
POACHER
by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw


Derek Badger, stout Yorkshireman, is out poaching rabbits on the estate of the local lord when he is unexpectedly plunged into a mysterious underworld. Embroiled in a millennias-long quarrel between the peaceful Spirit Kingdom and the malevolent Dark Ones, can Derek prevent the destruction of both the above- and below-ground worlds? And what is the nature of the terrible presence that lurks beneath the Abyss?

POACHER is a 2D action platformer with an open-world style inspired by such games as Metroid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Cave Story. Unlock powerful new attacks and movement skills! Battle exotic creatures from the highest treetops of Webweave Forest all the way down to the darkest depths of the Lidenbrock Sea! Eat a whole bunch of pudding! It's all here in Poacher. So stop reading and play it or something.



CONTROLS

KEYBOARD

Cursor left 	- move left
Cursor right 	- move right
Cursor up 	- aim up
Cursor down 	- aim down
Space		- jump / swim up
Z 		- fire / confirm (in menus)
X		- grenade (once acquired) / cancel (in menus)
M		- view map (once acquired)
Escape		- pause / quit
F4		- cycle window settings

360 CONTROLLER / JOYSTICK

Poacher features support for a joystick or an Xbox 360 controller. This aspect is a bit experimental and may be problematic. I've had an issue using a joystick or controller that the game suffers a heavy framerate hit when it first starts, but goes back to normal as one continues. I thought I'd mention it. There also tend to be frame rate issues if you reload a saved game in which you were using a controller without the controller plugged in.

If you use a joystick or gamepad, ensure it is plugged in before running the game. If you plug in a controller while playing you will need to restart the game before it will register.

Left analog stick / joystick - move left/right and aim up/down
A / Button 1		     - jump / confirm
B / Button 2		     - fire / cancel 
X / Button 3		     - grenade (once acquired) / cancel
Y / Button 4		     - view map (once acquired)
Back / Button 7		     - cycle window settings
Start / Button 8	     - pause / quit

You can press Page Up and Page Down on the keyboard to adjust joystick sensitivity.





CONTACT

If you find a bug or just want to tell me what you think, contact me at yahtzee@fullyramblomatic.com, or via my twitter account, @YahtzeeCroshaw.




CREDITS

Created with Game Maker

Art, programming, design, writing and all the various bollocks not credited below by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw
(www.fullyramblomatic.com)

Music composed by Simon Loveridge and produced by Mark Lovegrove
(www.screen7.co.uk)

Original sound samples from Freesound.org

Poacher uses the Caster Ogg extension by MoaCube and Marius Utheim


