AAAAXY

About the game

AAAAXY is a platformer that does not obey geometry. The rooms you walk through do not fit on a flat map: paths can loop back on themselves, spaces overlap, and the game even sends you inside a Klein bottle. The world is one big connected space that only makes sense locally, so you find your way by remembering what you saw, not by drawing a map.

There is no fixed order. You are free to wander, and the game rewards exploration: hidden rooms, secrets and optional challenges are everywhere, and you earn new abilities, such as moving things or carrying them, which open routes that were closed before. It is all made in a deliberately plain pixel style, with a sense of humour that pokes fun at platformers and at players who think they know where they are going. Expect a minor amount of trolling.

Rudolf Polzer made the game over several years, with contributors for translation, art and testing. A new player needs roughly four to six hours to reach the ending, a full playthrough takes about an hour and the shortest route takes about fifteen minutes. The interface is translated into several languages, including Portuguese, and picks the one your browser uses.

Playing it here

Click Play, wait for the download (the game is large, about 36 MB, and loads once) and then click inside the game so it gets the keyboard. Your settings and saved games stay in this browser. This web version is demanding: the game was designed for desktop machines, so on a slow computer open the settings and turn off some of the visual effects. The first rooms teach the controls as you go, so there is nothing to read before you start.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Do not trust the map. If a room looks like somewhere you have been, you may well be in the same place by a different path. Remember landmarks, not directions.

Explore anything that looks out of place. The game hides secrets behind ordinary-looking walls and in corners that seem to lead nowhere, and many of them are worth the detour.

Take your time. There is no time limit on exploring; the timer in the menu is only a record, and the game never forces you to be fast.

Credits and licence

AAAAXY was created by Rudolf Polzer and is released under the Apache License 2.0. The music is by independent artists and is released into the public domain (CC0) on OpenGameArt.org, the hero sprites are by GrafxKid (CC0) and the Unifont font is under the SIL Open Font License. The complete licence texts of the game and its libraries, and the source of this build, are linked from this page. For this site the game was compiled to WebAssembly without any change to its code.