Last week we talked about Nine Sols, the upcoming Taopunk action platformer from Red Candle Games, and how a demo was supposed to come out.

Well, the demo is out now on Steam, so I tried it out over the weekend.

I was surprised by how quickly I became interested in its story and characters. The demo seems to be the start of the game, with Yi living alongside a human child before a sinister ceremony causes him to embark on his mission.

Combat has a few different elements that took a bit of getting used to, but once I practiced with it, I liked it. In addition to your basic attack, you can deflect enemy attacks to build up energy and then unleash it in a special attack.

That attack is much more effective than simply hacking at enemies, which led to a rhythm of deflecting strikes and then attacking.

There are certain spots where you can rest, restoring your health and healing items and acting as a checkpoint. It doesn’t seem as though you’ll level up stats in that way, though. Instead, there are unlockable nodes on a skill tree to provide you with upgrades and benefits.

The demo lasts up through the first boss fight, but a second, more challenging boss is also accessible from the main menu afterwards.

I enjoyed the Nine Sols demo a lot, so I’m looking forward to the main game. The only concern I have is that combat could start to feel repetitive (especially long boss fights), but overall I liked what I saw in the demo and am interested in how it will progress.

I’ll probably back the Nine Sols crowdfunding campaign now, so be sure to take a look at the Nine Sols demo to see what you think.

We’ve talked a few times about Red Candle Games, as they developed the excellent horror game Detention, as well as Devotion, which I finally got to play last year.

But their next game, Nine Sols, is something significantly different.

Nine Sols was first announced last December after being teased earlier in the year, and Red Candle Games recently started a crowdfunding campaign for it.

(They’re handling the campaign personally, which I wonder if is a response to the disaster that was Devotion’s delisting. I’ve seen a few sites say it’s being funded through Kickstarter, but either those writers are using “Kickstarter” in a generic sense or I missed something.)

While Detention was a 2D side-scrolling horror game and Devotion was a first-person horror game, Nine Sols is a 2D action platformer set in a “Taopunk” world, with gameplay inspired by Sekiro, Hollow Knight, and Katana Zero.

You’ll play as Yi, a forgotten hero on a quest for revenge against the 9 Sols that rule over the land. It features an interconnected world made up of multiple regions, a leveling system with skills and upgrades to unlock, and deflection-based combat, among other details explained on the crowdfunding page.

It looks pretty good, and normally I would have said I’d absolutely back their next game, but I’m a little unsure since it’s so different from their previous games, especially since I haven’t played any of the listed inspirations (yet). However, GamesRadar reported that a demo is coming next week, so if so, I’ll be sure to check that out.

Anyway, the crowdfunding campaign is doing quite well, as they already made it well past their initial goal and are working toward the first stretch goal.

If you’re interested in Nine Sols, be sure to check out the crowdfunding page. How do you think this intriguing departure will compare to their past games?