Hi everyone! Dmitry here. It’s time to show you what LoD has grown into recently.

I’ve been assembling this version piece by piece for a long time: playing songs, running through tracks, reviewing recordings, rebuilding environments, and fixing everything that got in the way of enjoying a run.

Now I’d like to walk you through the entire update—from the music-driven generator to the new locations, controls, and modding tools.

The core idea of the game is simple: you choose the music, and the game adapts the environment to it, sets the objectives you need to complete, and builds your path to the finish line.

Acronik is LoD’s music-driven generator.

It assembles a track from individual sections, synchronizes them with the length of the song, and selects an environment that matches its character.

When analyzing available audio, it considers the main pulse, changes in energy, and additional accents: syncopation, short hits, rhythmic breaks, and layered rhythms.

This means that the generator is not limited to a single BPM value for the entire song. Build-ups, slowdowns, and transitions between musical phrases are all important.

These elements affect the terrain and intensity of the route, rhythmic impulses, movement, and visual effects. Powerful transitions can generate walls that must be broken through, while calmer passages give the track a different feel.

The title, artist, and genre help determine the atmosphere.

When TXC Music can confidently extract useful context from a song’s lyrics, Acronik uses that as well—for example, imagery related to nature, winter, cities, or outer space.

The lyrics shape the imagery, while the sound shapes the rhythm.

There is an important limitation here: music from different sources comes with different amounts of available data.

If the audio cannot be analyzed directly or lyrical context is unavailable, the generator falls back to a set of alternative rules.

I don’t want to pass off a basic metadata-based estimate as a perfect understanding of every song.

The environments are now significantly more varied. A musical run can take you through several different types of spaces:

• Japanese city and rooftops.Modular buildings, façades, and urban details have replaced much of the old simplified environment. The rooftops retain their fast-paced parkour, while the streets now form a more cohesive cityscape.
  

• Forest.Trails wind through stylized trees, bushes, and plants. Calm music now leads you through a genuine natural environment instead of simply turning the city rooftops green.
  

• Fields and countryside.Open views, vegetation alongside the route, and small landmarks give calmer musical passages more room to breathe.
  

• Superstore.A space filled with galleries, furniture, physics-enabled objects, and combat areas. The environment participates in the action here: shots can send objects flying.
  

• Underground bar.A tighter, higher-contrast neon environment designed for a different kind of musical energy.
  

• Metro.Station interiors and moving trains create their own distinct atmosphere within the urban route.
  

• Winter district.Snow-covered stylized vegetation and post-Soviet apartment buildings line the track. The placement of buildings, scale of the environment, and transitions between sections have all been reworked.
  

• Orbit.Platforms, station structures, low gravity, and a massive planet in the surrounding space. This location also includes a dedicated reactor-overload challenge.
  

Locations are not part of a rigid “one song, one preassigned map” system. Instead, they are different visual and gameplay directions that Acronik uses to construct each route.

Ambient audio has also been added: wind, natural sounds, city ambience, and station sounds.

During the pre-run preview, these sounds fill the environment. During a run, they remain as a quieter layer beneath the music. Pausing the game now pauses both the song and all in-game audio.

Gunshots, impacts, footsteps, destruction, and katana effects now originate from the places where they actually occur.

An enemy standing to your side should no longer sound as though the audio is playing directly inside your head. Distance and direction now help you understand what is happening around you.

Enclosed spaces, large halls, and tunnels have different reverb profiles. Obstacles between the listener and the sound source dampen the audio.

The music remains a separate, clean layer, while menu sounds are not affected by the echoes of the game world.

The allocation of sound effects has also been reworked: frequent gunfire and destruction should no longer push the song itself out of the audio mix.

Musical routes now give you more reasons to use the hero’s full range of abilities.

Parkour and arena placement have been reworked. Combat encounters are aligned with musical peaks and transitions, while quieter passages give the player a moment to breathe.

The goal is to change the nature of the action along with the song instead of repeating the same sequence of obstacles after a fixed number of sections.

