aesthetic evoke warm feelings of nostalgia in us, and we’re sure that many players feel similarly. We wanted to capture those vibes and include them in Halls of Torment. Our goal is to make a game you can play casually while still enjoying the rich atmosphere of these grandiose role playing games that used to consume a large chunk of our free time during our youths.

I hope that we succeed, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

All the best!
Paul