Steel thy blade and ready thy whip – Bit Kid, Inc. has released Chasm: their debut title. Chasm is a love letter to the action-adventure games of the mid-90s. As such, it features beautiful pixel art, tight controls, and randomly generated dungeons that seem to go on forever.

Currently, you can pick up Chasm on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Steam.

If you’re ready for an adventure, here are some tips to help you get started.

Explore each and every chasm

In Chasm, it’s important to leave no stone unturned. The corridors and rooms of the dungeons contain randomly placed goodies. New weapons, armor, and abilities lie in waiting – so make sure to find what you can.

Along with treasures, you’ll also want to free hostages from their cages.

Hero of the people… and their wares

Rescuing the residents of Karthas will help expand your inventory. Finding the Blacksmith allows the purchase of weapons, saving the Tavern Keeper will unlock the ability to purchase healing items, and so on.

Once you free someone, they”ll return to town. Going to meet them will unlock that resident’s side-quest. Aiding them will yield a reward, and expand their potential to sell you stuff.

There and back again

Chasm features shortcuts that allow you to quickly hop between different areas. This is immensely helpful as you discover more places to go.

Be sure to cover as much ground as possible to uncover a new shortcut; it’ll provide a sigh of relief if you’re in a tough spot.

You must learn control

Chasm’s controls are very responsive. As such, you’ve got everything you need to become a combat master. Experimenting with different weapons is the key to finding what works for you. Not all weapons have the same attack speed; even weapons of the same type may behave differently.

Since you’ll often find different weapon types with a higher attack output, prepare to learn new weapons often. To practice, attack some low level trolls before settling. They won’t mind, trolls love a good scuffle.

Hacking away frantically at the enemies in Chasm is a sure way to meet your maker. Fret not, each foe follows a certain pattern. Learn their moves to best them in battle!

Sharing is fundamental

Given that the world of Chasm is randomly generated, it’s not particularly easy to compare notes with other players. However, it’s possible to find the world’s seed code in the options menu.

If you share this code with your friends, they can generate the same world that was created for you. Now, you can swap knowledge with your buddies and share in the journey.

While we’re on the subject, here’s the seed code of my game!

If you wind up playing with this world seed, please say so in our Facebook Group. It’d be great to compare our experiences.

Are you a fan of the action-adventure genre? Why not check out this article about Super Metroid? In it, we explore some thoughts after playing the grand-daddy of most modern action-adventure games.