Midnight Cartridge

About Midnight Cartridge

Midnight Cartridge is a jam game by Kultisti (code and art) and solu (audio and design), made in 48 hours for the 2021 Global Game Jam and Finnish Game Jam. It runs in the browser on itch.io, where 50 players have rated it 4.4 out of 5, and as a free Windows download.

The set-up is one line: you found an old cartridge in the forest and decided to plug it in. What loads is a tiny world drawn in two colours, dark teal and purple on black, with a small hooded figure in the middle and only a few tiles visible around it. It is so dark you cannot see, so you have to listen.

The monsters are out there in the black, and the sound design is how you know where. You move through the dark gathering lights while the screen glitches and something closes in; get caught and the run is over. Players describe it as genuinely hard, and one calls it the Dark Souls of jam games, but most single out the creepy music and sound and the cramped field of view.

It suits players who like short, sound-driven horror and minimal pixel art, and anyone willing to play it with headphones in a dark room.

How to play Midnight Cartridge

1. Open the game's itch.io page and press Run Cartridge to play in the browser, or download it for Windows.
2. Put on headphones: you find the monsters by sound.
3. Move your figure through the dark and gather the lights.
4. When you hear something close, change course and keep away from it.
5. If you are caught, learn where it came from and try again.

Tips

• Turn the volume up and the room lights down; the sound tells you more than the screen.
• Move in short steps and stop to listen before crossing open dark.

Questions