A Pig Quest
A downloadable game
A Commodore 64 Game
My name is Frank Further. Further... It’s kind of ironic, come to think of it, as I’ve never left my village. Neither had my dad and his dad before him. It’s the same for everyone in our land since our four statues of wellness were stolen one night moons ago. Everyone seems to be cursed with numbness, immobility and indifference. Adventure, curiosity, audacity and courage are words that have disappeared from our vocabulary.
I was born in Porkville and, as sure as the gods made little green apples, I know I’m going to die in Porkville. Without ever leaving the valley. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s a nice and pleasant lowland with green pastures, fruit trees, wild mushrooms, flowers and a beautiful little pond.
The only thing that disturbs the peace of this little haven are the mosquitoes and the fireflies. I hate these stupid insects and I sometimes chase them. I have to be thankful to them though as it is during one of my mundane bug hunts that I stumbled upon the entrance to a cave... Could this be my quest? A pig quest?
Experience one of the most incredible stories ever told on the Commodore 64: 5 large worlds to explore, hundreds of enemies and 30+ epic SID tunes that appear dynamically in this action packed platformer with puzzle elements intelligently woven in as the story unfolds.
Features:
- Non-linear gameplay
- Beautifully animated bitmap background and enemies
- 200 screens across 5 worlds
- Dynamic environment & weather
- A dazzling 36 situational SID tunes
- Cinematic cutscenes
- Secret areas
- Cartridge only (1MB)
- Fully PAL/NTSC and GS compatible, with support for second fire button
Credits:
A game by Piggy 18 Team
Code: Antonio Savona
Gfx and concept: Mauricet
Music and sfx: Aldo Chiummo and Gaetano Chiummo
Preorder your boxed version at Protovision store
The say about APQ:
ZZap64 Gold Medal award: "A C64 masterclass in pixel art and animation", "A landmark C64 title", "A cast iron, nailed-on GOLD MEDAL", "It plays beautifully".
BastichB 64K: "The graphics are absolutely stunning on so many levels", "Mauricet has truly delivered perfection in C64 form", "The sound is in a league of its own", "A Pig Quest is stunning".
Status | Released |
Rating | Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (45 total ratings) |
Author | Piggy 18 Team |
Genre | Platformer, Action, Adventure |
Tags | 2D, Commodore 64, Cute, Pixel Art, Retro, Singleplayer |
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of 9.99€ EUR. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 1.02Feb 15, 2023
Comments
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I wouldn't mind buying this one but it's priced solely in EUR. I use a prepaid debit card denominated in USD and no non-USD transactions are approved in these prepaid cards. I know this sounds like a you-not-us type of problem but I see other Protovision products with USD payment accepted.
any chance of activating a USD payment option on itch.io for digital download of Pig's Quest?
Hi guys! I just wanna play pigquest on my laptop. Can someone please explain in simple terms what I need except buying and downloading the game?
Thanks
You need vice emulator
It's the best way to enjoy a c64 game
or , if you want a "console" like experience you can use retroarch
I prefer modern Denise emulator.... you can play G-Synced games smoother as it was in the good old days on 50Hz PAL / 60Hz NTSC TVs...
nice name for an Emulator.
A g-sync for a c64 game sounds overkill.
G-Sync = will sync frames to video with GPU rendered frames = 50/60Hz will look butter smooth, as well as 54.70Hz for a MAME game... To achieve the same without G-Sync/Freesync you should have a video mode for EVERY single exact res (50, 49.97, 54.70Hz etc...). It is a tech incredibly useful for old emulator and their strange refresh rates.
I know what it is.
What a great Game! Love to Jump like a Pig around :) But one strange thing I got on my C64MK2 loaded with an Ultimate 1541 IIp (both with actual Firmware). My Joystick is inverted - so I jump by pressing the Joystick down. wired :)
But it didn't stop me to play it on other C64 ;-) whooohoooo !!!!
