In Glare your most powerful weapon is a flashlight

Lights off

While you technically have a gun in Glare, an upcoming adventure platformer by Phobic Studios, it's not nearly as powerful as your ability to shine a flashlight on things. You play as the appropriately named "Shiner," which is essentially a ball of light wearing a suit of armor, and it's your job to save the sun. In order to do that you need to navigate six planets and cleanse them of evil by, well staring at it.

A cone of light shines out of your head (called the Glare) that can activate platforms, cause plants to grow, destroy dark clouds, and push away enemies. This has remarkably fun gameplay implications--you'll need to Glare at platforms as you jump towards them to have them appear, all the while shooing away enemies by shining your light at them. You can shoot at them when you unlock a gun as well, which is also capable of unlocking new areas; this adds a light Metroidvania spin to things, but doesn't look like it'll have an overpowering influence on the gameplay.

At the end of our demo we saw some of the more complex things that the Glare enables. Each planet has different nodes which react to light in new ways--some create platforms, others ziplines, others allow The Shiner to slingshot around the level. Seeing how these all worked, and watching new puzzle elements appear as different abilities were unlocked, made us excited to check out Glare when it releases later this year.

Check out the following slides for additional images and more information.

Your light can't kill enemies, but knocking them into obstacles will do the trick.

The worlds in the game are actually spherical, leading to cool effects as you traverse the surface.

Though it should be simple enough for anyone, Phobic claims the game is very speedrunner friendly.

The art design is impressive, making great use of depth to achieve some neat 2.5D visuals

There are a number of different upgrades you unlock, but your flashlight will always be awesome.