THE FORGED CURSE

Movement: Arrow Keys
Z: select/use item
X: open/close menu 

A lone dwarf follows a peculiar white cricket through dark tunnels and stumbles upon the entrance to a long forgotten, ancient forge. Once sealed away by unknown magic, the outer barrier is weak enough to enter and explore. Fight strange creatures and discover the mystery of the Forged Curse in this Rogue-inspired game made in Pico-8 with Archipelago implementation.

Note: the embedded version of the game is the "vanilla", non-randomized version of The Forged Curse. While we designed it with Archipelago in mind, it is also a standalone game to enjoy!

Note 2: hold Tab + Q on the title screen to clear your save. After doing so it is recommended that you select RESET CART from the pause menu.

Originally created for the PIGSquad July 2025 Summer Slow Jam

• C. Andringa - game design, art, ap integration and client, additional music work
• C. Wiggers - code, additional art and design, additional music, sfx
• EC - music composition
• Lokoklouse, Butters - playtesting

Archipelago features with credit and thanks to qwint, and Amazia for their work on other Pico-8 integrations.

How to play with Archipelago:

Archipelago is a randomizer system that shuffles items between multiple games such that opening a chest in one game may send a key item to someone playing another game. In other words, each player plays their own game, but work together to find the items necessary for each player to win.

Setting up a multiworld game is a two step process: generate and host.

Generate / Setup

1. To generate a game, one of the players, referred to hereafter as the host, will need to download and install the Archipelago core from the github page (scroll down to the section titled Assets). Forged Curse is a custom integration so a multiworld game cannot be generated using the website.
2. Each player, including the host, will need to download and unzip ForgedCurseRandomizer.zip.
3. Next, the host will need to collect a Forged Curse.yaml file from each player, with that player's chosen name entered on the line that begins with 'name: '. A template .yaml file is included in ForgedCurseRandomizer.zip and can be edited with any basic text editor such as notepad, just be sure the formatting and file extension remain unchanged.
4. Within their installed Archipelago folder, the host will need to add the .yaml files to the Players folder, copy forgedcurse.apworld from the zip to the custom_worlds folder, and run ArchipelagoGenerate.exe. After the generator runs (a commandline program which will appear briefly), a zip file will be created in the output folder.

Host + Play

1. To host the game, the host will need to navigate to https://archipelago.gg/uploads, click the Upload button, and upload the generated zip file. The website will then load a page titled SEED INFO, on which the host will need to click the yellow link that says Create New Room. This will take the host to a page listing the room's details, a table of the expected players, and a server console window.
2. This page should then be shared with the other players so that they can reference the port number, player name, server log, and access their tracker.
3. Each player, including the host, will need to open index.html from their ForgedCurseRandomizer folder with a web browser.
4. On the page that opens, each player will need to enter the port number and player name as they appear on the room page and press the submit button (no password needed unless one was set). The text fields should disappear and the server log should show the player connected.
5. Once connected, press the triangular play button in the Pico-8 window and start playing! When a chest is opened you may not get an item, but the server should show a record of who opened which chest. If no record appears, or you don't seem to be receiving items, reload the page and repeat the steps to connect.

Project to-do:

• It's basically done!! Waow!