Along Came a Spider
A downloadable game
Nominated for Outstanding Visual Achievement in a Pulp Game, Outstanding Technical Achievement in a Pulp Game, and Pulp Game of the Year in the inaugural Playdate Community Awards 2022.
A pocket sized, cranking, top down adventure. Tasked with retrieving an heirloom for The Monarch of The Hollow, a cunning spider by the name of Eric Nid leaves the nest and steps out into Spindleton to fulfil his quest - but the town is full of danger. Luckily, Eric isn't alone. A plucky band of memorable spider siblings can be found to aid him on his way.
Search high and low to find a path to the heirloom and crank with precision to overcome the obstacles standing in your way. There are five different ways Eric's story can wrap up, can you get back to the nest in one piece?
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Designed for Playdate and made using Pulp, this game takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. The game does not autosave - if you head 'home' on your Playdate progress will be lost, though you can lock and unlock during play and the game does store any ending you find.
We'd love to hear your feedback. All comments and questions are welcome. And if you'd like to rate the game the button is on the top right of this page - we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
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To find out how to sideload a game onto Playdate, head here.
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You can also hear George Banks talk about the project on the excellent Hello Playdate Podcast right here.
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Our second title The Crank Gym is a daily high score chaser with some light fetch questing packed in. Designed for family play, the game has three save slots - with the gym's high score displayed across all files. Challenge others to beat your score and work to become a three star gym member. You can download the game here.
We also keep track of the highest scores submitted for each gym activity on our Twitter Page here. Follow us for more game announcements!
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You can hear the soundtrack for Along Came a Spider and many other games in our collection of Playdate Pulp music NOW That's What I Call Pulp! - a collection of over 60 songs. Download for free here.
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We've just released a sequel to our debut game! Along Came a Spider - Valley of the Hollow. A massively expanded game from the first sees Eric traversing a dangerous new world, gaining powerups, uncovering its secrets and wielding the crank in fun and exciting ways as he battles toward 1 of 4 endings to his tale. You can find it here.
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Or if you fancy four new titles all in one go, grab our entire collection of games as part of The fatnose games Bundle!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $2 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
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Brought it from the catalog... Trash, the games controls are so badly designed, the timing requires nanosecond reaction time making it unaccessible to those with naturally bad reaction times due to the crank useage... This thing needs A. a nerf in enemy speed especially the laser room B. an option to use the d pad.
This is easily the worst game I played this year and I played that Rugrats shovelware garbage that EGS offered for free earlier this year.
Hopefully the sequel fixed those issues because this game is bad.
I was killed by a big spider,killed by a human leg,ended the game with a normal and secret ending,but were is a 5-ending?((((Pleeese,help!!!
that was a nice mixture of cute and well written dialogs!
The game is great, but you ruined it with the unnecessary difficulties to pass the electricity puzzle or killing the monster by faster cranking.
it is extremely hard and the crank was poorly calibrated. I was about to break the crank to pass it.
I just gave up and left it after getting three out of 5 ends.
A good game with not so good implementation.
Play it and finish it, but you may break your crank handle.
Rating: 6/10
Good luck with your future games.
I will definitely support you.
Thanks for the feedback, always appreciate hearing from player's experiences and am grateful you've taken the time to buy and play our game. It's incredibly hard when developing games to balance these things - I've had other players say it doesn't offer enough challenge! And of course when you develop a game with no testing team gauging something like a final boss fight can be tough. Tricky but not impossible is the aim.
If I may offer some tips:
The electricity puzzle has an audio cue to help alert the player to when the gaps will be. Make sure to play it with the sound on if the timing is proving tricky and getting past requires only two full, swift turns of the crank. Patience and not overturning are key to this one.
Regarding the final boss - it is tough to get the last few pushes done. I've observed people playing and find that when players go full tilt right from the off they tend to burn out and this ends in failure. The trick to it is finding the curve built into the fight. The first few pushes really don't require much speed, so find a comfortable pace for the first few pushes and don't worry about taking a hit or two - use them as your cue to speed up. It's only the last push or two when you should be going full tilt and by that point you'll have gained enough momentum and have enough energy left in your arm.
Please don't give up, you can do it!! There's a little unlock for people that find all five endings. I'd love to hear if you come back to it and manage it.
After reading your reply and encouragement, I went to try and play again.
