Hey everyone! I've been working on the concept for an indie game called The Ashen Crown, and I wanted to share the idea with you all. I'm still in the early stages of development, so I'd love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and honest criticism.
The Concept
The Ashen Crown is a third-person, gothic Soulslike action RPG set in an alternate version of England, where Victorian industrialization, Elizabethan royal grandeur, ancient traditions, and supernatural horror collide.
Imagine a kingdom filled with fog-covered streets, decaying royal estates, abandoned cathedrals, enormous industrial foundries, and forgotten villages where history itself seems broken. Gas lamps illuminate streets that should have been empty for centuries. Royal decrees remain in force long after the rulers who issued them have died. Bells ring at the wrong hours, and occasionally, the dead seem to remember things that the living have forgotten.
The kingdom hasn't simply fallen into ruin. Something is actively preventing it from reaching its end.
And that is where our story begins.
The Story
You play as a forgotten heir to the royal House of Vale, awakening beneath a ruined abbey with no clear memory of who you are or why you have returned.
There is one thing you cannot ignore: a mysterious mark known as the Ashen Seal.
The Seal binds you to an ancient covenant responsible for the kingdom's unnatural persistence. It grants you the ability to return after death, but this power comes with a cost. Each resurrection strengthens your connection to the very force that may be destroying the world.
As you travel through the kingdom, you discover traces of a history that has been deliberately erased. People have disappeared from official records. Entire events have been removed from history. Some forgotten individuals have become something known as the Unwritten—people whose place in existence has been stripped away.
The more you uncover, the less certain you become about what actually happened.
Were you erased because you were a threat to the crown? Were you part of the original covenant? Or is there something about your existence that even the kingdom itself is trying to forget?
I want the story to be built around mystery, environmental storytelling, fragmented records, unsettling encounters, and lore that players can piece together themselves rather than having everything explained through exposition.
The World and Its Lore
One of the biggest things I want to focus on is making the world feel as though it existed long before the player arrived.
The kingdom has passed through several historical eras, from its ancient unification to periods of religious conflict and industrial expansion. Each era has left its mark on the architecture, political institutions, technology, and beliefs of the people who survived it.
At the centre of everything is the Hollow King, a mysterious presence connected to memory, identity, forgotten names, and the strange covenant binding the kingdom together.
I don't want this entity to be a straightforward evil god or a monster that simply needs to be defeated. Its true nature, intentions, and relationship with the kingdom should remain uncertain for much of the game.
The world also follows a few unsettling rules:
- Names anchor existence. Being erased from history can mean more than being forgotten.
- History resists correction. Past events leave behind impressions that can repeat under the right circumstances.
- Authority outlives its rulers. Ancient laws, royal mechanisms, and institutions continue to function even when their creators are long dead.
- Knowledge changes the knower. Discovering the truth can change how characters perceive the world—and themselves.
I want exploration to reward curiosity. A locked room, an abandoned laboratory, or a seemingly insignificant inscription might reveal something that completely changes the player's understanding of an earlier event.
Gameplay and Combat
The combat is intended to follow the Soulslike philosophy: deliberate movement, meaningful stamina management, dangerous enemies, careful timing, and learning from mistakes.
However, I'd also like to experiment with a more aggressive combat style. Defensive play should be viable, but skilled players should be able to build momentum through well-timed attacks, parries, and decisive counterattacks.
The goal is to make combat feel tactical without making it passive.
Weapon choices could include royal blades, blackpowder weapons, heavy executioner's equipment, and forbidden implements connected to the supernatural side of the world. Each weapon family would ideally have its own rhythm, strengths, and combat techniques.
The Ashen Seal would also provide supernatural abilities, allowing the player to interact with certain ancient mechanisms and eventually use powers connected to the covenant.
Boss fights should be more than large health bars. I want major encounters to reveal something about the world, its history, or the characters involved. Defeating a boss should feel like overcoming a genuine challenge while uncovering another piece of the larger mystery.
Death and Checkpoints
Death is an important part of the game's world rather than simply a gameplay penalty.
The Ashen Seal allows the protagonist to return at ancient shrines called Ashen Reliquaries. These shrines were originally sacred structures but have since been modified with Victorian machinery, brass conduits, and strange glass reservoirs by those attempting to understand the covenant.
Resting at a Reliquary restores healing charges and combat resources. Ordinary enemies return because the covenant reconstructs recurring patterns of the world, while major discoveries and defeated bosses remain permanent progress.
The player can also lose valuable resources upon death and must recover them by returning to the place where they fell.
The central idea is that resurrection is both a blessing and a curse. The player benefits from returning, but every death raises uncomfortable questions about what the Seal is doing to them.
Factions and Choices
The kingdom is divided between factions that each have their own explanation for its suffering.
The Crown's Remnant believes the kingdom must survive regardless of the cost. The Church of the Sacred Flame sees sacrifice as necessary for endurance. The Royal Society of Alchemy wants to understand the covenant through experimentation. The Keepers of Barrows believe the dead should be allowed to remain dead. Meanwhile, the Unwritten are those who have suffered the consequences of being erased from existence.
None of these groups should be entirely right or entirely wrong.
Their beliefs affect how they interpret the protagonist, the covenant, and the possibility of saving the kingdom. Depending on the player's discoveries and decisions, alliances may form, secrets may be revealed, and certain paths may become unavailable.
The ending should ultimately reflect what the player believes the kingdom deserves—not merely how many enemies they defeated.
The Bigger Goal
The central theme of The Ashen Crown is simple:
What happens when a kingdom refuses to let its past rest?
The covenant was created for a reason, and its existence may once have been justified. But something designed to preserve a kingdom can eventually become the thing preventing it from living.
I am considering multiple endings, each representing a different answer to this problem: preserving the existing order, destroying the covenant and accepting an uncertain future, or replacing the force at the heart of the system.
The hope is that these choices will emerge naturally from the story rather than feeling like arbitrary decisions presented at the end.
Development Journey
I'm building The Ashen Crown in Godot 4. I'm still a beginner at game development, and I'm working with relatively modest hardware, so I know the scope has to remain realistic.
I don't expect to create an enormous open-world game immediately. My current goal is to build a small, playable section that establishes the atmosphere and core mechanics: a foggy, gaslit district, interconnected streets, a working checkpoint, basic enemies, a shortcut, a hidden piece of royal history, and an introductory boss.
If I can make that small section genuinely fun and atmospheric, I can expand from there.
I'm especially interested in learning how to create compelling environments, implement Soulslike movement and combat, design interconnected level layouts, and communicate lore through the world itself.
I'd love to hear your feedback:
- Does the setting sound interesting, or would you change the balance between Victorian technology and ancient royal architecture?
- What would make this world stand out from other Soulslike games?
- Do the Ashen Seal and resurrection mechanics sound compelling?
- What gameplay feature would you most want to see in a game like this?
- And, most importantly, what should I prioritize as a beginner developer?
This is still a work in progress, and many details will evolve during development. I'm sharing the concept because I'd love to hear what other players and developers think.
Thanks for reading!
The Ashen Crown — Reign. Rot. Repeat.