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Current Passion Project

Illuminate

DesignerDeveloperArtist

In active development

  • Godot
  • GDScript
  • Pixel Art
  • Procedural Generation
  • Web Export
  • GitHub

Overview: Illuminate is a cozy cave-mining game about starlight. You play a star dragon who ventures into a dark cave with a limited supply of light, mining stars and other resources along the way. Back at your nest, you spend what you found on upgrades and craft nightlights to sell to sleepy dragons.

This is a ground-up remake of the very first game I ever made as a designer, at sixteen. The original was a simple idea; this version is my chance to grow it into the game I always imagined, with a bigger cave, more to collect, and more to upgrade.

Pixel-art screenshot of Illuminate: a small dragon standing in a glowing purple cave beside two geese

Key Features

  • Explore a dark cave with a limited light resource
  • Mine stars and other resources
  • Return to your nest to buy upgrades
  • Craft nightlights and sell them to sleepy dragons
  • Procedurally generated caves
  • Multiple resource types and upgrade paths

The Remake

  • Rebuilt from scratch in Godot, keeping the original core loop: dive, collect, return, upgrade.
  • Adding generated caves so each run feels different from the last.
  • Expanding from a single resource to multiple collectibles, each feeding into its own upgrades.
  • Pushing my pixel art and lighting further than I could the first time around.

What I'm Working On

  • Cave generation, and making sure resources spawn in places the player can reach.
  • Inventory and upgrade systems for the nest.
  • Lighting that responds to your remaining light, so the dark feels tense but cozy.

Quick facts

Solo project · Designer, developer, and artist

Engine

Godot · GDScript · Web export

Status

Playable work-in-progress build. Expect rough edges and frequent updates.

Play the Build

Try it in your browser

Click the game window to focus it before playing. Best on desktop with a keyboard. Open fullscreen (opens in a new tab)

Where it started

The original Illuminate

The first game I ever designed, made at 16. It's rough, and I'm leaving it up to show how far the idea has come.