Below the Bell

Hollin Cross cuts stone for a living, and under the quarry an old Order laid the town's dead in galleries for four hundred years. Now the bell has started ringing on its own. Every night somebody in town hears their own name in it, and in the morning they go down.

You were taught to ring by the last ringer above. You go down after them.

Below the Bell is a first-person dungeon crawler on a square grid, played in real time. A monster about to strike turns yellow and you hear the blow drawn back at least a beat before it lands, so there is always a moment to step aside, turn to face it, or get the shield up. Your two hands work on their own cooldowns: a weapon in one, and a shield, a knife or a hand-bell in the other.

The hand-bell rings changes, patterns of strokes and rests in time with its own toll that the Order used to keep the dead where they were laid, and each one you learn is written in a book somewhere below. Ringing takes nerve: a step, a blow or a wound breaks it off. Rounds stops the dead near you for three beats. Plain Hunt shows the path of everything that moves. Stedman brings a stopped rope back to life. The fourth change is the one your teacher never taught you. Every boss has one answer, and it is written down somewhere on its floor.

Between descents you walk Hollin Cross itself, at night under the moon, to the people standing at their doors: the chapel, the smithy, Nell's lamp-shop, the Wheatsheaf. The quarry gate takes you down, and the crypt stair and the bell tower open as you go deeper. A Homeward Taper lit below brings you up to town and back down to the same spot, once.

What is in it:

12 floors in three acts, 3 optional floors, and one more for anyone who comes back

49 kinds of monsters and 11 bosses

36 abilities in 3 disciplines: Blade, Bolt and Litany

loot with rolled properties, and 30 relics that only named things carry

24 quests from the people still in town, and 4 endings

Step mode, where the world waits and moves one beat each time you act

three paces, and a Story Mode where you take a third of the damage

neither Step mode nor Story Mode locks anything: every achievement and every ending still counts

rebindable keys, full controller support, subtitles for the toll and every sound you need to hear, reduced flashes and colour marks

English and Brazilian Portuguese