The Mega Cat Chronicles

A blog series by @Scrobins

Episode 3: Tenebra 1 & 2

Introduction:

While many of the homebrew we talk about most often are those games which push on the boundaries of the hardware or offer an homage to the classic games of the console they are programmed for, we don’t often see the deeper nostalgia of more retro projects brought to those consoles. Few and far between are the homebrew games that remind me of what my elementary school had to offer during computer time in the early and mid-90s, like Carmen Sandiego, Math Blaster, and Number Munchers. Even when we have more resources at our disposal, a less-is-more approach affords more room for our imaginations to fill in the gaps and make playtime that much more engaging.

For this entry, I’m covering Tenebra 1 & 2, the atmospheric, minimalistic puzzle games developed for the NES (among other consoles) by Haplo. As of the time of this writing, Tenebra is available for purchase here and Tenebra 2 is available here through Mega Cat Studios, in its collaboration with Video Game Sage! And for you digitally-minded players, you can download the roms here.

The special VGS-designed CIB

 

Development Team:

@Haplo (Ali Pouladi): programming

 

Game Evolution:

Tenebra first emerged from the dark with the publication of the game on itch.io on December 11, 2021. This iteration allowed the game to be downloaded for play on several consoles, including the Commodore 64 & Plus4, Amiga, Atari ST, Jaguar, NES, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, BBC Mico, and Tesla Ondra.

Haplo shared the first 8 levels of the NES game on YouTube on February 10, 2023, with a thread on VGS heralding the game that same day. A little more than a year later, Tenebra 2 for the NES was published on itch.io on March 8, 2024.

 

Gameplay:

The Tenebra games describe themselves as puzzle games. You play as a little protagonist who is afraid of the dark as he tries to escape varies levels (31 in the first game, and 35 in the sequel), while avoiding unilluminated areas. Move torches, push lights along rails, find keys to locked doors, fix damaged sections, and more to navigate the increasingly complicated rooms as you work your way toward the light. Move around using the D-pad, press the A-button to take actions such as picking up and putting down torches, and hit the Start button to reset the room.

Screenshot from Tenebra

 

Review:

Tenebra is a well-crafted pair of games that reminds me how earlier generations of games could accomplish so much with very little. The levels are nicely crafted puzzles that make excellent use of a simple premise. Instead of a lack of color being a limiting factor, it gives the game its defining vibe, with additional negative space being the very thing you are fighting against. The flavor added by the items and obstacles sprinkled throughout are touches that create momentum and make it more difficult to put the controller down, even with the safety of level codes. Each stage is a quick, but tricky enough puzzle to keep you hooked and curious for what awaits in the next room.

Graphically I would describe the game as atmospheric minimalism. Simple icons vaguely resemble their real-life counterparts, much like the icons of old computers, and beepy sound effects harken back to the PC and video games of the 80s and 90s that I played so much as a kid. Playing this game, I underestimated how relaxing it would be to play a game that reminded me of something I would have played so long that my parents would impose new rules about how much I could play video games. And then I would find ways around them.

 

Interviews:

To shed further light on Tenebra’s development, I interviewed Ali to pull the game further out of the dark. Read on to learn more…

 

Ali Pouladi

@haploretrogames

-Before we dive into Tenebra, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer? What is the origin story of Haplo?

I’ve been playing video games since I was very young, starting with Atari 2600. I am still an avid gamer. I’m an engineer and I have always been interested in assembly programming, so I guess game development on retro machines was just a natural choice. What started as a small experiment became something much bigger than that.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

Most of my influences come from the old C64 and DOS games, which are two platforms that made a big impression on me back in the day. These days I follow many developers on various platforms, great games and ideas are regularly released and I’m rather proud of also being able to contribute to the retro gaming community.

 

-How would you describe your design aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

When designing a game and refining a game concept, I always try to introduce an idea or concept, something that hasn’t been done before. As for the aesthetic, I try to come up with something that conveys what the game is trying to achieve. For example, the minimalistic aesthetics of Tenebra (including the pixel graphics, the grayscale palette and the minimal sound effects) was my obvious choice to represent light and darkness and the thick, enclosed atmosphere of a dungeon. I did experiment with adding some colorful elements, but they broke the spell and ruined the atmosphere I was aiming for.

 

-What tools do you use to create?

All my games are coded in assembly. For Tenebra, I used CharPad Pro for the tile set and the maps, C64tass assembler, and Mesen for emulating and debugging the NES version.

 

-In addition to its port for the NES, you’ve brought Tenebra to the Commodore 64/Plus4, Amiga, Atari 8-bit, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, and BBC Micro/Acorn Electron. Which console was the most difficult to port the game too, which was your favorite?

