About

Treefella is a Pico-8 game inspired by the mechanics of the NES side-scrolling brawler, Kung Fu. The game's development was documented in a series of YouTube videos, which can be viewed in this playlist, or you can just check out the summary video below!

Controls

Left and Right arrow keys - Walk left or right

Down arrow key - Crouch

Up arrow key - Toggle overdrive mode

Z or C - Punch, or throw a wide fireball when in overdrive mode

X or V - Kick, or throw a split fireball when in overdrive mode

How to Play

As you walk through a level, enemies will appear on screen and try to make contact with you. In order to protect yourself, attack the enemies before they get too close.

If the enemies touch you, you will gradually lose health until you die. Dying will force you to start the level over again.

If the enemies are touching you, button mash to break out of their hug of death!

Before clearing a level, you will also encounter a boss. Bosses have a health bar, and can take multiple hits. Reducing the boss' health bar to zero will allow you to proceed to the next level.

Clear all three levels, and you'll reach the end of the game!

Normal attacks

Use the attack buttons to punch or kick. You can also punch or kick when crouching. Some enemies can only be hit when crouching, others can only be hit when standing normally.

Overdrive

The closer an enemy is when you hit them, the more your overdrive meter will charge. If you see a plus sign (`+`) when you hit an enemy, your meter charged a little. If you see a star sign (`★`) when you hit an enemy, your meter charged a lot.

You can enable overdrive mode by tapping the Up arrow key, and disable it by tapping the Up arrow key again.

While in overdrive mode, your attacks will be fireballs instead of punches and kicks. Fireballs extend to the full length of the screen. There are two types of fireball:

Wide Fireballs - Throw these with the Punch button (`Z`). These fireballs travel in one direction, and can hit both high and low enemies. 

Split Fireballs - Throw these with the Kick button (`X`). These fireballs will travel in both directions, but will only hit high or low enemies. They can be thrown when standing to hit high enemies, or when crouching to hit low enemies.

While in overdrive mode, your overdrive meter will gradually decrease until it reaches zero. When it reaches zero, you will automatically be forced back to normal mode.

Scoring

Your final score is in Leaf Points. You will earn one Leaf Point for every enemy that you hit while in overdrive mode. If your final hit of the boss is done with overdrive mode, you will receive five leaf points.

Try to save your overdrive meter for waves of enemies that are tricky to hit with regular attacks!