Publisher Annapurna Interactive has announced Neon White, a stylish and fast-paced first-person game that combines gunplay and card strategy. Playing an assassin dedicated to ridding heaven of demons, the game in motion looks halfway between Doom Eternal and Mirror’s Edge, a blend of quick impact choices and momentum-led navigation.
The core gimmick is how the cards work, with each having a weapon and an ability associated with it. Thus the ‘elevate’ card has a pistol which will gradually use-up the card’s power, or you can sacrifice the card at once for a giant leap upwards. ‘Godspeed’ features a rifle and a dash: ‘Stomp’ an SMG and a ground-pound; ‘Dominion’ a rocket launcher with a boost-jump and possibly a grapple.
You get the idea: whether the game is any good or not depends on how these abilities stitch-together, with the trailer showcasing several examples of clever interplay. Your default option is a sword that doesn’t seem to have any movement tricks, so building runs that exploit the environment and your tools in unexpected ways will be an odd combination of twitch skills and card-management.
Neon White’s being developed by Ben Esposito, creator of the excellent Donut County and horror Furby simulator Tattletail, with a soundtrack from Machine Girl. It’s due Winter 2021 on Steam.