Gleipnir

Týr is the god of war, and the only god who ever fed Fenrir. The wolf was a pup then. He is not a pup now, and the gods have decided he must be bound.

They send Týr to gather six things that do not exist: the sound of a cat's footfall, a woman's beard, the roots of a mountain, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird and the sinews of a bear. The dwarves will twist them into Gleipnir, the chain no wolf can break. You know how the story ends. Týr does too.

GLEIPNIR is a 2.5D side-view soulslike in Norse folk horror, printed in two inks: black and blood red on bone.

What's in the demo

• The Norns' Tale. A woodcut prologue in ten linocut panels, scored to the game's music.
• The Wolf's Yard. The tutorial, played as a memory: you learn to fight by sparring with young Fenrir and Asgard's recruits.
• The forge. The hub under the mountain, with the dwarves Eitri and Brokkr, the Norns at their well, and Fenrir waiting for you by the cave mouth.
• Yggdrasil. The World Tree, your map of the nine realms.
• Valhalla. A practice yard: summon a recruit, a shieldbearer or a drummer and drill your parries with a timing readout.

The first realm, the Silent Wood, and its boss are not in this demo. They come in a later build.

Features

• Parry-first combat. A light parry turns a blow; a heavy weapon's parry breaks a whole string of blows and opens the attacker up.
• Four weapons: sword and shield, spear, greatsword and great axe. Each has its own reach, its own parry and a signature move.
• Urðr's horn: you heal by fighting well. Clean reads and ripostes fill the horn, and drinking from it in a fight takes nerve.
• Pose-driven animation on a stepped 24 fps clock. The title, the prologue and the map re-ink eight times a second, like a fresh pull from the block.
• Original score, written for the game.

Controls

Keyboard or gamepad. The game shows the glyphs for whichever you touched last (Xbox and PlayStation layouts).

Action	Keyboard	Gamepad (Xbox)
Move	A / D or arrows	Left stick / d-pad
Aim up / down	W / S	Left stick / d-pad
Jump	Space	A
Attack (hold: cleave)	J or X	X
Dash	K, C or Shift	B or RT
Block (hold) / parry (tap)	L or V	LB or LT
Use / talk	E	Y
Urðr's horn	F or I	Hold Y
Swap weapon	Q	View
Signature	U	RB
Map	N	R3
Pause	Esc or P	Menu

Combos: Space then S+J strikes down in the air; W+J is a rising cut; L+J bashes with the shield. The pause menu has the full controls page.

Platforms

Windows, macOS and Linux. Unzip and run; no install.

macOS: the build is not notarised yet. The first time, right-click the app and choose Open, then Open again.

Demo, early development, feedback welcome

This is an early build of a game in active development. Things will break, and the numbers will change. If something felt unfair, confusing or good, tell me in the comments below. Parry timing reports help most.

Credits

Made by Abhiram Poluri.
Music: original, rendered with Muse Sounds.
Sound effects: CC0 recordings from Freesound, OpenGameArt and Kenney, with thanks to every recordist listed in the game's audio credits.
Fonts: UnifrakturMaguntia and IM Fell English (SIL Open Font License).
Made with Godot.