CastleBoy

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Overview

CastleBoy is a Castlevania demake for the Arduboy by ZappedCow (Joel Lauener) and Increment. The two started it in November 2016, and after about three months and 138 commits it was released on the Arduboy community forum in February 2017.

You whip your way past vampires and their minions, and whipping the lamps along the way yields coins or throwing knives, while a timer keeps you moving through each level.

The authors also published the source with notes for anyone who wants to hack the game: a script regenerates the sprites and maps, and stages can be edited in the Tiled map editor, each with a main layer for solid tiles and enemies and a background layer for graves and chains.

Made by: jlauener and Increment
Released: 2016

Controls guide

Playing

Button and key	Action
Left/Right	Walk
Down	Duck; you can creep along while ducking
A`X`	Jump
B`Z`	Crack the whip
Up	Throw a knife, if you have any
Down+A`X`	Pause
A`X`/B`Z`	Resume from pause

Menus

Button and key	Action
Up/Down	Choose Play, Help or sound on or off
A`X`	Select; also leaves the help, game over and ending screens

Cheatsheet

Monsters

Skeleton: 2 HP; one kind throws bones
Armored skeleton: 6 HP
Skull: 1 HP, flies
Bird: 2 HP
Hurler: 4 HP, throws fireballs when you come near
Bosses: 12 HP each, one at the end of every stage

Weapons and pickups

Whip: 2 damage, reaches 24 pixels
Knife: 1 damage, flies until it hits something
Knife candle: Drops 3 knives (200 points)
Coin candle: Drops a coin (100 points)
Candle: 10 points to break
Monster: 25 points

Rules

Health: 5 hearts, refilled after each boss
Lives: 5 tries; the counter shows how many are left after each death
Clock: 250 seconds per stage; each death adds 15
Time up: Game over, whatever lives you have left
Boss beaten: 5 points per second left on the clock
Game finished: 1000 points per life left
Knives: Lost when you die

Tips

The clock is shared by the four levels of a stage and only resets at the next stage. Do not dawdle in the early levels, because whatever time is left when the boss falls is paid out at 5 points a second.
Knives are worth saving for things the whip cannot reach comfortably, such as birds and skulls in the air or a boss. You lose every knife you carry when you die, though, so do not hoard them either.
The whip deals twice the damage of a knife and reaches 24 pixels, three times your own width, so attack from the edge of its range and let enemies walk into it.
Ducking cuts your height from 14 pixels to 6 and you can still whip and throw knives while down, so it shrinks your target when fireballs come in level with you.
Thrown bones and horizontal fireballs always travel to the left. Once you are past a bone-throwing skeleton or a hurler, its shots can no longer reach you.
Break every candle you pass. They are worth points on their own and some hide coins or a bundle of three knives.