One spear does everything

VEL started with one question: what if the hero’s only weapon were also his only tool?

Aru has a bronze spear, the vel, and nothing else. He can fight with it, but the moment it leaves his hand it becomes something more useful. The whole game is built on that trade.

A throw buys something

Hold to aim and a line shows where the spear will stick. Let go and it flies sixteen metres. What happens next depends on what it hits.

Stone and wood take it. A spear stuck in a wall is a foothold, a step higher than any jump could take you.
Salt crust and sea-bronze turn it. The Tide-King’s salt is creeping up the rivers, and where it has crusted over the stone the spear glances off and drops. A wall that looks climbable might not be.
People are another matter. A light soldier is carried off his feet and pinned to the wall behind him. A heavy one staggers with the spear in him, and carries it about until he falls.

Into clean stone above the salt, up onto it, and on.

Three ways to spend it

Once the spear is out there, Aru can do three things with it.

He can stand on it, once per jump. Standing on the spear spends his step, and only real ground gives it back, so you can’t climb a bare wall by throwing again and again. A climb becomes a puzzle about where to put one spear.

He can call it back. The spear turns round wherever it is and flies home through walls, hitting everyone in its way. It knocks fliers out of the air, and a shield turns it only from the front. Whatever it’s stuck in may come along too.

The moat: a throw over the soldier's head into the drawbridge, and the recall brings it down on him.

He can blink to it. Aru leaps to the spear, up to seventeen metres in eight frames, and nothing can touch him on the way. Throw it across a gap and you’re across. Throw it past a shield and you’re behind him.

The broken bridge: a throw into the far post, and a blink after it.

And what it costs

While the spear is away, Aru fights with his fists and feet. They’re quick, and they’re weak. Every throw is a small bet that what it buys is worth more than the blade in your hand.

Boxes first

None of this had any art when we made it. The spear was made fun in plain grey boxes first, and a room got its art only once it was fun to cross. The next post is about what happens then.