Very good game, thank you. This game also made it into my latest "Great games to play on Commodore 64 in 2023, my top 10 games" -video. So congratulations! 🙂
Woohoo, finally finished on normal difficulty. Had been holding out for the physical version, but as that's taking so long, I downloaded and played on my UII+ plugged into original hardware. Played through legitimately without cheats or save states. Man was it tough, took a couple of weeks on and off, but it was worth it. Fantastic game beautifully presented. It's oldskool, so you don't get mid-level checkpoints or free saves. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it provides a good challenge and a greater sense of satisfaction when you beat a level. On the other hand, it was hard to figure out exactly what you're supposed to be doing at many points, so you end up going all over the map and flailing around trying to avoid flying enemies in an often fruitless attempt to figure out what on Earth the next task is. Very frustrating, and a lot of deaths felt a bit cheap because of this. You can try to read the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen for hints, but you'll often find your hands too full avoiding airborne pests to pay attention to the scroller. Levels 2-5 may have benefited from being split into two. The fairly easy (once you figure it out) surface section of Level 5, for instance, was absolute tedium to complete every single time just to get to the challenging underground part, which is what I needed to spend time practicing. Split that surface section off into a mini level, I say. It's beautiful, just like the rest of the game, and fun on its own, and it deserves to be in there, but not as a speed bump. Don't make me perform a menial task over and over just so I can get at the main part of the level. The pestilent and incessantly respawing flying enemies in later levels can be utter killjoys. They will converge on your position, and if they manage to reach your little piggy before you can blast them out of the air, they will smother the poor blighter. Once they're on top of you, you can't just blast them--you have to move left or right and then fire a shot back at them. The problem is that this can sometimes be nigh on impossible in confined spaces. Watch on hopelessly as your health is drained quite unfairly in these situations. Upon contact, such enemies should, having taken away some of your health, themselves perish. Controls are responsive, and the platforming is spot on, for the most part. Music and SFX are great. The variety of tracks is wonderful and each is appropriate to the setting. Graphically, the game is an absolute feast, a true labor of love. Just visually stunning all the way through, never boring for a second. This game is a masterpiece.
PROBLEMI COI CONTROLLI
@Antonio Savona
Ti prego risolvi i problemi nei controlli per quanto riguarda le scalette:
- in diagonale-su/giù vicino alla scaletta succedono cose strane (es. il giocatore ricompare sul fondo della scala, o mentre sali si ferma a metà mentre in giù non succede!)
- saltando si sale automaticamente sulla scala e/o ci si aggrappa per salire: ciò può interferire mentre intorno ci sono nemici volanti da abbattere. Sarebbe meglio che il salto non permettesse di salire sulla scaletta (come quando si usa la direzione SU) automaticamente, a meno che non si tenga premuto ANCHE la direzione SU dopo un salto.
Correggi queste 2 cose per quanto riguarda i controlli e sarà un capolavoro senza difetti! 👍🏻
9 months later...
No reply. Total lack of support... (?) :(
I'm really impressed! What a great game! Beautiful graphics, nice music and lovely story – what else could I expect. There are so many wonderful games for old machines these days I haven't spent any money for games which run on current hardware so far, and this is one of these wonderful games. Thank you for the great work! :)
The game has now made it to the world's largest game fair as one of the best of the last 12 months! We showed it to an enthusiastic audience on the Retro Stage of the Retro Area at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne. You can watch the video here starting at 00:24:16. English subtitles should be available here. 🙂
Can you save progress with the digital download played on an original C64 through the Utimate II+L cartridge? (Sorry if this has been asked before) without having to do anything special to alter the crt file?
Dear developers, I just bought the game over protovision and after playing it a few hours, I woul like to ask whether these design choices are on purpose. I have to clear every room again when I revisit it. Thats somehow tiring. "Bird enemies" can fly through walls, but I can not shoot through walls. Thats also a bit exhausting to handle the opponents. I would prefer either shooting through walls or the opponents stay inside their rooms. Maybe you can explain that to me (us) for better understanding.
hey guys. I happily paid $10 for a download, but I use an IEC2SD - can I apply this $10 TOWARDS a full boxed cartridge set? I wanna support APQ - and would love a boxed cart set.
Just played this for the first time! Looks and feels marvellous! One thing though: When pressing 'up' and 'fire-for-up' simultaneously nothing happens. This was also the case with Sam's Journey and some other titles. In practice I use an (Xbox) controller with Vice and a fire button to jump / go up. It happens often that both are pressed during play, but then jump does not register.
Also (and I don't know yet if there is a reason for it later on for some extra weapon), but could fire be simply pressed without having to press it again for slashing?
Other than that, this looks fantastic!
Just finished the game after playing on and off for the last two months and methodically mapping everything over the last week, this is probably the best C64 game I've ever played. The difficulty curve was pretty much perfect (Every time I died I either got a bit further or learned a new trick). Encountered one tiny bug in world 5 (The scorpion on the second screen would sometimes jump into the ground on the side and get stuck inside).
Any news on the cartridge version? I want to try doing the whole thing in a row once I get it :)
good game, but not worth the 10$ to me.
https://ibb.co/2kJrVhQ/10
(meaning, it's good. here, have one of my "covers" i make exclusively for myself. i was to share these on lemon, alas, they banned me for being a "troll". their loss, your gain. this stays up for 1 week before it gets auto-deleted so grab it now or never. more covers incoming...)
