Towards the end of last year, I reviewed DERE Vengeance for sibling site Pocket Gamer, a genuinely fantastic platformer from AppSir Games. I loved it, as did my colleagues over at Pocket Gamer, and the worldwide community thanks to a Best Filipino Game win at VirtualSEA. Now, we have the exciting news that we can soon enjoy AppSirs’ next offering; Spooky Pixel Hero.

In this new story, you will take the role of a person I am sure we have all dreamed of being at one point or another; a game developer. You have been contracted by a secret organization to repair a lost platformer from 1976, a pretty meta pitch. The problem is, that this mysterious project seems way too advanced for its time, and there are nefarious secrets abound.

Spooky Pixel Hero follows the trend of AppSirs previous title, complete with retro pixel-style graphics and a horror-based theme, hence the name. One key difference you will notice is that this is the first portrait-style game from the developer. Another change is the length of the levels. 

There are 120 levels to play through, each stuffed full of traps, puzzles, and a variety of things that would love to squash you. The further you go the scarier it gets, but luckily, you will be able to enjoy the narrative in whatever window you get. Each stage can be completed in a handful of minutes, making it perfect for anyone no matter how busy they are.

From top to bottom, Spooky Pixel Hero is an audiovisual homage to the 70s and 80s era of gaming, thanks to the pixelated graphics and the lo-fi soundtrack. If you are a fan of the DERE series, this title takes place decades before, so the lore-hungry out there will need to give it a try, to discover where the horror began.

Spooky Pixel Hero is available to pre-order now from the App Store and Google Play.