Controls
Story
A young hero, fueled by dreams of becoming a revered paladin, embarks on a quest that will test his strength and intelligence. Inspired by tales of the Sunforged Knights, he eagerly undertakes the arduous trials that they administer and judge. Success promises not only rank among their esteemed order but also the rewards of riches and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
How to Play
There are 62 rooms. Use the items in each room to kill the monsters and exit as efficiently as possible. Resources are tight, but you may be surprised at how you can use them to make your heroic escape.
Evaluations and Rewards
After successfully exiting each room, you will be evaluated on your efficiency and rewarded diamonds! The less moves and actions you make to exit the room, the more diamonds you get. Collect as many diamonds as you can to reach higher ranks in the Sunforged Knights and become the greatest Paladin they've ever seen!
Items
Use the O-Button (Z or C on keyboard) to swap between your items. Each room has one or more items that you can use to kill the monsters, but they will be taken from you before you begin the next room.
You will always have the winged boots of swiftness that carry you as far as you can go in any direction. There are 3 possible items that you can pick up and use:
- Sword: Swing it in any direction to kill a monster next to you.
- Shield: Run with the shield in hand to bash things in the room.
- Bow: Shoot an arrow across an entire room. You only get 1, so retrieve it to shoot again.
Monsters
Don't worry, we've selected relatively harmless monsters for these trials. They stand around looking menacing, but as long as you kill them quickly, you shouldn't have any problems from them even when you are staring them in the face.
Extras
For extra goodies available for download, visit Puzzles of the Paladins itch.io page to get:
- Full Instruction Booklet which includes all the game lore
- High Resolution Poster/Desktop Background of a map of all rooms
- (new) QR Code Stickers! 6 stickers as PNGs and a Printable PDF page
That is just the start. I am using this game to try out all sorts of ways we can get creative with our games beyond the game development itself, so I look forward to sharing more goodies.
Credits
This game was inspired by Dungeon and Puzzles by Nekolyst (available on Steam)
Easing Functions by Fletch.
Graphics Encoder by JadeLombax
Cart Compression: Shrinko8
Pixel Art Software:
- Game Art drawn in PICO-8
- Cover Art drawn in Aseprite
- Scrolls drawn in SaKo’s Drawapp
Thanks
Huge thank you to all the support on Ko-Fi. It's going a long way to maintain NerdyTeachers.com, keep us making more content, and bring more Pico-View zines in 2024. Making this game has been a very fun way to rest after last year's zine work. It allowed me to put so many great lessons from those articles to use and I hope to use this game to create more tutorials this year so keep an eye out for that!
Enjoy!
Changelog:
@jaular - Thank you, definitely more tutorials coming! hahaha
@Verb - Thanks for reporting that level, it's fixed and updated now. You might have to replay the level to earn the 3rd diamond. The rest should be correct, but let me know which ones were especially difficult or frustrating to find. You may even find a few where you can get below the target!
Amazing game packed into such tight spaces. Gold star.
It's always good to see puzzles where I know I can find a one-diamond solution and eventually complete the game, the serious question is if I'm getting all the diamonds. I came close, but I don't think I'm getting the top rank.
But there were two puzzles where I indeed found a negative solution, so thank you for setting up acknowledgement of those:
Level:
Solution:
Level:
Solution:
great game! extras are amazing. such thought and effort have gone into this. 5 star for sure!
What a beautiful game so wonderfully presented. It looks amazing and plays really well. Slowly working my way through it and throughly enjoying it. The slow ramp-up of difficulty is really well done.
My only very minor niggles are:
- I'd love an Undo Move option.
- When I complete a level with less than 3 diamonds, I'd like to have the option of replaying it.
I found so many good games recommendations here, thank you fam! Pixel games bring me so much comfort. I would enjoy more tutorials on how to complete the game with 3 diamonds on each level, but the game is great:)
@phil Love the suggestions, I had them in mind when developing but unfortunately I don't think I have the space left for keeping track of moves and implementing an undo. I'll definitely factor it in to the next game like this though.
Replaying the level at the evaluation screen was another tough choice I made. In fact, early playtest versions allowed you to restart instead of going back to the level select screen. Somewhere along the way, all playtesters stopped exiting the rooms before restarting, and now with the total diamonds and rank displayed on the level select, it made more sense to let you check back in there once in a while.
I'd love to see a dev blog on this game.
Looks amazing! Visuals and UI are top notch.
How was it done?
@MolochZ I'll most likely write something for the next Pico-View zine, but there are so many aspects to choose from. Is there anything specific about the game you are curious how it was made? (open question for everyone really)
I beat all the levels and got all the diamonds. Though I did it on the itch.io page.
First official 100% completions!!! Well done both of you! Thanks for sharing. I hope it was a fun challenge.
The best puzzle game we have IMO, really well done! Graphically it is a masterpiece, sfx/mx design is really cool, and seeing all the extras you create on stream is just the cherry on top!
Started a gameplay series not so long ago, trying to 3 diamond all the levels, for anyone who is interested in solutions!
Thank you everyone for playing and awarding the game with stars, I'm so glad you all enjoy the game! It is now featured thanks to all of you so thank you for that as well!
I am continuing to create fun things outside the game, which I'm calling "Game Dev Extras", and I have updated this page and the itch.io page with the latest creation: Stickers!
Each sticker design comes with a QR Code that links directly to this page, so anyone who comes across the sticker (for example at my local café in the picture) can scan with their phone and play the game in their phone browser! The itch.io page now has a free download of the pack of stickers as individual images, and as a printable page. Feel free to spread the word of the game by printing out your own Puzzles of the Paladin stickers, or simply take a look to get an idea for how you might want to do the same for your own game!
Keep your eye out for even more Game Dev Extras in the next issue of Pico-View too!
This looks amazing, the art both in game and out of game is beautiful
Phenomenal! Players get the bow at lev 25 and it really keeps the game fresh and interesting. This one is a top 10 pico-8 imo.
Thank u
I really enjoyed 100%ing this one. Neat easter egg to have a few puzzles with a possible negative score. A few were real stumpers for me to get to the 3 diamond rating. But the counting of steps is so addictive. "I know I can find a better path!" Thanks for taking such great care in the creation of this fun puzzle game.
Wow, I love seeing everyone's screenshots of beating the game, AND collecting all diamonds, AND even finding where you can get under the target moves!
It's a big game and it is difficult! So well done all, I'm impressed and very pleased that you enjoy it.
Wow, the stats show this game has recently hit over 30,000 plays in its 6 months lifetime. I'm not sure how that compares with others but that's mind boggling to me. I'm so glad it's being enjoyed that much!
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