Stained Light

Light is your only weapon.

You are the glazier of an old cathedral. Every day, shadows crawl out of the crypts and walk toward the altar candle. You can't fight them with swords or towers, only with sunlight and the coloured glass you set in its way.

Put red glass in the window and the sun paints red light across the floor, and red shadows burn in it. Blue shadows don't. As the day goes on the sun moves, so every patch of light slowly slides across the room. A defence that works in the morning is somewhere else by the afternoon.

How it plays

• Colour matters: a shadow only burns in light of its own colour. Yellow shadows need red and green light at the same time. White shadows need all three.
• Light mixes: neighbouring panes overlap, and overlapping light adds up. Red beside blue makes purple light where they meet.
• Plan with the sun: hover the sun dial to preview where your light will fall at any hour, or hover a pane to see the path its light will travel all day.
• Build your window: buy glass with the gold you earn from burned shadows, then upgrade panes to make them burn brighter. Later you unlock mirrors that bounce light into dark corners, and prisms that split light into separate beams.

Features

• 12 hand-made levels across three chapters. Each has its own window shape (lancets, twin and triple windows, rose windows), its own paths, weather and time of day, including a moonlit night level.
• 9 kinds of shadow, including fast Flits, tough Husks, Shrouds that shield their friends, Mimics that change colour, and two bosses: the Hollow Saint and the Eclipse.
• Endless Mode: survive day after day in a random cathedral. Every 4th day is a night and every 5th brings a boss. Pick a bonus after each day.
• Stars and Upgrades: earn up to 3 stars per level and spend Halos on permanent boosts.
• A 3-minute interactive tutorial, a full in-game guide, and hover any shadow to see exactly which glass hurts it.
• Hand-crafted look, all made in code: glowing stained glass, god-rays, drifting dust and an organ-and-bell soundtrack, all generated by the game itself.
• Relaxed difficulty option, adjustable music and effects volume, fullscreen, and a pause you can keep building in.

Controls

Pick a glass	click it in the Glass Shop, keys 1–0, or the mouse wheel
Put glass in / upgrade it	left-click a window pane
Sell	right-click (full refund on glass bought before you press Start)
Start the day	Start button or Space
Pause / resume	P or Space
Game speed	F (1×, 2×, 3×)
Menu	Esc
Help	H
Fullscreen	F11 or Alt+Enter

Install

Unzip and double-click StainedLight.exe (keep the _internal folder next to it). No internet connection is needed. If Windows shows "Windows protected your PC", click More info → Run anyway; the game simply isn't code-signed. Progress is saved automatically in %APPDATA%\StainedLight.

System requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
• Any graphics card from the last decade; mouse and keyboard
• About 50 MB of disk space

New? Start with How to Play → Play the Tutorial on the main menu. Feedback is very welcome in the comments!