Opossum Country

About Opossum Country

Opossum Country is a free horror adventure built as a real Game Boy game. Ben Jelter did the art and game design, Dana Jennings Jelter and Ben Jelter wrote the story and dialogue, and Lunchz made the music. It was made in GB Studio for the Scream FM Jam and released in December 2020.

It opens with a car on a dark road. You are on a delivery to a trailer park out in the country, and when you knock to ask whether anyone ordered food, the answers are not friendly. The people you meet are drawn in large close-up portraits, faces with too many teeth and eyes that do not look right, and the park itself is a maze of trailers, junk and dark woods.

You walk around, talk to the residents and look for a way to finish the job, and the more you learn the stranger the place becomes. The tight Game Boy palette and the jam-sized story keep it focused: it is about half an hour of mounting unease rather than a long game.

It can be played on this page with a keyboard or gamepad, and the .gbc ROM is a free download for emulators or a flash cart. It suits players who like retro pixel art, small-town dread and short, complete stories.

How to play Opossum Country

1. Press Enter at the title screen to start.
2. Walk with the arrow keys or WASD.
3. Press Z to talk to people and examine things, and X to go back.
4. Explore the trailer park, talk to everyone and follow the story to its end.

Tips

• Talk to every resident more than once; they often say more.
• Look at the edges of each area for paths into the woods.
• Play with sound on for the chiptune music by Lunchz.
• A gamepad works in the browser if you prefer it to the keyboard.

Questions