Skulldude doesn't remember much, he just feels a deep soul-burning hatred towards the slimes. Help him unleash his wrath as he storms the slimes' dungeon increasing his fiery power as he goes.
Controls:
- <z> - shoot fire, hold to auto-fire and move slow
- <x> - dash forward/become invulnerable for a little bit
- arrow keys/d-pad - move around
Tips:
- Dashing can go through enemies and their bullets. Learn to use it well, it's critical during boss fights.
- Finishing all enemies in a room makes that room cleared even if you die.
- Look for suspicious pixels on the map to find secrets.
- The game can be finished in less than 10 minutes, how fast can you do it?
Features:
- a flaming skull dude
- 32 rooms filled with lots of slimes, power-ups and secrets
- 4 boss fights
- lot of bullets
Full Map Cheat:
This is my entry to the #3cjam, it was a lot of fun working on it. Special thanks to enargy for organizing it and the rest of the pico-8 community for being all around plain awesome!
In case it's not obvious, the original Zelda was the main influence making this game.
Enjoy and please don't heasitate to send feedback my way!
Update 1.01 (11/9/2017):
- upgrade menu now waits a second before a selection can be made, should avoid accidental selections
- unreachable pickup orbs are now persisted between sessions
- front end doesn't go crazy anymore after a little while
Another solid title, man. You've got quite the list now. Time to release a collector's edition bundle :)
Thanks guys... still struggling to finish this one proper! :D
This is so, so good. Played through it on my stream tonight and loved it. Great work! :D
Thanks everyone!
@MBoffin I just watched your run... I liked how you progressively learned to use the dash to your advantage in different situations. There are a few little secrets you missed here and there but overall pretty good run (I was actually cheering for you on that last boss fight :D).
Haha, yeah, I was pretty tired. Notice how quiet I was while playing after a bit? Right after that, I fell asleep for 4 hours. :D I'll have to try again soon.
Okay, I just had another go and this time noticed all the little secrets! :D Didn't get shorter time, but way fewer deaths and 100%'ed my stats. :D
Awesome! BTW, someone on Twitter finished it under 4 minutes! Try and beat that! :D
Haha, I don't think I can beat 4 minutes, but I did finish with only 1 death! :D
Very nice !
On the level where the baddies are shooting, might be beneficial when player is shooting to lock direction they are shooting if they hold the button and use the arrow keys to navigate.
Called STRAFING. You can see an example program of this type of shooting posted HERE:
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=31733
Then you can move up, down, left, and right, but still continue to shoot in the last direction you chose as long as the firing button is held.
I like the "bobbing" method too when skullboy walks. I was just thinking of this today to "animate" single image sprites for motion.
Thanks for the feedback, guys!
David, back when I wrote this game (about a year ago) I experimented with many different control schemes including something similar to the strafing scheme you mention. The way it currently works is that if you're at shooting from a valid range from a target and you hold down the button, the target is aimed-at automatically (called auto-aim), in a sense, it's a kind of strafing, definitely easier for the user so they can focus on dodging the bullets by dashing and maneuvering.
Auto aim ! Oh wow I never got that far. I was always keeping my distance trying to shoot and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.
Get closer ... Oh, I see what you did here. Nice ! Yes, that's even better. Like the heat-seeking weapon you have in many shooters, it goes right after the target.
Well, with this in mind, I should give it another go.
So I finished this one, took about 45 minutes. I really enjoyed the aesthetic and the controls, especially how you made a game that feels like a twin stick shooter but made it possible with just two buttons, I thought it was a really creative solution, especially since one of the powerups allowed for improving the capabilities of the aiming system. Nice touch.
I only have a few critiques but since it's a jam-game, I imagine they're all things you probably are aware of and jams are typically constrained by time, so I understand if some of the things I mention are on the side of 'I wanted to, but had to not do that because deadlines'.
1.) Similar to Run Gun Bot, this game didn't really feel like I was in danger or needed much skill required of me, outside of a couple of boss battles and 2 specific rooms. But...
2.) those specific bosses were overcome by powerups, removing the skill necessary to defeat them and the rooms that were difficult weren't difficult in a fair way but unfair way. I saw that there was definintely an attempt to create situations that seem hopeless but with practice can be overcome but they fell short, imo, of reaching that magical point of hard-but-fair. Either things were too easy or unfair, not a whole lot in between except for most of the bosses, depending on where you were stat-wise on powerups.
3.) While i enjoy games where you can sort of explore to exploit, so to speak, I would have liked to have seen something where it feels exploratory (i.e. multiple ways to go) but still are funneled to specific order of completion; i.e. having access to 3 bosses doesn't feel 'right' to me, but my feels aren't necessarily important, so there's that!
4.) Secrets were kind of obtuse in a way, but not impossible to discover...but I think using something related to firepower, pushblocks, etc. instead of just making walls not block the player was a little..idk, underwhelming. It didn't give a sense of 'outsmarting' the game for figuring out it's puzzle, it just felt empty, I guess is best way to put it. Even though the things you get access to sort of stay around and mock you for not getting them yet.
Overall, I really liked it, if it was a bit short. It played great on my fujitsu u820 on the keyboard holding the machine like a gamepad (I use WASD + OP/Return for pause as my layout so it feels as much like a controller as possible). I give it a 8/10 for enjoyability and a 4/10 for difficulty and a 10/10 for presentation, the style was really cool and unique.
Hey I made a mod of this game where I added some new music. Do I have the author's permission to upload it?
Reminds me of Nematic Crypt!
Same kind of color and gameplay at least.
It's a nice roguelike to play.
Oh yeah, and slimes. gotta kill all of em
Great game! Beat in 22:15. I really enjoy the look and vibe of it. Excellent job!
I love this thing so much! It reminds me of the Skeletons in my Gym Teacher's Closet.
[Please log in to post a comment]
