Load the Game

Steam Greenlight Spotlight: Kieru

• Sean Flint
• April 4th, 2015

https://youtu.be/mKb2KwzHuRU

Today’s Greenlight standout is Kieru, a first-person multiplayer stealth game developed by Pine Fire Studios. Pine Fire Studios was formed by a group of friends who often worked together on prototypes for Game Jams. Their favorite creation was a game that they described as “a mix of Samurai Jack and Quentin Tarantino movies. This game went on to become what is now Kieru, which is  a “Japanese hiragana word meaning to vanish, go out, or be extinguished”. The reason that I chose Kieru to focus on for today was what I feel is a brilliant use of black-and-white coloring, and an interesting use of multiplayer in a game featuring ninjas, which has not been done all that often.

To elaborate on my fondness of Kieru’s use of black-and-white coloring, I will say that what they’ve done with the multiplayer aspect of the game is genius. For those who didn’t watch the trailer, you missed the idea that each ninja is either black or white and they are able to blend in on a background of the same color as them. This means that if a black ninja is on black background, he or she will be able to hide from his or her enemies. Obviously, the same goes for a ninja who is wearing a white costume. This idea is very interesting to me because it makes the angles that you are viewing areas at super important. For example, if a ninja is against a black background and is black, you will not be able to see him; however, if you move around a bit so that where he is standing happens to match up with a white area further back in the level, you will be able to spot him and move in for a kill. This is something that I have never seen done before in a game, and I’m really interested to see how it is executed during gameplay. If my explanation is not making much sense to you, then you can check out Pine Fire’s website, or their Greenlight page, which both feature plenty of .gifs that showcase exactly what I am trying to describe.

Kieru has planned multiple game modes to support their multiplayer and give the gameplay some variety. Although, ninjas killing ninjas while trying to hide in the shadows sounds like more than enough to keep me satisfied for quite a while. Kieru makes use of an interesting visual style and incorporates the environments heavily into the gameplay, and for that they earn my kudos and hopefully a place on Steam. If you’re interested in voting for Kieru on Greenlight, you can find their page here. Also consider leaving some constructive feedback to help them improve the game.