The Hat Chooses the Wizard

Loading sources… all files

Overview

The Hat Chooses the Wizard is a 2D platformer in which you play as a wizard searching for his missing staff. The path to the staff is filled with dangerous obstacles and monsters, and the wizard's real asset is his hat: it can be thrown and recalled to reach platforms that would otherwise be out of reach.

It was made by LostImmortal and setsquare, the brothers Corwin and Gwilym Kuiper, as an entry for the GMTK Game Jam 2021, whose theme was "Joined Together". The entire game except for the music was produced in 48 hours, written in Rust with the agb library and built to run on an original Game Boy Advance.

The music is Sylvan Waltz by Otto Halmén. As the game's tagline puts it, sometimes it is only the hat that's magical.

Made by: Corwin Kuiper and Gwilym Kuiper
Released: 2021

Controls guide

Playing

Button and key	Action
Left/Right	Walk; you steer a little in the air too
B`Z`	Jump (only from the ground)
A`X`	Throw the hat the way you are facing. While it is out, press again to fly to it, and once more mid-flight to stop and drop
Up/Down+A`X`	Throw the hat up or down; hold Left or Right as well to throw it diagonally

Title and ending screens

Button and key	Action
A`X`/B`Z`/Start`Enter`/Select`Shift`	Continue

Cheatsheet

The hat

Flights per jump: Two; the third press does nothing until you land
Hat sprite: Changes after each flight, showing how many you have used
Hat return: It hangs in the air for a moment, then drifts back to your head
Flying into an enemy: Kills it
Touching an enemy any other way: Kills you

Monsters

Slime: Hops toward you once you are within about eight tiles
Snail: Wakes when you come within six tiles, crawls after you for about four seconds, then hides in its shell; the thrown hat bounces off it

Levels

World 1: Levels 1-1 to 1-8
World 2: Levels 2-1 to 2-4
Dying: Restarts the current level, with no lives to lose

Tips

Flying to the hat is your main way of killing things: a slime or snail you touch while flying toward the hat dies, while one you walk or fall into kills you. Throw the hat past an enemy, then fly through it.
You get two flights each time you leave the ground, and landing resets them. On long gaps, throw, fly, then throw again from mid-air and fly a second time before you start falling.
Pressing A again while you are flying stops the flight and lets you drop. Use it to land on a ledge short of the hat instead of overshooting into a hazard.
The thrown hat bounces off a snail's shell, so aim around snails rather than through them when you want the hat to travel far.
Snails only chase you for about four seconds before tucking back into their shells, and they stay put for at least two seconds afterwards. Wait for them to retreat before you walk past.