Over the Garden Wall (Ep. 1-3) [Pico-8]
"Over the Garden Wall (Ep. 1-3)" is a 2D Pico-8 Zelda-inspired adventure game where you play the titular characters introduced to us by Cartoon Network's gem of a mini-series of the same name, Over the Garden Wall. The story spans the first 3 episodes of the show: "The Old Grist Mill", "Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee", & "Schooltown Follies".
Controls:
- Arrow Keys (Up, Down, Left, Right): Move
- X: Progress dialog, use item
- Z + Arrow Keys: Select object or NPC
This Pico-8 game was completed after on-and-off efforts over 3 years (first commit was Sept '21). The Pico-8 game uses 96.6% of available tokens and 99.99% of the compressed capacity.
Features of this game include:
- 7 Stages: Boot, Menu Scene, Main Menu, Controls, Intro Song, Play Map, & Game Over
- A retro GBA-inspired boot sequence
- Full screen intro menu scene from original show image
- Main menu with 4 randomized characters & show-accurate logo
- Controls menu displaying how to play the game
- Randomized frog name on each run
- Intro singing frog sequence and full song
- Story for first 3 episodes (Mill, Pottsfield, & Schoolhouse)
- More than 50+ story beats
- 130+ lines of dialog
- 21 distinct characters, with map and dialog sprites
- 3 hidden rock facts to find
- 7 hidden Edelwoods to find
- 6 useable items
- Achievement system w/ 7 achievements
- Game Over screen with score total based on time spent and achievement counts
- NPC behaviors like chasing candy/player, walking in loop, going to new position
- 13 distinct maps, 7 exterior, 6 interior, and 5 distinct buildings
- 1 secret room!
- Fog-of-war type darkness with partial visibility & tile discovery system
- Lurking eyes in the darkness
- Party members
- Map-locking trigger system which hints to player how to progress (e.g. “leave a candy”)
- Sprite world element randomization - e.g. specific tree textures are random each run
- Play map UI for active character, item, map title
- Player selection system with item descriptor texts and NPC idle texts
Comments
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oh man I just found this on a whim, absolutely wonderful. So underrated, how! love the music and the playing feels nostalgic, also the detail with the beast randomly in un-discovered tiles is fantastic.
The chiptune main title arrangement that plays during the title screen is INCREDIBLE. Really looking forward to playing this, I just started my annual OTGW rewatch.