Fortress

Background: Fortress is an exploration game with different enemy and weapon types, puzzles, secrets, unique dialogue, and more.  There are 57 different rooms in the game for you to explore.  Your character starts with no weapons or items and you progress through the game by finding items, solving puzzles, and interacting with NPCs.  The game uses the D-pad the vast majority of the time as you navigate a large fortress filled with monsters, people, stories, and traps.  The game utilizes the crank for one of the puzzles.  You receive scores at the end of the game based on how many treasures you collect, how many gems you find, and how many times you die in the game.  The main objective of the game is to escape the fortress!  There is no save functionality, but you can lock your Playdate and start where you left off later on.  An average playthrough takes about 30 minutes.  It takes most players more than one playthrough to achieve the top rank in each category.

Spoilers/Guide: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/us4a2ub7ha4tfekrl4qzk/Fortress-Reference-Sheet.pd...

If you want to play through the game without any spoilers do not look at the guide.  If you get stuck or want more detail about the game the sheet should be able to answer your questions.

Release Date: Fortress will be released here and on Playdate's catalog on October 8th, 2024 (sometime in the morning).  You can check out other Playdate games via the catalog website: https://play.date/games/catalog/

Ranking System: Here are the scores you need to obtain certain ranks in the game.  Rare treasures, gems, and number of deaths are evaluated upon completion of the game.  You get an overall score for each category (treasures, gems, and number of deaths).  S-rank is considered a perfect score for that category.  A similar chart like the one below is shown after you complete the game.

Rank:	Treasures:	Gems:	Deaths:
S	13 (All)	25 (All)	0
A	10-12	20-24	1
B	8-9	15-19	2
C	6-7	10-14	3
D	4-5	5-9	4
F	Less Than 4	Less Than 5	More Than 4

Credits:  Alan Cooke - I wrote the code for the game, tested the game, created the sounds used in the game, and helped with some of the art.

Beth Cooke - My talented sister (Beth) created most of the original sprites and created all of the art that was used on the game's website.  Beth also created everything shown on-device in catalog and animated the game's card.

Sideloading: Here are the instructions for sideloading Playdate games - https://help.play.date/games/sideloading/