Hunchback Pocket
A tribute to the 1983 Amstrad CPC classic — Hunchback — reimagined for the fantasy console Pico-8.
Play as Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, and brave a series of perilous castle walls in your quest to rescue the fair Esmeralda. Leap over pits, dodge arrows, and time your swings across ropes as you sprint from danger to danger in this fast-paced, one-screen-at-a-time platformer.
This remake aims to capture the spirit and challenge of the original 8-bit game, with a fresh Pico-8 style twist.
-
15 handcrafted levels inspired by the original Amstrad version
-
Arcade-style difficulty and timing-based platforming
-
Rope swings, enemy knights, fire pits, arrows, and bells
-
Retro sound effects and sprite animations
-
Built from scratch in Pico-8
Will you survive the gauntlet and ring the final bell?
This game was made for the July Weak Sauce game jam. It's not fully faithful to the original Amstrad title, but i'm happy with it so far.
Implemented currently:
- All 15 levels of the original
- Knight enemy types
- Fireball, arrows, pit and chasm hazards
- Scoring and Super Bonus
- Scoring, end of level and menu screen sound effects
- Foot step sound effects
Still needs work:
- Rope physics are quite volatile!
- Sounds are not faithful to the original
- Enemy spawn intervals
- Accurate scores
- Scoring animations
- Menu screens
I hope you enjoy!
Development log
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I had the expectation that this game would be a lot harder than it turned out, not sure why... it's fine, anyway, for someone who does not really know the original game. I l;ke that there's a certain form of composition in the level progression with the same level layout having different elements layered
Only the rope clinging is a bit too clunky, and the rope that swings back and forth seems to be too erratic (it keeps moving from the center to the same side instead of going like a pendulum); also the fireballs and arrows seem indistinguishable from a mechanical standpoint
Very well done, congrats on getting through your Jam entry!
Thanks for playing! Yes, I didn't have any time to balance the game or tweak the difficulty.
The ropes are most definitely clunky. The swinging is pretty volatile. I want to make them much smoother once I know how.
Their collision detection also needs work. I wrote a function that sticks the player to the nearest rope. It works, but because I reused the ropes for the bells, I couldn't make my nearest rope function too generous or it became impossible to jump between ropes. All things that can be fixed when I have a bit more time.
Thanks for the great feedback😊
This was a lot of fun! I really like how you translated the graphics and physics from the original, it feels completely at home on Pico-8. I managed to get a perfect score of 11100 after a few tries, nicely balanced. Also, I appreciate the detailed dev logs, it's always fun seeing the process.
Thanks so much, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Well done on getting a perfect score. I’ve shared it with a few friends and they haven’t got past level 3 yet😅 I definitely didn’t really do anything to balance it as I ran out of time, but glad to hear it can be done.
Ah, yes, well they were my dev logs from the Weak Sauce Discord. I don’t think I would have been confident to share them publicly while it was still in progress as I don’t always finish my projects. However, this one has shown me that it can be done if I put my mind to it so I might share updates live on Itch.io in future.
Thanks for playing my little game😊