Pixel Platformer is a side-view action game set in one large world of rock, ladders, crates and bouncing creatures. You run, jump, slide down walls, roll, fire a little gun and throw grenades, and almost every rock tile can be broken. That makes Pixel Platformer unblocked a mix of platforming and digging: if a coin sits inside a wall, you can simply blast your way to it. Frank Force built it as the platformer example for his free LittleJS engine.
The First Minute
The camera opens on your small character at the starting spot. Use the arrow keys or W A S D to run, and press Up or W to jump. A quick tap gives a short hop, while holding the key keeps pushing you upward for a fraction of a second longer. Walk to the nearest coin and touch it to score your first point; it disappears with a chime and the Score number at the top left ticks up.
Next, try the gun. Press Z (or hold the left mouse button) and a stream of yellow shots flies the way you are facing. It fires about eight times per second, and each shot reaches roughly five tiles before fizzling out. Aim it at a wall and you will see rock chip away one tile per hit.
How Pixel Platformer Works
The whole map is 256 tiles wide and 64 tiles tall, and it all exists at once. There are no stages or doors. Here is what fills it:
- 66 coins, many tucked into pockets of rock or high ledges.
- 12 creatures that hop around in random arcs. Each takes five hits to pop and is worth 1 point.
- 18 wooden crates, which also take five hits. They block paths but give no points.
- Ladders you grab by pressing Up or Down while touching them. You can also stand on top of one.
- Gray metal blocks, the only tiles nothing can break.
You have just one hit point. Touching a creature, getting caught in a grenade blast or falling off the bottom of the map all kill you instantly. The Deaths counter at the top right keeps track.
Moves That Matter
Your toolkit is small, and each tool has timing rules worth knowing:
- Wall slide and wall jump. Hold toward a wall while falling and you slow down against it. Jump from there and you get a stronger kick upward than a normal jump from the ground, which is how you scale tall shafts.
- Head-butting. Jumping hard into a breakable tile from below smashes it, so low ceilings are often not a problem.
- Dodge roll (X or right mouse button). A spin lasting under half a second, during which nothing can hurt you. It recharges in two seconds. Rolling in midair also gives a small lift.
- Grenade (C or middle mouse button). You can throw one each second. It beeps once a second and explodes three seconds after leaving your hand, carving a circle about six tiles across out of the rock. Its damage is enough to destroy any creature or crate in the middle of the blast, and you too.
After each respawn you are protected for about one second, which gives you time to get moving if a creature is waiting nearby.
Pixel Platformer Tips for a Clean Run
- Open fire early. Five hits at eight shots a second is under a second of steady fire, but only if you start before the creature is on top of you.
- Wake creatures on your terms. They only start bouncing when you come within about 20 tiles. Approach slowly and shoot as soon as one begins to move.
- Use grenades as shovels. A buried coin is often faster to reach with one grenade than by climbing around, and a blast also clears crates in one go.
- Throw, then walk away. Three seconds is a long fuse. Toss it against the wall, turn around and wait at a safe distance.
- Roll through a bad landing. If a creature drops in front of you, a dodge roll carries you past it untouched.
- Zoom out with the mouse wheel. A wider view makes the last few coins easier to spot, then zoom back in for tricky jumps.
Mistakes New Players Make
The most common death is your own grenade. It bounces, so a throw against a nearby wall can roll back to your feet. Another is digging straight down without looking. Blast through the floor in the wrong place and you can drop off the bottom of the map. Finally, many players press R to “retry” after a death, not realizing it wipes the score and rebuilds the whole level. Since dying keeps everything you earned, there is rarely a reason to restart.
Playing on a Chromebook, Laptop or Phone
A keyboard is the most precise setup, and a mouse adds the shooting, rolling and grenade buttons plus zoom. On a phone or tablet, an on-screen stick appears on the left with action buttons on the right. Turn the device sideways, because the view is wide. A gamepad also works. The rock color is picked at random every time the level builds, so the map can look different from one visit to the next, but the layout stays the same. Nothing is saved between visits, so finish your clear in one sitting.
Similar Games to Try
For more side-view action, Stolen Sword trades guns for close-range sword fights. Egg Time Rewind is a shooter where losing a ship loops time back and your earlier attempts fly beside you as ghosts. Bounce Back has you throwing and catching a boomerang through ten random levels. You can find more picks on the action games page.
