A short dance with Brume

Overview

A short guide based on my experience with this little gem of a game.

Intro

Copy pasting my short review here. Totally not loving the game.

I’m completely smitten by this little piece of gaming art that was put on my radar by Rock, Paper, Shotgun. It’s Dark Souls dissolved to an extremely slim form. An intense, bite-sized soulslike dance of simple, obscure, but effective mechanics, jazzy visuals, stylish cinematics, moody sounds, weird camera angles and stiff legs. It deserves to be played by every Dark Souls fan and every Dark Souls fan owes it to themselves to play this. Scratch that, everyone should play this just for the vision Sopkop brings to the medium of video games. Have I mentioned I’m totally smitten by this little game?

A short guide based on my experience in this little gem of a game. Any questions or comments, feel free to post or ask. And enjoy the game.

Corruption

As far as I know, you get corruption by healing, absorbing blood. So the only way to not get corrupted is to go through the game without much healing. I don’t know what’s the amount you can absorb before you get corrupted, but it doesn’t seem to change anything in-game even if you do. The endings are different depending on your corruption and there are three achievements for it.

The Silver Sword

Or how to get a sharp implement that will hurt shadows and reduce your headaches.

Head straight from where you land, you’ll see a dead body and a signpost to your right. Pick up the sword and shield, head right to a forest area with spiders and you’ll see a witch boiling something in a cauldron.
Stand somewhat near to her and she’ll start throwing magic balls at you, hit them and you’ll bounce them back, damaging her.
When she poofs out, 3 small spiders will spawn. You only deal 1 damage to them with the sword, so two whacks will kill one. You can actually get overwhelmed by them, so be careful. When you defeat them, the witch comes back. Rinse and repeat the bouncing balls and the spiders until she’s dead. She drops the Big Spoon and an Old Key. The key opens the gate right in this area that leads to the Silver Sword, a plant (stamina increase) and a giant spider. Pick up the sword, and the spider will emerge. You need to defeat it to get out. At about halfway health, he’ll turn to shadow, but since you now have the Silver Sword that can damage all shadow enemies, you don’t care much, just whack him to oblivion.

Plant locations

The plants are not really missable if you explore and do everything, it’s not a large game (well, one theoretically is because you don’t need to go there to be able to finish the game). And they make a strange tingling sound when you’re near them. The locations are as follows, for reference if nothing else.

Straight from the boat, dead body in front, signpost on the right. Go past the signpost (not to the forest area) and in the bug area on the left side behind some bushes is a vitality plant (1).
When you meet a guy sitting near a cauldron, on your left side will be the entrance to a swamp. On the right side of the swamp is the next plant, stamina (2).
Now go the left side of the swamp and you’ll enter the Shadowlands. Run to the right side of it and you’ll see the plant next to a wall with a tree near it, vitality (3). Get back to the swamp and go straight, past the viking with a shield roasting a boar and when you get to the second guy, turn right past a tree and follow the path to another vitality plant (4).
Backtrack to the signpost and go to the forest area (described in the Silver Sword part). On the left side of the forest is another plant, vitality again (5). When you defeat the Witch, use the Old Key you got from her and open the gate in this area that leads to a plant, stamina (6) and the Silver Sword.
Back to the forest area, there’s another exit to the left, follow it, when you exit, the plant, stamina (7) will be on the left side, behind a bush with a tree. You now need to progress the story by killing the Shadow King in the Shadowlands and getting the Shadow key. Use the key on the large gate near the guy with the cauldron and you’ll go to an area with the Fat Knight. There’s a plant behind the tower here, stamina (8).
A cutscene will show where you need to go next. It’s behind the guy with the cauldron, past the three pillars. Open the door and the first path on the left leads to a stamina (9) plant. A right path near the dead guy with the sword sticking out leads to a vitality (10) plant.