Constance, a lovely looking hand-drawn metroidvania about creatively fighting your inner demons, is out now

Right, has everyone got Hollow Knight: Silksong out of their system? I’m sure there’s plenty of you that have scoured enough of its map to feel satisfied and ready for another hand-drawn metroidvania. Enter Constance! A game that fits that bill precisely, albeit with its own, quite literally painterly flair, one which is out today.

Constance, as you may have gathered from looking at it, is the game’s titular hero, one who wields a big ole paintbrush. To say this game is one that takes some cues from Celeste would probably also be apt, as Constance’s main foe is, dun-dun-dun, herself. Or, well, her unconscious inner demons, that have imprisoned her within her own mind. These demons appear to manifest in a myriad of ways, such as evil robots, or sentient candles, or straight up bits of paper.

Those mental-health focused Celeste inspirations appear to translate to the game’s movement puzzles a touch as well, as you do a lot of dashing around avoiding dangerous obstacles and the like. Of course platforming is a big element of many 2D metroidvanias, there’s just an element of precise timing here that looks reminiscent of how Celeste functions.

I quite like the sound of the narrative framework around upgrades. This is a game about creativity, so you can find “inspirations” along the way to sketch in your journal, which then can improve Constance’s abilities. There’s just something quite nice, conceptually anyway, about the idea of going out into the world and taking in what it offers you to better yourself in some shape or form.

It’s cheap as chips too with a 10% launch discount, so as I said, if you’re ready for a new metroidvania in your life, Constance is ready and waiting for you on Steam.