Beware All Ye Who Enter Here!
Mr Stephen has been trapped inside Castle Toonightfaw by his even nemesis (who we haven't got the budget to invent yet). The only way to open the doors is through a ritual using various items from around the castle:
- A Lit Candle
- A Silver Crucifix
- A Golden Key
- An Ancient Tome
The only problem is, once night descends, the evil denizens of the castle awake and prowl the rooms. If Mr Stephen touches one, it will give him a heart attack. And, with the amount of processed sugar this man has consumed, he can only sustain 3 heart attacks before he becomes the newest member of the castle's ghostly entourage.
Your only aid is a bag of salt! Throwing salt at your spooky adversaries temporarily puts them out of phase with the universe (a feeling we have all experienced when we wake up not knowing what day it is). This allows you to walk right through them for a short time before they pull themselves together and start to prowl again.
Can you collect all of the items and make your way back to the door?
And WILL YOU DO IT QUICKLY....
Have you made it out of the castle before? Why not challenge yourself to do it again and beat your previous time? Your time is concealed until the end of the game, and the fastest time will become the score to beat on subsequent playthroughs.
Controls
Keyboard
Arrow keys — move
Z or C — jump
X or V — action
Controller
D-pad — move
O button — jump
X button — action
About The Author
I am a YouTuber and content creator, although this is my first foray into creating Pico-8 games. Having said that, I'm not new to making games, as it's something I've been interested in since I was a child, starting on the Commodore 64 with the Shoot-'em-up Construction Kit, before moving on to AMOS on the Amiga, and then DarkBASIC on the PC.
I've also programmed games in both Flash ActionScript, PHP, JavaScript, and HTML5 for various companies whilst working in web development.
Mr Stephen's Dead End was a fun foray into creating my first PICO-8 game. It is as complete as it will ever be, but it's really only just for a bit of fun, so I hope you enjoy it. It's not meant to be too taxing.
You can find my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@mrstephensretrocorner/
About The Game
I've been getting into Pico-8 because it's something that I like to run on the retro handhelds that I review on YouTube. But I've recently been talking with Retro Fun Tech, who invited me on her channel to talk about Pico-8, play some games, and have some fun. Before that event, I wanted to create a little game that I could challenge her to play during the stream. Mr Stephen's Dead End, in its very simple form, was a part of that.
This has been a little bit revised, had a few corners knocked off, and some pretty basic music and sound effects added in to make it a bit more finished. You can see a replay of the livestream below:
Cute game. I like that you made a 16*16 (I think?) sprite - gives the game a Gameboy or game gear feel, having a large protagonist.
Only took me a few minutes to escape, but was fun. Cheers.
Nice fun game. Far too short though! Its a shame that you have said "it's as complete as it's going to be" since the aesthetic and idea is nice. This would be great with a bigger map , more complicated puzzles and longer play time. But its a lovely cart for what it is.
Thanks, everyone, for your comments.
@paloblancogames
Yes, it's 16x16. I wanted to get the same feel as the games I remembered growing up. It could have been 16x32, but I didn't think I needed to for Pico-8. I may have done if I was going to make a GameBoy game.
@kingargs Thank you very much :)
@thePixelXb_ Congratulations. I've not even done that yet :D - I think I got it down to 1:02.
@phil
It was really a proof of concept, more than anything else, and one I had to get done in a short time. I was inspired by the Dizzy games by CodeMasters, and those would have much more branching maps, 160 rooms or so. I just didn't have the time to pull that off. But, if I do more, then it would be a full game, more maps and gameplay, and branching puzzles. It would also take a very long time to do, and I don't have much free time at all. But, thank you for the kind words :)
Very cool game! If I would give one point for criticism: The music is very harsh especially if played with headphones, perhaps toning it down a bit would help, other than that great fun! :)
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