Necropolis

by amkingtrp

Necropolis is a short Metroidvania and homage to the arcade adventures that I used to play on my Acorn Electron during the 1980s, in particular Citadel and Hobgoblin (Acorn veterans may spot the two deliberate references).
It was designed to look close to those halycon days of 8-bit gaming, but for the sake of people's eyes I am using the muted C64 palette instead of the Electron's bright primary colours.

In Necropolis you play as an explorer who has found the lost Necropolis of an ancient people whose technology was legendarily advanced. You will enter this dead city and try to find the secrets of their technology.

Controls are arrows to move and space to jump.

Comments10

WALK18 Oct 2026, 22:40

fun platformer, loved the sounds!!

sanechekz19 Oct 2026, 08:55

I really like the progression! At first, I thought it was just a simple platformer, but then I got the double jump, and things got more interesting. The dash took it to another level and introduced some fun puzzles. The turrets are especially cool, and I love how bullets keep flying! I actually managed to die, respawn, and then die again to the exact same bullet. :) The turrets are even aimed right at head level! I thought I could dodge the bullets with the dash, but nope. Great job, really fun game!

ya7on19 Oct 2026, 19:43

Game design and level design is wonderful. I really like the game. Want to see updates or something

Planetary19 Oct 2026, 19:48

Nice platformer! I'd like to have A and D for movement, it's kinda hard (for me, at least) to use arrow keys...

And, of course, I reached the end, so I got every effect possible (if I didn't missed anything: double-jump, dash and floating iirc).

Graphics might be too simplistic, but I think you wanted to blend with the theme.

Good game!

DaveDaveNotGood20 Oct 2026, 19:48

jooo i loved it! it was really fun. i would buy a full version. Love the sounds and visuals. very nicely executed! A lot of thought went into the level design

FireSlash20 Oct 2026, 21:00

Love how this came together. It really does feel like an old era platformer.

Level design was surprisingly well thought out, being able to identify a path and only wonder how I'm going to clear that is always a good time.

The pacing does feel a bit slow, which is probably accurate but did make me feel a bit impatient in some areas.

Controls are very tight and responsive. Art is coherent and matches what you were going for. Nice work!

Koolruz21 Oct 2026, 00:37

I absolutely loved this. I've never played Citadel or Hobgoblin, but this reminded me a lot of other proto-metroidvania sidescrollers, in the best possible way. Well done!

As a heads-up, I did find a sequence break that I (thankfully) didn't pursue. With well timed dashes and double jumps, you can skip the floating powerup, and skip ahead to the pit. I have no idea if it would have been possible to complete the game from there, but I'm very glad that I turned back (the game did a very good job of telegraphing that I probably wanted to go the other way first :) )

Aside from that, I have no real constructive feedback to offer, this was just a very solid mini-metroidvania! :) Great job!

WeLoveGames21 Oct 2026, 05:24

Finished the whole game! I really liked the mechanics. Switching from floating to dashing took some getting used to, but I got the hang of it eventually. Thanks for the game!

aterim21 Oct 2026, 13:43

Well, that was a short but fun little adventure! It reminded me of an old game called Knytt.

The controls could be a bit more responsive, and it'd be great!
Also, as someone mentioned above, it'd be nice to have A/D as alternative movement keys, and W and the up arrow to jump.

Either way, great job! I'd love to see more of this game!