Where to get it

2019 · Morphcat Games · Arcade · Indie

Micro Mages

Timed Nintendo exclusive

Enter the Demon Fortress. Built to torture pesky adventurers, this place is home to great treasure and ghastly creatures alike. But don't worry, you can count on allies like Fairies and Magical Seagulls to come to your help!

Released: 30 April 2019
Platforms: NES PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows
Genres: Arcade Indie Platformer
Developers: Morphcat Games
Publishers: —
Modes: Co-op Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Action Fantasy Party
Country: Germany
Age ratings: PEGI 7 ESRB E10+ACB PG USK 12 GRAC 15+CLASS_IND 10
Languages: English
Time to beat: 1hmain story3hcompletionist

About

Micro Mages is a platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System that was published on April 30, 2019 by Morphcat Games. The game raised over €150,000 on Kickstarter. The game was published as a physical cartridge for the NES, and later as a digital download, bundled with an emulator, on Steam and Itch.io.

›Story

Once upon a time, in a small cottage within a dark forest, four mages and their beloved Princess spent a life in harmony. The mages were students at the renowned Hocus-Pocus Academy of Applied Magicks. To keep Princess safe during their study hours, they installed a giant lock on the front door.

One day, the blue mage forgot to lock the door and when everyone came back home after a long day, their Princess was gone.

A fairy beared terrible news: “Strange things are happening in the old Demon Fortress atop Pretzel Mountain!”

The four mages did not hesitate. After chanting a teleportation spell they had just learned at the Academy, they took off to the Demon Fortress...

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

, had to fit into (later development techniques allowed larger games, such as Super Mario Bros. 3). The game was written in 6502 assembly language. 8 kilobytes of cartridge space was reserved for graphics, while the remaining 32 kilobytes were used for game code.

Graphics were reused across levels and animations to save space. Player characters were deliberately scaled down in order to avoid sprite overflow. The game was written with the goal of creating an expansive multi-player game with the same limitations that the first NES developers experienced.