After The Suns

I went into After The Suns expecting little, and came out genuinely curious about what Ignacio Medina was reaching for. This is a one-person project built around a warrior named Fhavin who moves through a dense, hostile tropical world across eight levels, and what separates it from a stock hack-and-slash is the memory mechanic: scattered Snake Monoliths hold fragments of Fhavin's repressed childhood, unlocked through a "Game of Memory" puzzle layer. Those memories aren't just lore bites - they function as a resource you can spend during combat in the War Totems, which are the game's arenas where you face off against monsters and totem-guarded enemies. The tension of deciding whether to burn a memory mid-fight or hoard it for a climactic final confrontation is a genuinely interesting design instinct, the kind of thematic-mechanical marriage that bigger studios rarely bother with at this scale. The combat itself sits firmly in frantic action territory. You are moving fast, striking hard, and the game does not hold your hand. Level navigation is deliberately sparse - no map markers, no quest arrows - which will feel liberating to some players and deeply frustrating to others. The jungle atmosphere carries a real sense of isolation, and Medina leans into a psychological horror undercurrent that suits the amnesia-and-repression themes. The soundscape, reportedly revised in post-launch updates, adds to that quiet dread in the quieter corridors between fight rooms. That said, the rough spots are real and worth naming. The developer's own community posts acknowledged launch-state problems with excessive runtime shadows, a camera that sat uncomfortably close to Fhavin, and general graphical errors. An update was promised and partially delivered, but for a sub-five-dollar game with no Steam review volume to speak of, you are buying on faith in the concept rather than a polished product. The eight-level structure suggests a short total runtime, probably in the two-to-four hour range depending on exploration pace, and whether that feels complete or truncated will depend entirely on how much the memory-puzzle conceit clicks for you. If you are drawn to handcrafted indie work that prioritizes a specific mood over production sheen, After The Suns has something worth sitting with. The female protagonist, the jungle mythology, the resource-management spin on memory - it all points to a developer with ideas that outpace the current execution. Think of it less as a finished genre entry and more as a proof-of-concept that earns its atmosphere through commitment rather than craft maturity. Approach it with patience and low expectations for camera comfort, and you might find something that lingers.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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