Golden Light

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A meat-filled roguelike shooter where the props hunt you.

Platforms: PC
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (85% of 4,003 reviews)
Players: 1
Made by: Mr. Pink
Released: 2022

What frightens You descend through the Gut, a procedurally built place of meat, eyes and teeth, where ordinary-looking props can be the monsters that hunt you and your weapons are fleshy things with eyeballs. The store promises procedural spooks and walls that watch you; the screenshots show grotesque creatures in dark, sickly lit rooms.
Content: gore, body horror, nudity.

Golden Light is a first-person horror roguelike shooter by Mr. Pink. You descend into the Gut to save a loved one, fighting with random weapons through procedural levels of flesh and eyes, where the furniture itself can turn on you.

About Golden Light

Golden Light is a horror roguelike by the solo studio Mr. Pink, released on Steam for Windows in March 2022. The store page calls it a procedural dark comedy horror game with an eerie atmosphere, and sums it up as a prop hunt where the props hunt you.

Your goal is to descend into the depths of the Gut to save a loved one. Each run builds its levels, weapons and scares anew. You play in first person, shooting with guns that are often half flesh, and you can eat or throw what you find: the store lists bat heads, fish heads, fat lips and meat apples among them. Some characters talk to you, among them a talking bicycle and a man in a toilet.

The fear comes from its world. The rooms are dark and lit in sickly gold, red and green, the walls and furniture may be watching you, and the monsters are grotesque piles of meat, teeth and eyes. Anything in a room might be a creature waiting to move. There is a strong streak of dark humour, but the look and sound are made to unsettle.

It suits players who like strange, gory horror shooters with roguelike runs, and who enjoy humour mixed into their horror. Players who want a slow, story-led scare should look elsewhere.

How to play Golden Light

Start a run and enter the Gut in first person.
Pick up the weapons each level gives you; they are random, so learn each one as you find it.
Treat every prop with suspicion: things in the room can be monsters waiting to attack.
Eat or throw the things you find to heal or fight, and keep descending to the next level.
When you die, start a new run with new levels and weapons.

Screenshots

First-person view holding a tommy gun at a hulking dark creature lit in gold in a restaurant room

A fleshy weapon covered in eyeballs fires a burst of flame in a dark wooden room

Riding a bicycle with an eyeball creature on the handlebars across a pink, foggy field of giant mushrooms

A twisted meaty creature wearing a crown confronts the player in a neon-lit corridor

Tips

Shoot suspicious furniture before you walk past it.
Try eating new items when you are safe, so you learn what they do before you need them.
Do not rely on one weapon; runs hand you different ones, so get used to switching.
Watch the store's content warning: there is gore and cartoon nudity.