Each platform has its own quirks and challenges, and learning and overcoming them is part of the beauty of working on these classic machines. It is not easy to say which one was the hardest. For example, NES was one of the platforms that took me the longest to get my head around, because its architecture (specially the PPU) was very different from everything else I had worked on before, but it was a rewarding process once I figured it all out. Generally speaking, the Amiga is the most challenging platform to work on in terms of complexity as it is a more advanced 16-bit architecture.

If I had to pick a favorite, I would probably say it was the Commodore 64. It is the machine I grew up with, so it has a special place in my heart.

 

-Tell me about your creative process while working on Tenebra? What was your inspiration for Tenebra? Do you ever struggle with a discomfort with darkness or claustrophobia?

The concept I had in mind for Tenebra was to create a game that played with light and darkness, set it in an oppressive, dark dungeon. The player should only be able to see the faintest flicker of a torch, and the rest is plunged into total darkness. I had some inspiration for Tenebra coming from indie PC games Closure and Lightmatter. In these two games stepping into darkness is fatal, but I opted for a more forgiving and relaxing experience by making the dark areas inaccessible. Portal was also a major source of inspiration for Tenebra 2.

Luckily, I don’t have problems with darkness or claustrophobia, but I just thought they would make for a good game concept.

 

-What to you are the necessary elements of a horror game?

To me the most important element of horror in games is the psychological aspect. While Tenebra is not strictly speaking a horror game, not knowing what lies beyond what you can perceive and building on that atmosphere, so the player is always on their toes, waiting for the next turn and what’s ahead. What builds tension in a horror game is not what the player can see but rather what they cannot see, and they need to imagine. A few pixels here and there can sometimes be more than enough to put the player in the right frame of mind.

 

-Ever since my first episode, artist M-Tee planted this idea in my mind that a game’s protagonist serves as the player’s point of immersion in the game, informing how we understand the game’s world. I also believe that the protagonist’s design serves as a reflection of its designer. What is the intention behind the protagonist’s design? Do you see yourself in him?

As the maker (and a player) of my own game, I didn’t know much about the protagonist of Tenebra when I put together the first few levels. As I built more levels (and later with Tenebra 2) I started empathizing with this poor guy, who is afraid of the dark and has one and only objective: getting out of there. When designing each level, I tried to imagine myself in a dark and unknown place, with only a few small torches and lights to illuminate my path. I thought I would not want to step in the darkness either … who knows what lurks in there?! During the development of Tenebra 2 I started calling him the “Tenebra guy” in an unintentional reference to the “Doom guy”, and very much like that rather more famous guy, our protagonist didn’t need a name either.

Tenebra Guy as drawn by our own @T-Pac

 

-What aspects of Tenebra are you most proud of?

I’m quite proud of how the light/darkness rendering turned out. I have played through both games dozens of times, and I still quite enjoy watching a wall coming into sight as you approach it. I’m also proud of the level design and the progression of the difficulty in the game. I really like some of the levels, especially the last few levels of each game where everything comes together (rather nicely if I may say so).

But what makes me the proudest is knowing so many players out there are enjoying my games and receiving people’s feedback, that it was something fresh and they had a lot of fun playing it.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in your work on Tenebra? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

The biggest challenge was how to render the light and darkness on each platform. Some architectures supported tiles and color attributes per tile, some supported tiles but not per-tile coloring, and on some I had to render directly to the screen in graphics mode. This was not necessarily a surprise but certainly part of the challenge of making a game and porting it across multiple systems.

As for lessons learned and advice, always keep portability in mind! When I wrote Tenebra for the Commodore 64 I didn’t have any plans for porting it to any other 6502 systems so going back to my initial codebase gave me a bit of grief after I decided to create new ports.

 

-Is there another project after Tenebra on the horizon? Another dream project that you hope to bring into existence, video game or otherwise?

I have done a few more games since Tenebra was released on the first system; but for the NES in particular, I would really like to port Ooze: The Escape. It received great reviews on C64 and Amiga and I think it would be a fun (and colorful) game that would be a good addition to the NES homebrew game library.

Screenshot of Ooze: The Escape for the Commodore 64 and Amiga by Haplo

 

-Are there any homebrew games in development that you are excited to play?

I keep an eye on new retro releases daily and always give them a go. It’s very exciting to see so many new games available for old systems and it’s great to see so much talent and ideas. We have a private collection of 40+ retro machines at home, which allows us to play the games on the real hardware, and this makes the experience eve more exciting.

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

I would like to thank everyone who has played or is thinking of playing my games for their support, interest and feedback, and I hope they enjoy playing my games as much as I enjoy making them!

 

Conclusion:

Thanks for tuning in to this latest episode of the series that highlights the latest treats coming to a cart on your shelf, thanks to Video Game Sage’s collaboration with Mega Cat Studios. What are your thoughts on Tenebra and its developer? What homebrews are you eagerly looking forward to? Perhaps you’ll see it here soon in the next tale of…The Mega Cat Chronicles!