Encroaching Shadows

Gameplay

A mysterious shadow creature has seeped into a peaceful land. Change forms and acquire new ones in order to traverse the world.

Controls

Use the directional arrows to move. Holding the direction into a wall while colliding will allow a wall jump with the necessary upgrade. Down is to change to the shadow form (Be careful to not do this accidentally.) While up is to revert back to the formed shadow. This can only be done from the unformed shadow shape.

Press 'X' when touching an enemy while an unformed shadow to change into them! This comes with different abilities and movement capabilities. This works as the main function button for each state. Pressing the down arrow will change this form back to the shadow, so be careful.

'Z' can often activate special powers. Press this while running as a pangolin to roll and wall bounce. This also activates the sword while a fully formed shadow (as long as you have found the sword.) In the unformed state, this will open the menu for shape-shifting on command. (No permanent upgrades available yet.)

The object of the game, so far, is to use different abilities to find the hidden sword.

Metroidvania XVI Jam 

 I started working on this game with 6 days and some hours to finish it all. I used a platformer template I made for the basics. A special thanks and credit to Pancelor for their creation of the big map editor for Pico-8 that allowed me to make such a large map. As well as Rik Cross, whose youtube tutorials were instrumental. The map is a little weird overall. It is my first time making a whole map, and even really a complete (mostly) game.

Notes

I worked on this for a relatively short time period, so it is a little glitchy. I am turning this in right at the deadline, so some things are not implemented or working correctly. This proved to be a big feat with Pico-8 for me, and I ended up going over the token limit way too often at the end.

~Oz O'Shea