Poacher by "Yahtzee": Somewhat Inspired By Cave Story

I've checked the forums to see if anybody has discussed this game. I see that nobody has, and I think it may be of interest to my fellow Cave Story adventurers.

Last year, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, the sardonic English game critic on The Escapist who lives in Australia, designed a "Metroidvania" platformer using Game Maker called Poacher. It's a comedy-dark fantasy game involving a Yorkshireman poacher who falls in a enormous exotic cave underworld (similar to Cave Story), who bonds with a ghost maiden to fight off demonic bunnies under the control of an ancient Lovecraftian force. He made a trailer which explains the concept effectively (and hilariously):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YEe167Gso

Like Cave Story, it gets really hard as it progresses (though Poacher feels harder than Cave Story). They also share the really hard bosses, including the ones who don't have checkpoints after defeating each stage. I recently read in his readme file that Yahtzee's main inspirations for Poacher were Metroid (which I've noticed also influenced Cave Story in places), Cave Story, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (though I detect a little bit of Castlevania II in its gameplay). Like Cave Story, it has three endings, and an extremely hard secret boss (whose traits seem like a mixture of Ballos and Gigyas). I recommend it to the robot warriors.

 

I didn't see a link to it :
http://fullyramblomatic-yahtzee.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/get-poachin.html
And the game download :
http://indiegames.com/2012/04/freeware_game_pick_poacher.html

Anyway, it looks non-serious, like a parody game; but from the trailer, it might be worth checking out... If you want vengeful bunnies to haunt you in your sleep...

 

Yeah, sorry about that. I should have done included download links, but I made the mistake in thinking the trailer was enough to get others interested. Poacher is indeed non-serious in many ways, but the main conflict does get pretty serious. That's what's so great about Yahtzee's games, because he combines both comedy and serious storytelling quite well.

 

Ohmygosh, I totally need to try this. It looks awesome

Thank you for sharing this,Anjin ^_^

 

Finally got the download working, now played about 1/3 of the way through. It's a bit annoying only having four directions with no spread, but I'm defs enjoying it. There are a couple of parts that remind me somewhat of Cave Story in particular; the first boss is very Balfrog

 

Look absolutely amazing. Will try this out.