The folks over at Frozenbyte are some of my favorite indie developers, consistently delivering on visually beautiful and interesting games. They might not always pan out, as is the case with Trine 3, but you can always be assured that they tried their very best.

Which is why I'm incredibly happy that they are so confident in their upcoming stealth game Shadwen that they're not only willing to release a demo of it but are making it a community event. The trick is that each playthrough of the demo helps reduce the final price of Shadwen, which in other words means the developers get some lovely exposure and we as the players get a discount, a win-win in my eyes.

Here's the trailer and information on how this whole event works:

First of all you will need to download the demo from Shadwen's Steam store page. Each of your playthroughs will contribute towards the community score so feel free to speedrun Shadwen to your hearts content if you feel like reducing the price by a couple of fractions of a cent. A number that sounds insignificant until you remember how many people there are out there.

How it works is simple: the higher the community score, the lower the launch price of Shadwen will be. You can follow the progress on Frozenbyte's website but if you're feeling a bit on the lazy side the current price is set at $32,22. With the entire event ending on Monday, February 29th at 18:00 GMT I have a feeling we might be able to push it in to sub $20 range, especially if some of the more dedicated gamers out there get on the case.

Finally, if you consider yourself lucky you can share your most interesting screenshots, videos or other nifty creations with the #FromTheShadows hashtag for a chance to win some Frozenbyte & Shadwen themed swag.

Beautiful skyboxes are always a nice addition

If you don't know anything about Shadwen but feel like joining the festivities anyway, its best described as a return to the stealth games of old with brutal enemies, tricky levels and plenty of tools at your disposal. The two things that set Shadwen apart from most other stealth games are the use of actual physics (which includes dropping stuff on guards to knock them out or outright kill) as well as the fact that time completely stops while you're standing still thus allowing you to carefully plan your moves.

Before you jump in to the demo just bear in mind that Shadwen is still in an early state of development and as such it might be a bit rough around the edges. If you do find some aspects of the game that either don't work or annoy you to no end make sure to report that to Frozenbyte so that the issue can hopefully be ironed out by the time Shadwen officially releases. Most importantly, try and have some fun!