Haunted Azure is a short 2D precision platformer, heavily inspired by a Celeste mod I made last year. Straightforward platforming with weird and wacky cycles!
Goal
Help our little slime friend make it through the evil blue crypt! In one end, out the other.
Extra Challenge
If that isn't enough to satisfy you, see if you can make it out without dying, or try and make it through in under three minutes. Good luck!
Controls
Navigate the menu using the up & down arrow keys, and select with Z.
In game, move around with the left & right arrow keys, and jump with Z!
If you want to restart the game, hold X for 3 seconds.
Changelog
7/18/25
- Released the game!
8/22/25
- Adjusted the start of room 4-4
- Added high score tracking
- Added a return to menu/restart game button
- Added a tooltip for the restart button at the start of the game once the player has set a high score
- Committed code crimes (made things less readable to conserve tokens)
8/25/25
- Fixed a typo
Credits
Thank you to everyone that helped make this game possible!
Special thanks to Freeka, who put together the music track for the game, going out of his way to learn Pico-8's music system and working with me to get everything working perfectly in-game!
I'd also like to thank my friend Peter, who encouraged me to try out making this "remake" when I was in a spot bereft of creative motivation.
A huge shoutout to all of my playtesters, whose feedback shaped the game into what you see now:
- aBuffZucchini
- Bill Marcy
- carrarium
- Freeka
- Peter Stefek
- Ryan Condon
- Sourencho
- tobyaaa
- touhoe
Additionally, I'd like to thank the pico-8 community, for all the amazing resources that are available!
The list is probably not exhaustive since I poked around a lot, changed a lot, and didn't do a great job of record-keeping, but a big thank you to:
- RealShadowCaster for suggesting adding high score tracking and giving advice on how to do it.
- Nerdy Guide's pico-8 guide
- Lazy Dev's 0.2.0 guide, specifically for pal()
- Dev Quest's efficient tileset tutorial
- Pico-8 Celeste
- The Pico-8 Wiki
- zep for this awesome console!
Putting this game together was a ton of fun! It was my first real foray into programming a game, and I ended up using almost all the code and sprite space there was to offer. I hope y'all enjoy!
Great : cute graphics, simple precise controls, casual 10mn game,
yet challenging and fair with great visibility of the enemies patterns, and replay value for the speed-running inclined. starred.
Little suggestion for the speed-runners : on the starting screen, add two high-scores :
best time followed by death count, and best death count followed by time.
both saved with catdata/dset.
Nice! I like how the levels wind back on each other and the skull movements lead to some fun and tricky tight spots. The mode you made for Celeste you made looks great too!(it's rare that we talk about full-game Celeste mods on this site lol) I might need to boot up the ol' Celeste mod loader again...
Great platformer! Love the cute graphics and music. Controls are tight and the level design is on point. Really nice!
It was a pleasant surprise to find this game!
The mechanics, graphics, and music remind me of the Game Boy version of "Dragon's Lair," a game that is among my favorites.
Congratulations on your work!
Great variety of patterns in the skulls. On my first attempt I'd run into a room and immediately die, and finally reminded myself to stop and watch the pattern first... on a room where the skulls run right through the starting point. Awesome! Anyway, here's my first run.
And here's my third run. Does under 3 minutes change anything in the game, or did you name it as an appropriate goal to aim for.
Looking forwards to seeing people complete it in zero deaths, but it probably won't be me...
this game is fun
little update
i have mastered this game
i have ascended to the heavens above
Trough out the pixels and the cartridges, i truly am the fastest one
-1 second
oh my fucking goddd
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