Video Game / Children of the Sun

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The Cult promised your family a better life. A simpler way of living, free from the chaos of the modern world. They lied.

You are The Girl and The Cult made your life hell. But now it's time to drag them all down with you, one bullet at a time.

Destroy them and exterminate the true source of the rot: The Leader. There will be no peace.

— The Sniper's Handbook

Children of the Sun is a video game by Rene Rother, published by Devolver Digital for Steam in 2024. It is best described as a Sniping Puzzle game revolving about the masked Girl taking on The Cultists by first surveying their encampments then shooting them all with a single bullet, made all possible with The Girl's psychic abilities allowing her to redirect the bullet each time it hits an enemy.

Soon the sun will start shining:

• Achievement System: Most of the levels come with a subtitle to their title, which is a clue towards the levels' bonus objectives. Passing the level while completing the bonus objective is worth an achievement each.
• Anachronic Order: The flashbacks are told this way, which coupled with the aesthetic choices add to the psychedelic feel.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Beating the game gives the Girl the Cult's flower crown.
• Antagonist Title: The title refers to The Cult that The Girl briefly was part of and is now going against.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The enemies remain marked even after you restart the level until you completely exit it.
  • With shooting up all of the enemies with a single bullet being the name of the game, The Girl also never has to worry about getting shot back.^note The Nightmare Paralysis mode does introduce enemy snipers that would shoot back if not dealt with in a timely fashion.
• A Scar to Remember: The Girl had her face cut up by The Leader after she telekinetically stabbed an acolyte who shot her father (who disapproved of his daughter being used as a sacrifice) in the leg.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some of the cultists have single body part of theirs (either a head, torso or one of the limbs) glowing. The enemies do die regardless of where they do get hit in, but hitting these glowing parts is how The Girl recharges her Re-Aim power, requiring two glowed hits to charge one stock out of three.
• Bad Boss: One of the cutscenes shows The Leader shooting up one of his acolytes for simply displaying a photo of The Girl. He does not take not being able to get back at The Girl very well.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: The Game. The Girl starts out freely being able to chose a direction The Bullet would bounce into after hitting a target (preferably into another target) and she would gain even more bullet bending powers during the course of the campaign, which are as follows:
  • Trajectory Change: The Girl can alter the trajectory of the bullet at any moment as soon as it's introduced, but the range the angle can be adjusted from the initial shot is limited.
  • Re-Aim: After hitting two cultists in their glowing spots The Girl is able to completely change the bullet's direction.
  • Power Shot: Allows The Girl to speed up The Bullet, with the high enough momentum being the key to take out armored cultists.
• Burn the Witch!: One of the flashbacks show The Cult attempting this with The Girl and her father by locking them up in a shack then setting it on fire. They clearly haven't accounted for The Girl's ablity to slice off necks of guards with floating scissors.
• Creepy Cemetery: The Bury Your Past is based on a graveyard, with a lot of graves floating mid-air.
• Death or Glory Attack: The Girl does have only one bullet after all, and if it hits anything that wouldn't trigger the rebounce (static pieces of environment like trees or walls, the shields of some mooks, armored mooks when the bullet is too slow to penetrate them) then the level is failed.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Level X has the Girl sitting on a toilet slowly polishing her rifle. Highlighted by the subsequent minigame being introduced with the title 'I Just Killed a Man Now I'm Horny'.
• Drone of Dread: There's a constant hum of distorted noise in the background of each level.
• Elite Mooks: Late in the game The Girl ends up going against Psychic Cultists, whose bubbles knock off The Bullet's path. They do need to recharge their bubble after activating them, so when The Girl has either a Re-Aim power ready or hits another target from which the bullet can be redirected onto the charging psychic.....
• Explosive Barrels: Propane tanks and Gas caps serve this role, and The Bullet can rebound from hitting these like it can after hitting a cultist.
• Evil Luddite: The titular cult advertises itself on a promise of a simple life away from the advances and chaos of the modern world.
  -TURN YOUR BACK ON THIS WORLD FULL OF MACHINES, MATERIALISM AND MONEY.
  -ENJOY A NEW NATURAL WAY OF LIFE. -ALL WELCOME- JOIN US NOW!
  -REJECT THE TECHNOLOGY WHICH IS DESTROYING SIMPLICITY AND SPIRITUALITY.
  — The Children of the Sun flyer, the cutscene which is featured in displays it for a very brief moment.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The Leader is seen usually wearing sunglasses, and he happens to look unhinged (due to the present situation) each time he's seen without them.
• Game Hunting Mechanic: The Breakfast Time level has The Girl hunting down birds and fish, shooting them all the same way she does with The Cult.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Inverted, The Cult dress themselves in gold (and in-game their entire models are made of gold) with The Leader wearing white while The Girl goes on the hunt wearing black with white stripes.
• Heavily Armored Mook: These get introduced in a middle of the game, alongside The Girl gaining an ability to counter them.
• Hitscan: Averted. When moving targets are involved, The Girl has to lead the shots, with a minor at most assistance of the Trajectory Change power to correct the course.
