Psycutlery
A downloadable game for Windows
What... IS this?
It's a spoon. And yet, it's also a fork. Or is it either? It's a video game-type thing developed by Luke Tarlowe (formerly known as "Thunder Dragon"). A console-styled platformer with an action-adventure feel, complete with an expansive storyline featuring multifaceted characters across a widely varied world.
Each new level is completely unique from the last.
With an emphasis on variety through the constant introduction of new gimmicks and ways to play, Psycutlery is a game that prompts the question: "what's next?!"
Take control of Lillian the Alien and her mind-controlled spork (that YOU can name). Grab things. Throw things. Eat things. Jump in mid-air up to five times! Bring down an incomprehensible abomination of evil with a single piece of silverware (plus around 30 different power-ups!), and witness copious craziness unfold across Planet Geozaic!
Some things to note...
For best results, playing with a gamepad is recommended (as this is a console style platformer designed and tested with a controller in mind). Keyboard controls are supported, but not preferred. But hey. Options! Whatever you use, all controls are rebindable to custom user specifications.
Note that this game, though more or less family friendly, may contain some scary parts and dark storytelling moments that might not be suitable for small children.
Around a decade in development, and... it's free??
Yep. All I want is to share my work and keep enjoying my game development hobby (without any of the stresses that come from the business side of things)!
This is the full, completed game. I would like to think of it having ample length and quality comparable to that of a commercial game. It's a completely original work, having been started between 2011 and 2012. All characters, art, music and so on are original to this project. Music was made with the help of me and a few friends (with most of the musical contributions coming from my friend Jon AKA DJ Yoshiman), while everything else has been solo developed by me. There are absolutely no microtransactions or anything of that sort. No catches to be found here - I just wish to share my passion with all who might appreciate it.
Do you like this game? If so, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could share it with others who might feel the same!
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Want to support our main musician?
Get DJ Yoshiman's soundtrack here!
Download
Install instructions
Once downloaded, please be sure to remove the game - that is, the "Psycutlery" folder - from the .zip file and put it somewhere on your PC before playing, otherwise it might not work! :)
Development log
Comments
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Just cleared the first world and loving the game so far!! Have been a fan since Toad Strikes Back and so hyped seeing this branch into original games finally come out!
So much charm in this game, can't wait to see what else it has in store
Well, I feel pretty awkward about my last comment here being a completely invalid complaint, and especially it being the most recent comment for a whole month, so let me try to remedy that.
This is an amazing game. I feel like I cheated the universe to get to play it for free. It's fun, its mechanics are fairly unique and very interesting, it has its own sense of style, charm, and humor. If you ever make something else, and I can pay you for it, I want to know. The last time I felt this way about a free game was probably Khimera.
It seems like you had some doubts about the improvisational story, but if anything, it felt like everything fit together really well in the end. It just seems like you made up things for a while, but then picked just the right moment to start trying to tie existing elements together.
I'm curious if you've ever played, or heard of, Copy Kitty. That game is nothing like this one, but there's a weird sort of way in which the two fit together with each other in my headspace. They seem to expand upon completely different "parts" of what makes kirby games work, and have a usually kind of pleasant, good-natured "mood" in common...it's a little hard to articulate. But I have a mild case of headcanon that the two take place in the same universe...but several galaxies away from each other.
Hey, thank you so much for your kind words, and I apologize if not responding to your last message made you feel awkward in any way! But yeah, I very much appreciate this. And indeed, much of the story for a while served as an attempt to justify all the random ideas I threw in, heh.
I've gotten comparisons to Copy Kitty quite a few times, actually - don't know the exact count, but it's interesting how it keeps coming up despite our games apparently having quite different gameplay. Kinda neat, in a way!
Gameplay-wise, I'll put it this way: Kirby games are about "using the enemies as your weapon" in two different ways. You can "grab" and "shoot" enemies, or you can "take their powers". Copy Kitty is all about taking their powers, while Psycutlery is all about grab and shoot. It makes the two games feel like they "rhyme", almost.
Copy Kitty's setting is kind of "superhero themed" as opposed to psionically themed, but there is still the story content of an older mentor-figure helping a younger person train/find the use of her powers. The personalities and storylines of the corresponding pairs of characters couldn't be much more different beyond that parallel, though.
I guess they also each have their own very particular visual style. Copy Kitty is exceedingly "lasers and explosions everywhere all the time sensory overload", to the point where watching gameplay can be hard to understand if you've never played the game for yourself.
Hey,
I'm enjoying the game greatly so far. However, I did want to report a controller issue I ran into (which I was able to work around using joytokey). I have a 8bitdo pro2 which has both a directinput and an xinput mode, both of which most games recognize fine as a directinput/xbox controller respectively. Psycutlery seems to know a controller is present, but the default buttons don't work. Setting the buttons in the configuration shows that it considers all of the buttons to be things like "positive button#" where # is some number like 1, 2, 3, etc. That's not the problem; I can set the face buttons fine. But since there's no way to configure the directions, and the game doesn't recognize my controller's directional inputs, there's no way to actually move while using the controller. But like I said, I was able to work around this with joytokey. It'd be nice if I *could* just configure the directional buttons too though.
Thanks for reading.
(EDIT: After I posted this comment, my controller freaked out while playing the game and now it seems to be getting recognized as an xbox-type and working perfectly! So the problem was likely with the controller somehow, not the software. It'd still be helpful to have configurable arrow buttons though.)