I completed the game after following your instructions, and the end was amazing, but what more amazing is you and your way to support your customer.
I apologize that I was kinda rude, but I wrote my comment when I was extremely disappointed after many times of replaying the game.
Thank you, and I will recommend your game and purchase any future games.
Regards,
Yes! I'm so glad you finished it, well done! Hope you found the unlock too? Working on the sequel at the moment so I hope you'll look forward to that.
No problem at all, we've all been at that place where we just want to throw a controller across the room - I understand the need to vent.
I see you're a great supporter of the playdate community, very cool. If you wouldn't mind taking the time - rating the games you enjoy really helps us out and following the creators too.
Thanks for reaching out, I look forward to hearing from you again!
I purchased this through catalogs as soon as I got my play date. This has been my favorite game so far. Completely captivating; I loved it as well as its spooky soundtrack! Can’t wait for the next installment!
Hi, sorry for the slow reply! Thanks so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Did you find all the endings? Happy to give a few hints if you'd like.
We are working hard on the next one and hope to release it soon. Thanks for the follow too.
Excellent game. Any hints on finding the endings? I found the house one and what I assume is the main ending
Hello, thanks so much for playing our game and glad you enjoyed it! By main ending I guess you did a boss fight? I’ll try and be subtle with the hints for the others but if you need another nudge just let me know.
1 - When you first return to the nest T. Aran Tula says something to you.
2 - There’s a hidden area in the overworld. Look very carefully for some subtle movement.
3 - The key that you find has more than one use.
Good luck!
P.S. if you wouldn’t mind taking a minute to rate the game it really helps out! Thanks again 😊
Thanks. I've found the remaining endings and given you 5 stars. So far this is the most advanced Pulp game I've seen :)
Thanks so much! We are currently working on a very big and quite different sequel-follow us here and on Twitter for updates. So glad you enjoyed it and enjoy your 5 ending unlock 😊
I *really* enjoyed this. I've only had time for one playthrough so far, so only 1 possible ending found, but I am determined that I will make time to find them all!
This game manages to pack a lot in, including clever use of the crank and some great cutscenes. The fact that its all done in pulp is super impressive.
Hey, thank you so much! I'm really glad you want to discover all the endings. There is a little reward for doing it too! Let me know if you need any hints and what your favourite ending is.
Loved this game which has a clever use of the crank without requiring it throughout. The world is surprisingly detailed with tons of little secrets to find. Amazing that this was built with the Pulp game maker. Definitely recommended!
Thank you Ben, so glad you enjoyed it!
If you'd like to hear more about the game please check out the Hello Playdate Podcast! The podcast is fantastic with loads of information on Playdate Indies and they invited me on for episode 17 - which you can find here: https://sites.libsyn.com/412607/episode-17
FUN! -- LOVED IT! -- A great little story with lots of humor and heart throughout / fantastic details to keep your eyes happy. I hope you make more!
Ah Ron, that means a lot coming from you, thank you! Maybe one day we can have an Eyeland x ACAS crossover!
s p E Y E d e r
This is excellent. And I am ashamed I didn't think of it myself!
This game is a charming top down adventure game with great use of the crank mechanic. I love the fact there are multiple endings, bumps up the replayablity considerably. If you own a Playdate, this game is definitely worth a go.
Thanks Matt! Glad you enjoyed it.
Awful controls and the game expects you to be very precise, while controls are unreliable. Very frustrating, I gave up.
Hi there, thanks for giving the game a go and sorry to see you thought it was only worth one star. Please allow me to offer a few tips if you're finding the controls difficult:
The crank moves the player one tile up or down depending on which way you rotate it. One full rotation always moves the player one space.
The crank also resets its position whenever you enter a room - it essentially becomes the rotation starting point. So you could face your crank straight down before entering and you would know that's where you're aiming to get it back round to if you need to move quickly one or two spaces.
The game is designed in a way that prevents you from blasting through the rooms without taking time to observe the enemy patterns and these rooms then scale in difficulty in terms of precision and speed required. I hope you'll give it another look and that the above helps you. If not you can still find two ending to the game that require no enemy interaction at all.
might want to tag your game with the "Playdate" tag. https://itch.io/games/newest/tag-playdate
Oh, thanks for the heads up! I will do that. New to Itch!
Edit: Game was tagged but took a while for it to come in as my first game on the site. Thanks again.