DeenOD StudioDEENOD

Concept

Development begins after Sira

Andalus

When a city falls, knowledge flees through small doors.

(working title)

The setting

Granada, Córdoba, Toledo. Al-Andalus during the late convivencia and early reconquista. The world is a layered city where mosque, library, garden, market, and underground passage interconnect like a metroidvania map: vertical, recursive, learnable.

You play a young scholar fleeing the fall of a city, carrying a single illuminated manuscript that the inquisition wants destroyed. The route to safety is the route through what knowledge survived, with teachers Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, drawn from the historical record.

Knowledge as progression

Three abilities, gated to fragments of the manuscript and to the teachers you meet.

  • fahm

    understanding

    Read inscriptions and marginalia that were illegible before. Locked rooms, hidden corridors, and arguments you couldn't follow open up.

  • sabr

    patience

    Survive longer environmental hazards: a sandstorm, a long climb, a search through silence. Some places only yield to a player who can wait.

  • hikma

    wisdom

    De-escalate enemies who would otherwise be lethal. Every mandatory encounter has a non-violent solution; hikma is how you find it.

On combat

Combat exists but is the lesser path. Every mandatory encounter has a non-violent solution. The game is about what survives a city falling, not the falling.

Get Andalus updates.

Concept art and music explorations begin in parallel with Sira’s content phase. We’ll send a separate thread for Andalus when it does.

Codename: andalus. Influences: Hollow Knight for melancholy and map density, Ori for traversal grace, Hyper Light Drifter for environmental storytelling. Back to the slate →