Today, I’m proud to officially announce the existence of Tenjutsu, a new addition to the roguelite world, with the help of the incredibly nice people at Devolver Digital.

Tenjutsu is born from a Ludum Dare game jam and the ashes of Dead Cells, despite my desire to NOT make another rogue. Guess what, I’m doing another one :)

To sum it up, Tenjutsu is what John Wick or Jackie Chan would be if they were a combat roguelite. An action-packed melee combat system, where you face multiple enemies at the same time, filled with split-second battle opportunities.

Picture this: you enter a room with 3 thugs, one has a gun and the other two only have their fists. You start chaining kicks and punches the first melee guy, then send a violent elbow kick to his friend attacking you from behind, and proceed to finish the first melee thug. Suddenly, the gun guy starts to aim at you. You throw a knife at him, killing him instantly. You then roll behind the remaining thug (still stunned, he surely has lost a few teeth), and dash-kick him into a nearby wall.

Bam. Everyone is down in about 4 seconds.

My idea was just this: make the combat way more dynamic than in Dead Cells by adding opportunities, combat space management and crowd control to create true “one vs many” situations.

But wait, there’s more!

Tenjutsu of course has tons of unique weapons (each with a specific gameplay), loot, upgrades and bosses. It’s a rogue, right? 

But I also wanted to address the issues with the quite linear world design from Dead Cells. I want the player to have control on their path. So, you can take down the game bosses in whatever order suits you. The later, the harder. Don’t like the bullet hell boss? Take him down first. Think of it as Megaman, but “roguer”: each eliminated boss will have consequences on the rest of the run. 

There’s sooo much more to talk about (the city evolutions, the enemies, the progression system!), but… no, today is not the time, yet :)