Controls

• Arrow keys – Move your character
  • Left / Right to move
  • Up to jump
  • Down to fall through platforms
• X – Open chests and confirm menu selections

Rules & Gameplay

Your goal is to survive for as long as possible and ultimately defeat the final boss.

• Enemies drop XP when defeated
• Collect XP to level up and become more powerful
• Bosses reward you with a random new weapon when defeated

Choose your upgrades wisely and see how long you can last!

Behind the Scenes

This is my second game. Before this, I had only finished a single game jam project, and I wanted to push myself to create something more complex and polished. Pico-8 really helped me in that persuit. It's limitations (tiny screen, 16 colors and barely any memory) make actually finishing a game so much easier, while finishing things is not one of my strenghts.

A big focus for me was figuring out the collision logic, which took quite a bit of trial and error. I also ran into Pico-8’s 32,767 integer limit, which caused some really wonky unexpected behaviour. With the help of forum posts and YouTube videos, I managed to work around those limitations and learn a lot in the process.

The game was heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors. Addiciting roguelikes is what I enjoy playing most and making more of them is something I’d love to continue exploring in future projects.

The game ended up being quite hard, but I like it that way. For now, the game is finished, but maybe someday I’d love to come back and add more spells/weapons/attacks.

Credits

Game Design (art, sound, programming, production) by Martin_Leblanc

Resources & Inspiration:

• Nerdy Teachers – Platformer tutorial series
• Gruber – Pico-8 music & SFX tutorials and his "Pico-8 SFX Pack!"
• Lexaloffle – The Pico-8 fantasy console

Enjoy playing, and let me know what you think!