Crater Song

The Definitive Edition of Crater Song is now available! This expanded version comes with a longer, more robust campaign, a separate challenge mode with entirely new puzzles, and additional goodies worthy of a full physical NES release.

Overview

Guide two twins, born of song, on a mythic journey to lift a curse that makes them the target of eldritch horrors from beyond the stars in this innovative two-character, single-player game.

Crater Song is a short, single-player co-op adventure puzzle game for the 8-bit NES based within the sci-fi fantasy world of Orebody.

In this unique NES game, players hold controllers 1 AND 2 sideways, like Switch Joycons (see below), and control two characters simultaneously, the twins Arco and Menuett. Crater Song is inspired by the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

The game was initially developed for the NESMaker Byte-Off IV competition. The competition version is still available to play at The Retroverse.

Story

On the planet Orebody, the nomadic Melodic tribe communicates only in song.

Every few generations, a baby is born to the tribe with cursed harmonics, a poisoned frequency that calls out to the mysterious extradimensional threat known as the Nox. This generation, the twins Arco and Menuett were born with the curse.

Having attracted the Nox throng to their tribe’s doorstep, the twins are cast out.

Even as they are hunted by eldritch horrors from beyond the stars, Arco and Menuett must journey to a faraway sacred crater with an ancient, pulsing meteorite at its center. It is said that the space rock’s pulses will lift their harmonic curse and allow the twins to once again rejoin their people in song.

Features

• Innovative Single-Player Co-op – work together, with yourself!
• Want traditional co-op gameplay? Just hand one controller to a friend.
• Engaging singing mechanics to solve puzzles that build in complexity and challenge over time.
• A mixture of obstacle and puzzle-adventure sections!
• Story Campaign and Challenge Campaign, along with other bonus content.
• A moving and moody sci-fi fairy tale narrative!
• Playable on actual NES hardware or any NES emulator!

Controls

ORIGINAL HARDWARE USING NES CONTROLLERS

Note:  The ideal way to play Crater Song is on ORIGINAL HARDWARE or CLONE HARDWARE using two NES controllers held sideways, like Wiimotes.  

When playing alone, the player should hold an NES controller in each hand, sideways, having access to the D-Pad on each controller and the Select button with their thumbs. This is the intended design and control method.

EMULATION USING A KEYBOARD

If playing via emulation, YOU SHOULD REMAP THE CONTROLS TO WORK WITH WASD AND THE ARROW KEYS FOR CHARACTER 1 AND 2.

Remap recommendations on PC using keyboard and emulator:

W = Left D-Pad

A = Down D-Pad

S = Right D-Pad

D = Up D-Pad

You can map SELECT and START to buttons of your choice that are convenient to reach for each hand.

Music and SFX

Music and SFX by Jordan Davis.

Check out more of Jordan's work here: https://www.raftlabsinteractive.com/

The Narrative World of Orebody

Crater Song is part of the larger Orebody transmedia narrative universe. On the planet of Orebody, life is a struggle, alien factions quarrel, and power comes from deep in the ground.

Check out the other Orebody games.

Follow Us:

Follow the Orebody Universe on:

Twitter / X: @OrebodyUniverse

Instagram: @orebody_inc

Blue Sky: @orebodyinc.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OrebodyInc

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@orebody_inc

FOR THE BEST EXPERIENCE: 

I recommend getting two original NES controllers and two USB adapters. You can find one here or here. You can also use two NES-style USB controllers. Larger game controllers will not work well for the two-controller / two-character setup.

For really enterprising types, this game is fully playable on an actual NES. You can use either an Everdrive, a PowerPak, or flash a shell/board as long as each has mapper 30 support.

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Crater Song was made possible thanks to NESMaker, a tool developed to make NES development more accessible.

In order to play Crater Song, you'll need an NES emulator. I recommend MESEN.

Once you have MESEN downloaded, start it up and open the .nes ROM that you downloaded from this game's Itch page. The game should work fine.

FOR MAC USERS: Download OpenEMU for Mac. When you open the program, right click on the Nintendo (NES) category on the left hand sidebar and select "Default Core." Then select FCEUX.

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More from this developer: https://johnvanderhoef.itch.io