Dustforce developer details the procedurally-generated fantasy world of Spire

Dustforce developer Hitbox Team is offering details of its upcoming title Spire, currently in development from the team.

The upcoming game, slated to hit PC, Mac and Linux, takes place in a monolithic spire made up of procedurally-generated levels. Hitbox describes the game's "curated level generation," in which the generator will choose to create a lower-intensity level following one with lots of combat in order to "better control the emotional arc of the experience."

"In this way, Spire will generate intentional level flow instead of randomized environments," writes the developer. "The resolution of the generation is very high: there are no pre-made rooms or scripted events. Everything from the placement of the books on a shelf to the shape of the walls and floors will be generated with intention."

While Spire is a fantasy game, the team plans to design "non-standard" creatures and items. In addition, Hitbox will adopt a similar design philosophy seen in Dustforce, which aims to overlap stylish but efficient gameplay. Spire will feature a first-person styled movement system " that feels snappy like Dustforce, incorporating wall-jumps, wall sliding and other advanced techniques," they write. "The level generation will result in scenes that demand mastery of all sorts of skills, not just running and aiming."

Players will also need to work out the numerous item combinations in the game to overcome challenges. Items will trigger different abilities, with some affecting movement while others will change the environment.

In addition to this, Hitbox plans to incorporate weekly updated leaderboards, an offline mode for non-competitive practice, an online ranked mode, as well as a standard mode that can be made more difficult for the player with the addition of "burdens." Burdens will each have their own separate leaderboard and can, alternatively, be playable offline.

Spire has no release date as of yet; however, more information will become available later in the year.