Ardentryst is an action/RPG sidescroller, focused not just on fighting, but on story, and character development. Strategy as well as reflexes will be needed to overcome the game. The game is set in another world. It is somewhat a cross between Donkey Kong Country, Mario, Castlevania and Kingdom Hearts. Ardentryst is focused on a fantasy world. The player is guided through a storyline which he or her must act in and play a major role in keeping peace and order in Ardentryst. It features two playable characters and a variety of weapons, items, armour, monsters, and beautiful level scenery and graphics.

The game is programmed solely by Jordan Trudgett. A lot of the art was also done by him but he did get a few artists to do some of the better drawings.

As well as being free, to download and to play indefinitely, the game is open source which means anyone can view, edit, play around with and learn from the source code of the game. It is written purely in Python, with use of the pygame module (a wrapper around SDL.)