GRIMLIGHT: The Hollow Bell

Every step you take, the haunting takes one too.

GRIMLIGHT: The Hollow Bell is a turn-based gothic puzzle for Game Boy Advance. On Halloween night the Hollow Bell tolls for the dead — and something has stolen the manor's soul relics. You are the last lantern-keeper. Cross the manor, the crypt, and the belfry, descend to the Deep Bell, then push deeper still — into the Ember Deep and the Molten Choir — recover every relic, and lay the haunting to rest.

Your lantern is your shield — and your life. Wraiths drift toward you through the dark but cannot enter the light, and they cannot be destroyed: herd them out of your path, or put them to work — a wraith standing on a pressure plate holds it down just as a brazier does. But your oil burns down with every step: as it empties your light shrinks, and at zero the lantern dies and the room restarts. Push braziers to move your safe ground, time the skeletons' patrols, watch the gloomweavers creeping diagonally — only bright light freezes them — flip lever switches to swap paired gates, light every candle to unseal a candle-locked door, and toll bell runes to freeze the haunting or break a webbed door. One vault is sealed by four seal levers that only turn in one true order; a wrong turn resets them all.

Deeper down, new dangers wait. Wardens hold a killing gaze down a whole row — cross it only behind a pushed slab or brazier, and remember that lava blocks their sight while acid does not. Bone slabs can be pushed into rivers, lava, and doorways as footing and shields — but a careless push can trap you, and the room restart is your only way back. Each hazard has its own rule: a river takes a slab or a brazier, lava settles only under a slab, and acid dissolves a slab but holds a brazier. Step on a bell portal to ring across the room to its twin, and cross crumbling floors knowing they bear you exactly once — plan the way back before you go.

Finished a room and want to revisit an old favourite? Every room's intro shows a passcode — enter it at the title screen to return to that room directly.

Gather every relic in each room to unseal the door, then escape. Thirty rooms across six chapters: the Manor, the Crypt, the Belfry, the Deep Bell, the Ember Deep, and the Molten Choir.

Controls: D-pad move · A wait a turn · B restart room · START pause · SELECT at title: passcode entry

To play: download the ROM and open it in a Game Boy Advance emulator such as mGBA — or load it on real hardware with a flash cart.