Skeleton Crew

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Overview

Skeleton Crew is a micro RPG for the Game Boy by staticlinkage, developed for GB Compo 2023 with music by Nikku4211.

It implements only the bare essentials of an RPG: exploring a dungeon, fighting monsters, and levelling up. Your objective is simply to reach the boss at the end of the dungeon and defeat him.

The dungeon is not very long, but your progress can be saved by resting at the fountains spread throughout, which also act as your heal points. Go fight them monsters so you can build up the strength to defeat the boss!

Made by: staticlinkage
Released: 2023

Controls guide

Menus

Button and key	Action
Up/Down	Move the cursor
A`X`	Choose; advance the story text and battle results
B`Z`	Leave the credits

Exploring

Button and key	Action
D-pad`Arrows`	Walk one tile at a time
A`X`	Use the fountain you are facing (heals the party and saves)

Battle

Button and key	Action
Up/Down	Pick Fight, Skill or Run, a skill, or an enemy to target
A`X`	Confirm
B`Z`	Back out of the skill list or targeting

Cheatsheet

Enemies

Slime: 8 HP, weak to wind, 4 XP
Zombie: 15 HP, weak to fire, 4 XP
Spider: 25 HP, weak to fire, 7 XP
Skull: 32 HP, weak to water, high special defence, 10 XP
Ghost: 30 HP, weak to wind, defence 99 (only takes 1 from Fight), 18 XP
Harpy: 50 HP, weak to water, 24 XP
Demon: The boss: 150 HP, attack 20, no weakness

Skills learned

Zymie: Gust (level 5), Cyclone (level 7)
Ivan: Rain (level 3), Drench (level 9), Soften (level 11)
Olaf: Fireball (level 2), Weaken (level 4), Fireblast (level 8)
Pierre: Slam (level 6), Megapunch (level 10)
Power: Gust, Rain, Fireball, Slam 5; Cyclone, Drench, Fireblast, Megapunch 10; Fight 1
Weaken / Soften: Lower one enemy's attack or defence by 3

Rules

Damage: Power + attack (or special attack for elements), minus the target's defence; at least 1
Weakness: Elemental hits on a weakness do 1.5 times damage
Level up: Needs 10 XP times the current level
Enemy mix: Slimes and zombies until Zymie reaches level 3, spiders and skulls from 3, ghosts and harpies from 6
Encounters: None for the first 4 steps after a battle, then ever more likely, certain within about 18 steps

Tips

Every party member gets the full XP from a battle, even one who has fallen, and a level-up refills that member's HP, so levelling also revives knocked-out allies.
Run always works, and you still keep the XP from any enemies you defeated before escaping, so finish off the weak ones and then flee from a bad fight.
Ghosts have 99 defence, so Fight does only 1 damage to them; use Zymie's wind skills, which hit them for extra damage.
HP does not refill between battles. Walk back to a fountain to heal and save before pushing deeper or stepping onto the boss's tile.
Enemies only ever use a plain attack based on their attack stat, so Olaf's Weaken on the strongest enemy, or on the Demon, cuts the damage your whole party takes.