Out now on Steam

Image credit: FreeTimeDev / Rock Paper Shotgun

Friends, I think I have unearthed the next Hidden Gem, though Hidden Arrow Trap might be the more appropriate framing. It’s a 2D precision platformer called the The Pale Piper that reminds me of Limbo, Hollow Knight and VVVVVV. It’s the work of FreeTimeDev, who is also known for Godot tools and synthwave jams on Itch.io. It’s out today on Steam, and the demo has killed me eleventy million times.

The Pale Piper is a sequel of sorts to the German folktale (folktail?) about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The Pied Piper of Hamelin was a musical exterminator who used his magic ditties to lure away all the rats infesting a village. When the villagers wouldn’t pay him, he unleashed his Satanic melodies to lead all the local children away too. The moral of the story is: kill bards on sight, especially when they’re dual classing. It turns out the Pied Paper story may have been inspired by a real historical incident.

Watch on YouTube

The Pale Piper invites you to “silence the cursed melody” of a post-Pied world. Typically, when videogames try to build on folk legends it results in stories of the “What if Goldilocks mastered the blade and overthrew Porridge Inc” variety. FreeTimeDev’s approach seems relatively elegant so far. You are some kind of resurrected wraith with glowing blue eyes and an extendable jump. You are exploring a metroidvania labyrinth of crushing blocks and spike pits and things with glowing red eyes that kill you instantly.

“Looks like Silksong!” screech we pitiful headline writers, like chicks after worms, but alas, not quite, because the Pale Piper is unarmed. Your only defence against the labyrinth’s many terrors is a combination of excellent pattern reading, even excellenter timing, and the capacity to die repeatedly and respawn at the area entrance without pulling your own ears off in consternation.

You can gather coins in each area, if you want to make life even harder for yourself. There are some traversal abilities to unlock, as well. From the trailer, it looks like they’ve got post-Dreamcast Sonic’s homing attack in there, and a local variation on Metroid’s morph ball.

I’m not sure I have the fortitude to keep plugging with The Pale Piper, but the softly crumbling industrial fantasy setting definitely grabs my gizzards, and I like the needling menace of the writing. Early on in the game you free a man from a cage and are asked to track down and slay the Rat King. He remarks that silence is "the only law that still obeys him". I will bet you several of those optional collectible coins that the caged man is the Pied Piper, and that the protagonist is actually one of the abducted kids, and that the Rat King is actually one of the good guys.