CODE-8 - Adventure Jam Highlights

A 15-minute-long pulp fiction sci-fi adventure with buckets of charm. What's not to love?

For those of you who don't know, I'm a sucker for point-and-click adventure games. From LucasArt to Sierra and beyond, I love them all.

Once per year there is a community-run game jam (the Adventure Jam) focused on creating fully fleshed out adventure games. It's always worth keeping an eye on this event - notable alumni include the wonderful Yorkshire Gubbins from the wonderful Charlotte "The Stairfall Institute" Gore.

Today I'm here to shine a light on my personal highlight from 2018's Adventure Jam. CODE-8 is a 15-minute long charming pixel art adventure game created by Paul Nicholas (@Liquidream), where you find yourself crashed on an alien planet after responding to a distress signal.

CODE-8 was created within PICO-8 with the use of SCUMM-8, a demake of the classic Lucas Art adventure game engine. The LucasArts engine is a pretty good fit for the Pico-8 especially given its tiny resolution - but it still takes just as much skill to be so expressive with so few pixels. Given the constraints it's under, I was impressed with how well CODE-8 plays.

With some clever puzzle design, beautiful pixel art (which I'm a sucker for), and brilliant music from Chris Donnelly (@Gruber_Music), my strong recommendation is: Grab yourself a cup of tea, boot up CODE-8, and enjoy 15 minutes of nostalgic bliss.

You can play CODE-8 online for free on GameJolt.

Jack Dixon is a gamer, cinephile, and more than likely he's the guy who's ignoring you on Grindr. Tweet him @Jackaphobia. Support his writing on Patreon!