A short, side-scrolling platform adventure game in which you control a squid-like ghostly figure as he fights to save a town from the worst threat they've ever seen: sea worms.
Experience a dream-like underwater adventure thanks to the technological innovation of the versatile SKWID Engine (patent pending). We've interviewed real squids and enlisted trained, sea-dwelling actors in order to provide a fun yet accurate floating sensation - the primary mechanic utilized by our betentacled protagonist.
Along your journey you'll do battle with enraged snails, sharks and worms, encounter talking signs and CDs, and befriend humans and trees that can breathe underwater and carry out their lives just the same as you and I.
Developed in summer of 2018 and remastered in February 2019 (and again in December 2020) for your gaming pleasure.
Download
Play it in your browser!
Or download it for Windows here!
There's also a PlayStation Vita Version! (requires custom firmware)
Post Script
Super SquidGhostMan is a special game for me. It was the first title I made from the ground up using
all original assets - from graphics, to code, level design and music. I'm really proud of it.
The tunes were recorded with Logic Pro 9. Sounds were recorded a capella with Audacity. I will say there are one or two
stock Game Maker sound effects present. All graphics and animation were done directly in the Game Maker editing software.
Super SquidGhostMan had a lovely development cycle of just over a month. The idea for an underwater-based game came about
in an amusing way. It began one day in July of 2018, when a friend and I were reminiscing about a game we made in the past
(the game? Super Tree Cop 2)
On a whim we decided to open Game Maker once more and see if we could make a sequel, that day. We made the character sprite
a birch tree. I coded most of the basic platforming mechanics before even compiling and running the thing.
Here's where it gets funny - on the first test play, something wasn't right. 'Birch' would run and jump, but there
wasn't a check for him being on the ground, so you could jump (while in the air) as many times as you wanted. Almost like you were propelling upward...
Like a squid...
And that's how the idea came about. We quickly remodeled the game into an undersea adventure where the character (now SquidMan)
could float and therefore navigate almost anywhere. From that, the ideas just kept coming. It was loads of fun.
I've always seen myself as a jack-of-all-trades. I'm not the best artist, designer, musician, or programmer that existed.
Indeed, as you can see from this piece and much of my others, polish is not a priority. To extend the metaphor, I
would say that I instead coarsely sand down all of my works. It's partly because I'm lazy, partly because I lose interest quickly,
but also because I feel it gives the games a quirky and offbeat charm.
Put simply, I make games that I myself would like to play.
I hope you enjoy playing this game as much as I did making it.
Jay Harris
April 2021