🕯️ At What Cost?

Every step leaves an Echo. Every Echo has a Price.

🎮 Game Description

You awaken in The Inverse, a surreal realm drained of color and filled with lost souls and forgotten guilt. In this mysterious purgatory, Echoes are everything — your life, your currency, your experience… and your sins.

Your choices shape your Resonance: fight and claim more Echoes to grow stronger, or show mercy and seek a way to Release your Burden. But nothing comes free — even puzzles demand a cost.

With limited lives, punishing traps, and multiple narrative outcomes, At What Cost? is a puzzle-infused, choice-driven RPG with soulslike tension and undertale-style morality.

🧩 Theme

Theme: COST (for Live2Dev GameJam)
Explore what it means to survive in a world where every action has a literal price.

👥 Team Info

Team Name: Nealverse Production
Team Member: Elang Esa Yudhistira

💻 Platform

• Engine: RPG Maker MV

• Platform: Windows (.exe)

📖 How to Play

• Use Arrow Keys to move

• Z / Enter / Space – Interact / Confirm

• X / Esc – Cancel / Open Menu

• Interact with Bonfires to save and restore

• Engage enemies in turn-based battles

• Echoes are your Lives, currency, and EXP

• Get defeated? You drop a Fading Echo — return to it to reclaim your lost Echoes. Die again, and it’s gone forever.

• Choose to Claim (kill) or Release (spare) enemies.

• Solving puzzles often costs Echoes. Choose wisely.

🧠 Core Systems

• Echoes System: Your life, XP, and money are all one — Echoes.

• Resonance Meter: Track whether you lean toward Burden (power and guilt) or Release (mercy and sacrifice).

• Perilous Death: Die and leave behind Echoes. Reach them to recover, or lose them forever.

• Multiple Endings based on your Echo count and Resonance alignment.

🎵 Asset Credits

🛠️ Plugins Used

Yanfly (YEP)

• EventChasePlayer, HUDMaker, AltMenuScreen_KH, RetryCosts, and more

SRDude (SRD)

• RetryCosts

Olivia

• AntiPlayerStress, MapDisplayNameCore

Irina

• AutoMessageColor

Galv

• EventSpawner, PuzzleFunctions, MessageStyles

Yami

• SkipTitle

Others

• Community Basic Plugin

🎧 Audio / Music / SFX Credits

Time Machine: The Analog Age Music Pack
Joel Steudler

🌟 Special Thanks & Playtesters

This game is intended to be tested and streamed by the following VTubers:

• Raveanne

• Quiver Rannette

• Njess

Thank you for helping us bring emotional, choice-driven stories to life!

🔚 Closing

In a world where every action has a cost, will you embrace your burden...
or let it all go?

How much will you pay for your soul?