MiedoW

MiedoW is an action puzzle game created for the 2017 NESdev competition and starring the developer's recurring character Cheril. She walks into a shrine and falls asleep there. In her dreams a voice commands her to find the daughters belonging to the voice. The game consists of several dreams or levels. In each dream one or two daughters (called 'maids' in the level) need to be located and freed to end the level. Cheril moves through several single-screen rooms connected using the flip-screen mechanic. She can move around, shoot with an unlimited amount of bullets and push certain objects.

Sometimes it is sufficient to get rid of enemies such as skeletons that appear from a spawning points or ghosts that can move through walls to reach the daughters. More often solving environment based puzzles is required. Certain rooms have one or many statues that need to be pushed to their pedestals. Once all of them are in position a passage usually opens to a next room. The room lay-out with many obstacles can be challenging and a wrong move often has Cheril stuck unable to solve the puzzle. She then has to leave the screen in order to reset all the statues and start over.

Some rooms lead to multiple paths, to first find a key to open a gate or to locate more daughters. Each dream introduces new challenges, puzzle elements and hazards. One dream for instance has orbs that need to be shot to light and activate them. Some rooms have gaps, spikes or slippery tiles. Jumping can be used to cross gaps or to pass some hazards. An encounter with an enemy or a hazard immediately removes a life and finding a new life only happens every now and then.