Rogue escape

This game originally started as a way to procedurally generate dungeon maps, as I was playing with learning procedural genreation for a completely different idea I had for a game.  Then over time I'd dip into this and add a little more. and some more and so on.  I made it in the style of a retro ZX spectrum game, it not a true representation, as i made it with the resources i had to hand. currently all the game art asets are pretty much  still programmer art, and unless I discover a brnd new talent for pixel art overnight they aint getting much better than whats in there now lol.

The Plot.

Breaking into the tower seemed like a good idea, I was new to this town but had heard rumours of the fabulous wealth hidden in it. No one had alive could remember why it was there or what was inside it, it dominated the skyline of this little town. As one of the best rogues in the land, I saw it as my duty to break into it, and pilfer anything I could lay my hands on.

After an uneventful break in, the avoidance and disarming of some mediocre traps and pitfalls I was deep into the tower when I came across the bed chamber. It was opulent and it appeared as though the owner liked the finer things in life, but what caught my eye was a hand mirror. Gold framed and studded with precious gems, I was drawn to it the minute I entered the room, nothing else mattered except the mirror and I had to have it. So I reached out to pick it up by the gem encrusted handle, even though every nerve and instinct screamed at me from within not to, I just had to have it, I felt compelled. I reached out and as I touched it there was a blinding flash of light and everything went black.

My heads is groggy but I'm quick to my feet because in the darkness I hear... slobbering and chomping of teeth. Not the nicest thing to wake up to so I risk lighting a torch and quickly survey my surroundings. It  seems I'm a prisoner of some sort of dungeon or a cell. But there are no doors to be seen, hopefully there is a way out.

There are 4 gem shaped hollows, each coloured with some sort of enamel in the ground beside me. Blue, green, pink and yellow, they match the gems on the mirror that I now realise must have sent me here. There seems to be no indication of what they are for. I reach out to cautiously to touch one and a pain stabs my into my head and a booming voice fills it, that is so loud it feels like it's rattling my teeth. "Another little thief in my maze, you like mirrors and gems so much we'll see how good you are at finding them. The only way out my trap is to find the four gems and use them to defeat your dark mirror self. Good luck little thief." I hear the fading echo of a dry evil laugh as the voice and pain fades away.

Suddenly a skeleton shambles out of the darkness and grabs at me and I roll aside barely avoiding its razor like fingers, I reach for my sword but its gone, I'm unarmed. I back away from the approaching fiend. With a sense of horror and fear rising in me, and my heart pounding in my chest, in the half light I stumble over something and fall. The thing is almost upon me and I scramble to get up and my weight falls on the lever I must have tripped over. A rusty metal grating in the floor swings open and the skeleton creature, unaware or uncaring of the hazard, stumbles through it and I hear crashing below echoing up the shaft under the now closing grating.

Looking around I hear shambling and clanking and know more creatures have been attracted by either the noise or the light. There seems to be similar gratings on the ground on the corridors leading from this gem room, perhaps I can use them to eliminate the creatures that haunt this place. I can sense something else though, something dark and deadly is approaching and whatever it is I don't think a hole in the ground is going to be enough to stop it, and I KNOW I don't want to meet it. I get a firm grip on my torch and as the first of the shambling horrors enter the circle of it's light I prepare to make a run for it. I will escape, I will beat the evil that is stalking me and I will have my revenge on whoever put me here.

Controls
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Cursor Keys (arrow keys) to move
Space to open grates and chests
Hold Shift to Run
or Use Joystick to move, fire to open grates, hold fire to run.

M to view map of dungeon
S toggles sound
Q quit to menu
ESC close software

Game design and programming by Gerry Kelly (https://www.twitter.com/retro_gerry)

Loading screen and icons use Cartoon Rogue image by laetissima (https://opengameart.org/users/laetissima) Recoloured to zx spectrum colour palette then converted to zx format using SPECTRA image convertor.

In game Music by Spring (https://opengameart.org/users/spring)

made in gamemaker studio 1.4