• Idiosyncratic Menu Labels: The main menu has "Go Hunting" in lieu of "New Game".
• Mage Marksman: The Girl with her psychic bullet bending abilities. She discovered her powers while going on a deer hunt with her father, seemingly missing at first only to be able to redirect the bullet to hit three bucks at once.
• Malevolent Mugshot: The winged symbol of The Cult in their temple has The Leader's face in it. A late cutscene has The Leader witness the symbol being vandalized with a crude drawing of The Girl painted on top of The Leader's visage, which also proves to be an omen for The Girl taking his place.
• Mind Over Matter: Telekinesis seems to be the basis of The Girl's bullet powers, as flashback cutscenes also see her telekinetically using scissors and a knife. It is implied that The Cult initially wanted to sacrifice The Girl over this "witchcraft".
• Minimalism: The game not only features very little dialogue, it also employs a control scheme so simple it can be entirely played with just a mouse.^note Whenever The Girl isn't aiming, the mouse is used to have her circle around the area.
• Minimalist Cast: With minimal storytelling at that, characters of note consist simply just of The Girl, her parents, and The Leader. Not counting dozens of cultists that couldn't outsmart her bullet.
• Mook Horror Show: The game has shades of this, with two of the cutscenes showing the cultists investigating a site of The Girl's massacre like it's a police procedural.
• Nameless Narrative: None of the characters in the game are ever named, not in the promotional material, nor in the dialogue-less cutscenes.
• Nature Tinkling: Few of the Cultists can be seen urinating - with their crotch areas being pixelated - all being none the wiser for the upcoming magic bullet..
• No-Tell Motel: The This is no Paradise level involves a motel with few cultists housing in.
• One-Hit Polykill: That single bullet goes through multiple targets (including armored ones as long as the bullet can gain enough speed to pierce them), albeit not in a straight line.
• One-Woman Army: And her one bullet armory, which with her psychic abilities is more than enough to take on entire groups of cultists.
• Papa Wolf: The Girl's father protested his daughter being used as a sacrifice with a knife, only to get his leg blown off by The Leader. Then The Girl's mother claws off The Leader's face in response but that went poorly for her too.
• Pinball Projectile: The Bullet is more or less this, in that it bounces off targets rather than walls and other parts of static environment and it's bounce angle is freely dictated by The Girl rather than the angle it hits the target with.
• Plot-Inciting Infidelity: The Leader forcing himself onto The Girl's mother proved to be the first indication something was off with The Cult, with The Girl's father doing an Angry Fist-Shake at the sight of his wife being pregnant with The Leader.
• Puzzle Boss: The Leader hides himself in the very final level inside two layers of shields that are each disabled by simply taking down groups of cultists.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Some of The Cult's premises tend to have "Join Us or Get Out!" written over them.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As soon as the bodies start dropping, regular Cultist would attempt to flee the scene, not like that would help them much. There's also a hallucinatory moment of The Leader attempting this just before The Girl's fateful bullet reaches him.
• Scoring Points: The game does feature a scoring system complete with leaderboards. Higher scores are based on which specific body parts are targeted, how fast does the bullet bounce between targets (preferably picking the next target before the combo multiplier times out), killing with explosions if possible, moving targets are worth more, as well as the overall distance traveled (bouncing between further targets is worth more).
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: The cultists have glowing yellow eyes with the rest of their upper faces obscured in shadow. So does the Girl after completing the game, though it's only visible when moving her mask aside.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Few cultists are encountered carrying riot shields, making it neccersary to take them out from any other angle other than the frontal one.
• Shout-Out: A rather subtle one, the This is no Paradise level has The Girl shoot up the "NMH" Motel.
• Silence Is Golden: There is very little of what can be construed as dialogue, none of it which is in the animated cutscenes.
• Take Up My Sword: The very first cutscene has The Girl walking onto her father having blown his brains out with the rifle, taking up his rifle and the map with cultist hotspots to begin her quest for revenge.
• Trigger-Happy: The very first thing we see The Girl doing anything as soon as the game starts is her licking her rifle before going boom, waving at an apparent Rain of Blood. Her behaviour of the X level is also on a suggestive side.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • Coming up after the Occupied Village level is X, which involves The Girl cleaning up her rifle and a Pac Man-esque mini-game with The Girl's avatar first collecting all bullets to then gobble up all Cultist icons like under the influence of a power pill.
  • Chasing Lies begins in a car chase section where The Girl has to avoid barrels being thrown by The Leader. Once a flock of cultists in cars show up to slow The Girl down then she proceeds to shoot them all down, while riding the car.
• Villains Love Entertainment: The Filled with Blood level has a Cultist in a car constantly making donuts with their drifting with his buddies cheering on.
• White Mask of Doom: The Girl goes on the hunt with her self-made paper cut out mask with blush and lip images sketched in by herself. She crafted this mask while in a prison that was on fire. Downplayed in-game as it's conspicuously blood-splattered the whole time.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The Girl kills The Leader, and she ends up becoming the new leader of The Cult, not exactly a proposition she's that interested in.