Shadwen

The throne room. King is calling out for guards, but none come dashing to his rescue. Instead, a determined looking female assassin is ready to smear her blade with blood of the kings.

Fast forward to earlier that day, letting the players experience Shadwen's journey on a quest to assassinate the king. It all started with Lily, a young girl driven by hunger who found herself stealing a couple of fallen apples. The guard who caught her wasn't compassionate enough to let it slide and was about to bring her in front of a king to be passed sentence upon. It just so happens that Shadwen was passing through on her way to king's castle. The way Shadwen, controlled by the player, disposes of that guard will affect Lily and her opinion of Shadwen throughout their time together.

Shadwen cannot risk Lily alerting anyone about her presence so she takes Lily with her. This is a stealth game in the most literal way which leaves zero tolerance for direct confrontation of any kind. While majority of the game the player controls Shadwen, during introductory level Lily is controllable character. Tutorial level teaches basic gameplay and how to use surroundings and objects to your advantage and to remain out of sight of ever vigilant king's guards.

Story spans some twenty or so levels which vary in design but retain the same dark setting. The goal on each level is to reach the final door with the coat of arms above them and two levers which need to be operated simultaneously to open them, meaning both Shadwen and Lily need to be present in order to proceed. Shadwen can use either stealth kills or distraction to move the guards out of the way and let Lily proceed unspotted. Lily herself cannot be spotted even if she passes right in front of or through the guards and will move automatically when the path is clear. Shadwen can create distractions by either pushing objects with her hands or using her grappling hook to pull them. Unlike Lily, Shadwen can jump, climb, use her blade for stealth kills, or swing using her grappling hook. Additionally, Shadwen can find schematics for various gadgets she can build and use. Each schematic will require certain materials which can be found in chests scattered across the kingdom. Used devices will be replenished at the beginning of each level. Built devices can also be disassembled for materials and many devices require some of the same building materials.

The game yields game over the moment guards spot Shadwen, and they all carry crossbows so there is no sword fencing or even a way to kill them from from the front with your blade, they'll just block any frontal attack. However, the game doesn't end with game over nor does it reload a checkpoint of any kind, instead, it pauses and waits for the player to rewind back the time. Rewinding back time can be done anytime and any length so there's no way to get permanently stuck in a bad decision. By default, when player character is idle the game pauses. You can hold the button to pass the time, or simply keep controlling your character which also passes the time. looking around with the camera does not affect the time in any way.

There are only two types of guards, regular which can be killed from behind, and heavy guards which can only be killed by jumping on them from at least several meters high place. Killed guards can be moved out of sight or hidden in the haystacks or bushes to avoid being spotted by other guards. Story progresses through dialogues between Shadwen and Lily on a world map in between missions which works as a loading screen. Dialogues can be skipped once the loading of the next level has been done.Cut-scenes which are very scarce are comprised of still comic-style images and are mainly used for intro and outro.