Hm, I am not so happy with the game at all. I spent a good hour or so for it and played a little around.
To leave the good points aside i dislike that I have to kill over and over again the same enemies when I come back to a screen and that is a pain. Another point is how your character stands on a ladder. You can stand easily by the side of a ladder and you don't fell down. This is very obvious and imho a lack of quality.
But when you get over this it seems to be a good game, but I am not in it right now.
Issue when audio chip SwinSID is present : Frank Further is jumping up continuosly without doing any action with the joystick.
I suppose this is probably caused by : "The game uses potX/Y for additional Fire on Joystick port 2. (Fire 2 = Jump/UP)" as the SwinSID doesn't have the joy ports X/Y active.
Is it possible to do a game version compatible with SwinSID, maybe removing the use of pot X/Y and the additional fire option ?
TESTS Done on following Hardware :
Commodore C64G - PCB Assy N. 250469 - Original Audio IC 8580R5 Replaced with SwinSID (Firmware 2014/10/19 Lazy_Fix)
Thank you for this Amazing Game ++++++++++++++++
Maurizio
The SwinSID doesn't drive the bus during reads, so the value read from the POT lines is kind of random. That can indeed be interpreted as second button presses by a game, if the scond button support is always active.
Yes, you're right. Based on a previous message from "radius75" : "The game uses potX/Y for additional Fire on Joystick port 2. (Fire 2 = Jump/UP)" so, maybe this generate the signals on POT lines, that cause the character jump continuosly when SwinSID is present, even if the joystick ports are free, nothing connected to .
As you well know, today it's quite difficult to find the original MOS SIDs as spares, and many are using the SwinSID, but right now it's not compatible with "A Pig Quest".
Before I purchase this, I just want to check if this runs on an SD2IEC device? Thanks!
ciao. vorre comprare il gioco senza usare paypal. è possibile?
Any updates yet, when the physical cart will be released?
Nice!
currently playing this as part of the book club on the New Game Old Flame podcast discord. Cant wait to bring it to the next episode! It’s really fun.
Absolutely fantastic. Gameplay, animation, graphic, WOW!
Stunning game. Same computer, same graphic video chip, same CPU.
Can you imagine if this standard of quality and excellence had been available in 1985!? Every new screen is a discovery of intricate pixel art (with hints of humour) . The music has cinematic effects like wind, and rain noises. The gameplay is fast and smooth: it doesn't glitch nor block. and it falls (or jump) elegantly from screen to screen. VERY GOOD . I cannot wait to see what happens to that evil resurrected brother in Pig Quest 2 <?>.
..in one hundred years we might all be dead but this game will still be there, in some corner of the internet, as one of the shiniest example of Commodore64 gaming. A masterpiece stays forever.
Beautiful game! Brings back good memories. I work with English - BR Portuguese translation, are you interested? <3 https://itch.io/blog/498008/to-all-developers
Wow - not only your game is gorgeous and clearly a masterpiece but its pace and difficulty really took me back to the 80s :-O - I'm really loving it - congratulations
(come hanno già detto altri è probabilmente tra i migliori giochi per C64 *di sempre* - massimo rispetto)
Thanks Marco. Grazie!
This game has excellent graphics, sound and music. Unfortunately, it's not possible so save if you are playing easy mode. So playing easy mode, you will have to finish the game in one sitting. And with one life. Other games calls this nightmare mode. This game is for good players, and not for casual players like me. If I knew this before purchasing, I would not have bought it.
In Normal difficulty the levels save _after_ you die, so you can finish the game in multiple sittings.
Please read the post before you reply. I am talking about easy mode, and the game won't save in easy mode. And this makes the game unplayable for me. And that's too bad, because the game is awesome in every other way.
There is no difference between easy and normal...
Nonsense.
First enemy encountered in LV1:
Easy - kill our pig in 24 hits
Normal - 16 hits
Hard - 12 hits
Ok, yes you are right, level 2 is almost impossible on normal... keep grinding I guess?
Good point. Playing on Easy only makes sense after beating the whole game on Medium. Only after unlocking all the levels.
Before that, Easy is not Easy at all.
I guess patching the game with cheats from the sceene is one way around it... but feels bad...
