AWESOME Land

This is an itch.io exclusive PC release of my first commercial game, from way back in 2011. I've learned a lot since then, but this game has a special place in my heart because despite taking less than a month to develop, it did well enough to get me started on my path to doing game dev professionally.

There are a lot of tributes to the platformers of the NES and SNES era, but not that many which go all the way back to the very earliest Game Boy and NES games. AWESOME Land has no vertical scrolling, and you can't even scroll backwards! WHAT?! Plus it's all presented in a quirky 'pixel cutout collage' art style.

AWESOME Land was made with Clickteam Fusion (Sorry about that) in 2011.

 

Original description from 2011:

This retro platform game pays tribute to and parodies classic platform games, in style!

Manley's motorcycle has been stolen by evil aliens! It's up to you to help him kick some alien hide and claim it back in this incredible parody of the great platform games of the past!

Venture into a twisted version of the Nevada Desert! Discover alien bases! Stamp on monsters with your massive biker boots! Weave between furious flamethrowers! Munch on meat... from the walls!

- 25 amazing, challenging levels!
- Unique HD retro "photorealistic pixels" art style
- Beastly bosses!
- Silky smooth platform engine
- Rocking soundtrack!

Do you have what it takes to save Manley's bike, or will you be hitchhiking home?

 

CONTROLS

Please use an XInput compatible controller if possible! The layout here is based on an Xbox pad, but other XInput pads will also work.

• [A] Jump.
• [X] Run.
• [Start/Menu] Pause.
• Use the [Esc] key at any time to quit to desktop.

You can also play with the keyboard if you absolutely must... But I don't recommend it! You can use WSAD or the arrow keys, and Z/X or Shift/Space for run/jump respectively.

 

FUN FACTS!!!!!!!

• I made AWESOME Land back in 2011 for iOS and later released an Android port. I had been making games as a hobby since I was about 10 years old, but this was my first proper commercial game. This PC port was done almost 10 years later.
• The mobile version only had buttons for left, right and jump. Since it used virtual buttons, I found it better to have as few buttons as possible. For this PC version I added the run button for varying speed. The mobile version had slow acceleration, Sonic style, so the player could still move slowly and precisely when they needed to. The run speed on PC matches the top speed of the original mobile version, but acceleration is faster.
• The name was originally "Super Manley Land", but was changed to AWESOME Land purely because of the design of the iOS App Store at the time! Back when this first released, there was a "New Releases" tab which... get this... arranged new releases in alphabetical order. So using a name beginning with A was the best way to get noticed. Some devs even released games with names like "AAAAAAAH Scary Game". It was pretty ridiculous, frankly!
• You can't scroll to the left in this game. It wasn't a limitation of the engine, I genuinely wanted to pay tribute to the very first Super Mario Bros. on NES and Super Mario Land on Game Boy. Single-axis scrolling and once you've passed something you can't go back and get it! It actually makes you have to think a little more when trying to grab certain 1ups and things.