Factsheet

Developer:
Lowtek Games
Based in Dundee, Scotland

Release date:
30/10/2020

Platforms:
PC / NES / Dreamcast
Steam
itch
Evercade
Merch Redbubble

Website:
http://www.lowtek.games

Regular Price:

Digital GBP£9.99
Physical GBP £50.00
SE Physical GBP £100.00

Description

Flea! was designed to run on an NES and is a challenging 2D platformer with an intriguing back story. Play as Henry the Hyperactive Flea who just can’t stop jumping! Navigate the beasts and collect blood to get the heart of the problems. Master over 80 levels Meet weird characters Discover secrets

History

Flea for NES was submitted to the 2019 Byte off contest ran by NESmaker,but the project has been around for a while. The initial idea was around 2011 where I was looking at popular infinite runner mobile games such as jetpack joyride which automated player movement allowing the player to focus on the jumping. I took this and flipped it so that the player automatically jumps and the movement is up to the player.
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Why the nes? A few reasons. I grew up playing the nes and always wanted to make a game for it. Then NESmaker came along, it's a wiziwig-esk nes development software. I had the Flea idea many years before but thought its simple mechanics would be achievable on the NES. There is also a growing community for new retro “homebrew games”, and there have been a few very successful crowdfunding campaigns for these projects. This niche group helped the project stand out among the many other modern games on Kickstarter.
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Why Dreamcast? This one might puzzle a few but like the NES community there is also a large Dreamcast homebrew community with new games being released all the time. Unlike the NES, the Dreamcast had an exploit that allowed people to play burned games making it much cheaper and easier to produce essentially a CD over a custom cartridge. Lowtek Games commissioned a local programmer “Ross Killgarif” to modify an open source nes emulator for the dreamcast to auto boot the nes game, it also has a custom vmu image. The process of creating a dreamcast playable nes game has been open sourced by Lowtek Games for everyone to enjoy. The dreamcast version will be released at a later date.
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Byte Off encouraged me to make a good amount of leves and I thought the project could do well, so i went to Kickstarter. The kickstarter launched on February 29th 2020 (I based my deadline on a pun based around leap day/year) and was funded in 3 days.
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Flea will also feature on an Evercade cartridge called “Indie Heroes Collection1” along sime some other awesome homebrews.
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A spinoff sequel is already in the making starring the fan favorite, Tapeworm. This will be a grid based rhythm puzzler.

Features

  • Runs on Physical NES and Dreamcast
  • Always jumping mechanic
  • Over 80 levels to master (Perfect for speedruns)
  • Awesome original soundtrack by Tuï
  • Discover secrets meet weird characters with loads of puns

Videos

Trailer YouTube, Vimeo


Images

SquareCoverArt.png
FleaDC_ManualandDisc.png
screenshot3.png
FleaDC_PK.png
FleaDCUnfoldedFrontandBack.png
FleaPoster6Final2.png
character_flea_mosquito.png
FleaDC_ManualandDisc2.png
character_flea_itchhiker.png
character_flea_henry.png
screenshot6.png
FleaFrontCover.png
screenshot2.png
comic.png
screenshot1.png
character_flea_humflea.png
ally kickstarter2.png
character_flea_fleadomfighters.png
character_flea_flex.png
character_flea_nescart.png
character_flea_tapeworm.png
FleaNES2.png
FleaNES1.png
character_flea_needlethreadworm.png
screenshot5.png
character_flea_taiflea.png
screenshot4.png
character_flea_fleada.png

logo

Awards & Recognition

  • "NA" NA


Selected Articles

  • ""Flea has proven to be our most played game on the Indie Heroes cart. It's absolutely fantastic.""
    - Retro Gamer Magazine, https://www.retrogamer.net/
  • ""Flea, one of my favorite indie gamer there""
    - Metal Jesus Rocks, https://youtu.be/qHYns2z2rH0
  • "Retro Platformer Flea Smashes Funding Goal"
    - scottishgames.net, scottishgames.net
  • "“I'm itching with excitement, fleas are underrepresented in games, you should buy it now and help me scratch that itch.” "
    - Ally Low, lowtek.games
  • "“Never played anything like Flea. You've heard of "endless runners"? Flea is an endless jumper. The character is always hopping, and you have to navigate levels while always jumping up and down. It's novel and kinda neat. “ “Yea, it's totally unique and interesting. It feels like it's made in the same vein of Super Meat Boy. Hell, you can imagine that flea actually LIVES on Super Meat Boy. Hey @SuperMeatBoy this should be made canon. Now, how much can they stretch out of this concept?” “It's NES's Meat Boy/N+” "
    - Indie Gamer Chick, https://twitter.com/IndieGamerChick

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About Lowtek Games

Boilerplate
Currently a two man studio that outsources stuff when needed. The studio is focused on making fun, challenging, puzzling games that are dyslexia friendly.

More information
More information on Lowtek Games, our logo & relevant media are available here.



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