Laser challenges ask you to cut an opening along a marked outline. The laser now leaves a visible trace on the wall, making it clear which parts have already been cut.

The preparation time for these sections has also been increased. The weapon should already be in your hands before the wall becomes an unavoidable obstacle.

Shuriken challenges now use a dedicated button target. It has a proper control-panel model, illumination, a shuriken symbol, and clear feedback when struck.

Missing the target no longer turns the run into a dead end. You can break through the concrete barrier at the cost of some health—with a proper destruction effect instead of simply passing through the wall.

Breaking through walls preserves your movement momentum and is accompanied by destruction effects and audio.

Material selection has also been corrected so that concrete obstacles no longer resemble red testing cubes or random panes of glass.

The katana has received improvements to hit detection, effects, and dismemberment. A strike should feel like a real hit against an enemy, not an awkward attempt to reach them using outdated combat mechanics.

Weapon switching has also been reworked. Arsenal keys now correspond to the weapons you have actually been given instead of being tied to fixed weapon numbers.

Opening the arsenal, receiving a weapon, and completing an objective are now accompanied by their own distinct sounds.

Energy is now represented by energy-drink cans.

The game now includes a single-song run, playlists, and DJ Mode.

A single-song run lets you focus on one particular track and your performance.

A playlist combines several songs into a single session.

Endless DJ Mode continues the session automatically. New sections are prepared in advance, while transitions between songs are concealed by a brief white fade.

This mode is designed for players who want to keep moving to the music without stopping to view the results after every song.

The music menu is connected to TXC Music. You can use it to search for music, select tracks, listen to them, and assemble a set for your run.

There is also a section for your own files. The custom music folder is rescanned automatically, and the list recognizes MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, M4A, and OPUS files.

Playback and analysis capabilities depend on the specific format and source.

Before starting, you can preview the generated track. The camera shows it from several angles while the song and gameplay challenges remain paused. When you are ready, you can continue and begin the run.

Large captions displaying information about the track and the run appear during the preview.

The loading screen, success and failure screens, objective statistics, beat-timed jumps, kills, and score displays have all been updated.

A proper pause menu has been added, with options to resume, change settings, end the run, or exit the game.

Enemies are now displayed on the map with height indicators, allowing you to determine whether a target is above, below, or level with the player.

There are also new shortcuts for recording your own videos: F1 hides or restores the game interface, while F11 switches between windowed and fullscreen modes.

When switching to fullscreen, the game now takes the desktop resolution into account.

Camera sensitivity and aim assistance have been improved. Weapon switching has been moved to the shoulder buttons, while firing is assigned to the right trigger.

Navigation in the music menu has been redesigned as well.

You can now move left and right between its sections: select a mode, open the song list, preview a track, and proceed to the start of the run.

Gamepad navigation is no longer limited to simply scrolling through songs.

This functionality is implemented through the game’s controller support and Steam Input.

Every run now has a recorded result: completed and missed objectives, score, beat-timed actions, and other statistics.

Your history is saved, allowing you to view your personal best and compare results on the leaderboards.

An achievement system has been prepared around real challenges: long streaks of beat-timed actions, high combos, difficult runs, combat objectives, and leaderboard results.

The idea is to reward players for mastering the game—not simply for launching it.

Owners of the original paid version will receive a collectible figure of the protagonist in their Steam Inventory.

It is a small gesture of thanks to everyone who purchased and supported the game before it transitioned to a free-to-play model.

The most interesting way to test Acronik is with your own music.

Try a calm track, something energetic, a song with sudden transitions, and a song you know by heart. See which environment is generated and how the route feels.

If something does not work, a short report is especially helpful: include the artist and song title, the music source, the selected mode, the approximate time when the issue occurred, and a recording or screenshot.

I would also appreciate feedback on the parkour, the finish sequence, laser challenges, and gamepad controls.

Thank you to everyone who sent recordings, spotted bugs, and helped turn this idea into a working game.

Tests like these are exactly what make LoD better, one step at a time.

Choose your song. See you again soon.