Penance

Dive into an Ancestral Mystery

In Penance, you are Elías, a monk living in an ancient abbey shrouded in unsettling silence. After the strange death of your master, Severinus, you embark on a journey that will lead you to uncover the hidden truth behind the monastery’s walls. What begins as simple mourning soon transforms into a disturbing revelation: the abbey is the façade of a secret society that has perpetuated a dark, ancient ritual for centuries, concealed beneath a false Christian liturgy.
Your journey is not only a search for truth but also an introspective path, where each step draws you closer to a secret that could change everything.

The Duality of Guilt and Faith

The core gameplay of Penance revolves around the profound duality of guilt and faith, which influences every action you take. As you progress, you will face difficult choices when interacting with objects that bring you closer to the truth, while also testing your spirit. Guilt will increase the weight of your sins, while faith allows you to purify them.
This constant struggle is visually reflected through Elías’s staff, whose light adapts to your moral state. Your journey becomes not only a search for truth but also a constant battle to balance the purity of your faith against the weight of the secrets you uncover.
Beyond mechanics, you will encounter 50 Mystery Objects—artifacts that narrate the abbey’s hidden story. Each of these objects reveals a fragment of the past, helping you piece together the events that unfolded within the abbey and the fate of your master, Severinus.

An Immersive and Contemplative Experience

The game has been designed as a slow and contemplative experience, with deliberately restrained movement speed to encourage immersion. The pace of exploration invites you to fully immerse yourself in the somber world of its detailed 2D silhouette design. The environments convey a constant sense of melancholy and tension. Sound effects and the soundtrack are meticulously crafted to heighten immersion, ensuring that every whisper and creak keeps you on edge.

Key Features

• Deep, structured narrative: Uncover a story of mystery and redemption through 50 Mystery Objects which, once discovered, come together to form a symbolic poem. The story unfolds across 7 phases based on canonical hours.

• Unique Guilt and Faith mechanic: The duality of your spiritual and moral state is represented visually by two intertwined, opposing bars. Your staff reflects this state, detecting zones of guilt and faith, alerting you when they can be absorbed to progress on your path.

• A world full of secrets: The abbey’s walls are not empty—the ghosts of the sacrificed manifest, reminding you of the place’s tragic past. Explore the Library to examine the Mystery Objects and delve deeper into the abbey’s hidden history.

• Captivating art design: Immerse yourself in a world built with intricate 2D silhouettes. The atmosphere is enhanced by a dynamic two-layer fog system that follows the player, creating full immersion.

• Slow, atmospheric gameplay: A deliberately contemplative pace encourages exploration and immersion in a tense atmosphere, where every visual and auditory detail tells part of the story.

• Full localization: Enjoy the game fully localized in Spanish and English, with future plans to expand into French, Italian, and Portuguese.