I've already written it under the ratings, but here it is to read again to be on the safe side:
What a jack of all trades at a time when you wouldn't expect such a blockbuster. It was definitely worth the wait and I would even say that from a purely technical point of view it's the best game since Sam's Journey, at least from a graphical point of view. There is so much attention to detail and graphically extremely impressive scenes, such as the burning houses in the second world, and splashing rain in the third world. A lot of value was placed on the animations of the game characters, especially the main character, who are just to cuddle. Unfortunately, the level of difficulty is quite high even on the simplest level, probably because enemies that have already been killed appear again and again in some sections of the game as soon as you enter the respective section again. In some sections they even appear again as long as you stay there. At least there is a display that shows the energy of the opponents you are fighting, which is quite unusual for C64 games, but extremely useful. It's also a pity that the save function only works on medium and high levels of difficulty and free saves are not possible. Some of the puzzles are quite tricky and at times a bit confusing, e.g. some doors are only opened after the enemies have been destroyed in a certain order. But that doesn't detract from the game and challenges experienced players all the more. And even then you are busy for at least 2-3 hours on average, since the total of five game sections are huge. We therefore give it an unreserved purchase recommendation and the full number of stars. 😎👍
Awesome game and for sure one of the best C64 games ever, even without scrolling! 😎 I would even say that from a purely technical point of view it's the best game since Sam's Journey, at least from a graphical point of view. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 00:28:51. There is also a 4 hour longplay starting at 05:29:55. Automatic subtitles should be available soon (switch on, if necessary). Subscription to our YouTube or Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
Amazing game. Seems to run well with my U64 standard board. Now, if I was younger with better eye-hand coordination, might make better progress..Enjoying it immensely.
Amstrad CPC user here who couldn't resist cheating his beloved machine with the wonderful C64 after watching the first videos of this game. Thank you for developing this stunning game. I couldn't stop playing every day until I managed to get to the end and right now it has become one of my top videogames for any 8 bits system. For the people who says it is hard my only advice is keep playing it, the game difficulty is fair and allows the player to keep perfecting their skills and honing their strategies to beat each screen. The only "but" for this game is that after I have completed it I wanted more XD... I'll keep playing it in hard mode to see If I manage to beat it aswell.
Congratulations to Piggy 18 Team!
Can you make a change? So that Fire2 Jump works despite holding UP on the Joystick. And vice versa.
With such a fast game, accidental holding and blocking yourself from jumping happens quite often. And it can be frustrating ;)
We already implemented fire button two for jump. Make sure your emulator is set up in a way that fire button 2 is assigned to a phisical button on the joypad and you should be good to go.
I probably wrote it unclearly. Fire2 works for me (real C64 and emulator), but.. Accidentally holding down direction UP blocks the use of Fire2 for Jump. And vice versa. This affects when playing with a gamepad. And not important when playing one-button Joystick.
I use gamepad on real C64, USB device to DB9 adapter. Fire 1, 2, 3 works.
For all the people with "saving to crt" problem... Why don't you implement "save progress to disk?"
That's a great idea in my opinion. Works well in Briley Witch Chronicles game. This can be done so that the record is transferred between successive versions of .crt. Between different types of emulators. And even between physical cartridges.
Incredibly great work!! Of course, creating a longplay for my channel was a must.
Congratulations, you make it look too easy.
Hi Piggy 18 team!
Truly a C64 masterpiece! Beautiful, distinctive use of colour, great sprites and animation and it's really fun to play. Snappy controls, speed is just right and so far it's felt tough but never unfair, you always want just one more go!
Props to all involved on what was clearly a passion project made with great care and attention to detail. Definitely C64 top 5 of all time and great to play a game that feels at once classic and modern.
Just learned from the comments that saving level progress doesn't work on Easy mode, good to know. That would be my only minor wish for a change though, as I find 'easy' is really well balanced.
Anyone else playing on MisterFPGA? Wondering if on Med difficulty the level completion saves will save to the cart or only be valid for the current play session?
Unfortunately, saving directly to easyflash is not yet supported on MiSTer's C64 core.
Thanks for your reply, I didn't know this so it's good to learn!
I also play on MiSTer and have tried the new C128 and existing C64 core. Unfortunately without success. After reset/restart all progress is lost.
10x
Hello Piggy 18 !
My name is Gabriel Turcato. I'm a native Brazilian translator, providing services in the language pair English <> Portuguese (Brazil). I would like to inform that I'm available to translate A Pig Quest from English into Portuguese (Brazil). That would be great for both os us, because I can apply my skills to translate something that I really enjoy, and your game will be able to reach a greater public, which can turn into more profit for you. Feel free to contact me through my email if you have any questions: gpturcato@yahoo.com.br.
Best regards and congrats for the awesome game.