THORN — a cinematic-platformer tribute

What it is

A cinematic-platformer tribute to Blizzard's Blackthorne (1994), written in C on raylib 6.0 and compiled to WebAssembly. Weighty, deliberate traversal — but with a jump. A pump-shotgun that fires forward and over the shoulder. Ducking into background shadow alcoves to let bullets pass you by. All art, naming, and levels are original (or CC0) — nothing is copied from the source of inspiration.

Playable end-to-end: four areas — Sunken Mines → the Mire → the Ashlands → the Usurper's Keep — linked by a Daystone-shard gate, with NPC gifts and hints, area passwords, and the Maldrak boss at the end.

Screenshots

Entering the Sunken Mines — the first of four areas

Maldrak the Usurper boss fight — Maldrak the Usurper — the throne-room boss

Maldrak enraged, phase 2 — Enraged — below 120 HP he charges faster and fires harder

Firefight — every hit lights the room red

A bomb blowing a cracked wall — A placed bomb blows open a cracked wall

Mid-air jump — Mid-air — the jump the original never had

Lit by muzzle glow — Lit only by your own muzzle glow

Title screen — Title — Easy / Normal / Hard, persisted

The cast — original pixel art

walk cycle · in-engine

Every actor and tile is an original, code-generated pixel-art sprite — no external or copyrighted assets. The hero animates through idle, walk, fire (forward and over the shoulder), climb and hurt; the whole cast can be reskinned by dropping in your own CC0 PNG strips. Here's who you'll meet.

Thorn, the hero, firing — Thorn
You — the shotgun that fires both ways

Skarl enemy — Skarl
Shooter — holds the lane and fires

Brute enemy — Brute
Advancing melee — closes the distance

Sentry enemy — Sentry
Shoots, then ducks into cover

Maldrak the Usurper, boss — Maldrak
The Usurper — boss; kill him to win

The full sprite sheet — every pose and tile, synthesized in code (--dumpsprites exports it).

Systems

Traversal

Weighty movement with a real jump, ledge climbs, moving lifts that carry you, and shadow alcoves you duck into to dodge fire.

Gunplay

A pump-shotgun that fires forward or over the shoulder, magazine + reserve ammo with auto-reload, and power/speed upgrades.

Enemies

Three behaviours — a shooter, an advancing brute, and a cover-using sentry — plus the Maldrak boss fight.

Items & demolition

A melee knife, placed bombs that blow cracked walls, keys and locked doors, levers that raise bridges, and persistent pickups.

Original pixel art

Actors and tiles render as original, code-generated pixel-art sprites; drop-in CC0 PNG strips can reskin the whole cast.

Visual FX

Dynamic lighting + vignette, parallax backgrounds, sparks/blood/smoke/embers, screen-shake, floating damage numbers, and a lead-where-you-face camera.

Controls

Action	Keys
Move	A / D or ← / →
Jump	Space
Up — climb / enter shadow / use door / lever	W or ↑
Down — climb down / leave shadow / duck	S or ↓
Run (hold to sprint)	Shift
Fire forward	J / Ctrl
Fire backward (over the shoulder)	K
Knife (melee)	V
Place bomb / throw bomb	E / T
Pause	P

Tip: click the canvas first so it captures the keyboard.