Finished the main story of the game. Holy heck... that was AMAZING! One of the best games I've played this year, and it's COMPLETELY FREE?! Like, I would've paid 19 or even 29 euros for this game and STILL felt satisfied! There's still the bonus content and such, but... knowing the kinda player I am, IDK if I'll go through all that just yet.
Thank you!! Also, I feel you about the bonus content, as I myself almost never go for 100% completion or do postgame content on any game these days, personally.~
How long is this game?
50 main levels, plus 50 secret levels. A single playthrough can take uh... maybe up to 10 hours, depending on the individual? Maybe more, maybe less? Plus, that's not counting the additional mode to be unlocked once the game is cleared.
I learned of this game from the Antdude video. I haven't played Psycho Waluigi, but I played this for a bit, and it leaves a pretty good first impression. And the fact that it's free is crazy.
Came here from Antdude's recent video on Mario Fan Games. Can't wait to play it and I love what I've seen!
Thank you for checking the game out! :)
Have not played yet but just the promotional material is so endearing and warm that I just have to give this a shot
<3 thank you!
from the first demo to here, I can't wait. Five stars.
Hi, I'm almost near the end of the game, and I've been having a fantastic time with it so far!
This might sound embarrassing, but I'm trying to beat it 100%, and there's apparently an ability that helps you track those little eye medallions down if you're stumped (something I very much need for one of the late-game levels), but I have no idea.
Either way, thank you so much for bringing us this wonderful game, for FREE no less!
Hi! If you return to a level you've beaten, there are hints on the checkpoint select screen - depending on which checkpoint you select, one of the eyeball spaces will glow, indicating that the corresponding item may be found someplace within the vicinity of that checkpoint. Otherwise, I can give more in-depth hints if you want to get more specific~
I just wrote a review but wanted to leave a comment as well so that anyone could see it!
Psycutlery is a fantastic game and a must-play for any platformer lover. It is constantly coming up with fresh ideas that are expanded over the courses of multiple stages, and is a joy to play.
I spent more than 12 hours to 100% the game, but it turns out there is then an alternate route to replay all of it! All for the price of... free! Oh, and the music is awesome as well.
One last comment to Luke as an answer to the credits: I think anyone who had played your previous works already knew it, but Psycutlery is the definitive proof you needed to know that yes, indeed, you know how to make a terrific game. Keep up the good work, I loved this one, congrats!
I much appreciate it! Thank you! Thank you for the review as well - I will actually agree, as I found when replaying this during final testing, that it might indeed be more fun to save all the secret levels until after you've beaten the main story once, heh.
just knowing that you're the person who made masterpieces like Psycho waluigi and the Toad strikes back series has sold me on this game. This is my favorite game of all time already and it hasn't finished downloading. That's how you know it's good.
"The Definition of Stars" is an absolute masterpiece.
Thank you!! I'm surprised at how I built it up, but I'm glad I had a main song theme for the game that could serve as a motif for a number of the other songs in Psycutlery!
Yeah, I RULE! I'"ve completed everything", with Lilian that is. I might do Naillil's route soon or later if I remember to keep my savegame, it seems to have a different flavour and I like the alternative pieces of writing.
The party at the end of the last level B-side was a indeed a pretty cool twist on what looked like an anticlimatic lazy B-Side considering the other ones have consistently been very good twists on the main level.
For a game made "without a vision" it was alright I guess, just kidding the game's pretty great.
The visuals are detailed and the soundtrack is ambitious. The characters are cool.
The game is consistently pleasant to control whatever the limitations or twists on control, I like the logical placement of the eyes (and the hint about the part of a level you missed one) so you can look for them without breaking the pacing, the B-Sides are pretty good and overall the levels do feel distinct.
Congratulations and thanks for sharing, I've always been and will always be amazed by freewares which are better (including more ambitious) than most commercial games and will spread the word about the game whenever an opportunity cames along.
Thank you for your kind words! And yeah, I learned while making this that doing alternate versions of bosses isn't as easy as it seems, especially final bosses, hence why I had to throw in a little something extra there. :)
Hi. I started a let's play for this here. I'll be posting new videos every other day:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXlqud_jS2IdJHrhK0OSzStHBMKnjZeXq
Just to let you know, I've been checking out every one. Keep it up! 👍
"Huh, this kind of reminds me of Psycho Waluigi, I wonder if HOLY CRAP"
Yeah, that was my train of thought. I loved that silly little fangame, but even apart from that, Psycutlery is fantastic in its own right. A must-play for any lover of 2D platformers. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful work with us!
You're welcome, and thank you for playing!!
It's apparently going to take some 5 hours for Youtube to process my video so I'll come back later when it's done.. But, I just wanted to say this is one of the best platformers I've played in years. Fun combat, great level design, and a whimsical story. Art wise too! It feels like it would have fit in alongside Sonic and Ristar on my shelf of Genesis games, and I absolutely love games that were part of the Genesis library.
I hope more people find this and give it a chance, as it's a really great game. Thanks for this, it's been a great start to 2024!
Video has published:
Thank you so much for your kind words!! This is SO greatly appreciated - means a lot.
While I never aimed to mimic a certain console style when making this, I really like that you came up with the Genesis comparison - despite taking much of my inspiration from Nintendo, I was in fact more of a Sega kid during that console war in the early nineties!