Rot and Light

A third-person game about a dark lord and the horde of minions he commands. Built with Godot 4 and Rust. Public project slug: rot-and-light.

This is a source-only publication, not an open-source license or a binary release. Original work is copyright © 2026 Simon W. Jackson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. See LICENSE, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, and the source audit for scope and limits.

Status

First playable slice: the dark lord, a horde of 20 minions, breakable crates, and lamps, all placeholder shapes in a cel-shaded look. Send the horde at a crate or a lamp, recall it. The pitch describes the direction, not a list of finished features.

• Every feel value is in godot/tuning.tres. Edit it while the game runs and press F5 (gamepad Back) to apply it.
• Every look value (tone bands, ink outlines, palette, glow, the burning and withering looks) is in godot/look.tres. F5 reloads it too.
• The look: three tone bands from game/toon.gdshaderinc on every solid thing, and ink outlines from one screen-space pass (game/ink.gdshader) that reads depth, plus normals in Forward+. Its cost depends on the screen size, not the horde size.
• Android build tooling is retained as source. See docs/android.md, including the new app identity.
• Debug demo for screenshots: godot4 --path godot -- --demo plays a short scripted run and prints demo: <state> lines and demo perf: frame times. --demo-horde=40 starts with 40 minions, --demo-uncapped turns V-Sync off. Debug builds only.

Local checks

From a clean Linux checkout, with Nix flakes enabled:

export EXPECTED_SOURCE_SHA=$(git rev-parse HEAD)  # record the full committed SHA
nix run .#check

The check task verifies that HEAD matches the recorded SHA before each Cargo build or test. It rejects tracked edits. It checks Rust formatting and Clippy, runs Cargo tests, builds the native binding, imports the Godot project, and runs all six godot/tests/*_test.gd scripts, including touch. Godot uses temporary config, data, and cache directories. The check does not read the rig config, use a display, or change shared ADB state.

Godot is pinned to 4.7.2 and gdext to 0.5.5 (api-4-7). The native binding must be built before importing a fresh checkout. Headless tests check scripts and gameplay, not graphical output, GPU performance, or devices.

Develop

nix develop          # or: direnv allow
export EXPECTED_SOURCE_SHA=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
test "$(git rev-parse HEAD)" = "$EXPECTED_SOURCE_SHA"
cargo build --locked
godot4 --headless --path godot --import
godot4 --path godot  # needs a display

Rendering verification requires the rig's real GPU; headless or Xvfb does not verify visuals. scripts/rig is optional remote tooling, not part of the local check. Its config names are now ROT_AND_LIGHT_RIG and ROT_AND_LIGHT_RIG_DIR; update a private .rig.env explicitly before use. No rig, signing key, installed app, or saved data is changed by publication.