Tiny Pixel Adventure: HooGames2017's Amiga Platformer

Tiny Pixel Adventure comes from HooGames2017, the developer behind Dr.Dangerous, another Amiga game built with the Scorpion engine. It's a bright, colourful platformer for the Commodore Amiga that leans fully into old-school pixel art. The news reached Indie Retro News through a late-night tip from Saberman, along with a fresh video of the latest build.

The developer pitches it as "a classic pixel retro game that will captivate you!" That's a bold promise. Judging by the reactions from players who have already jumped in, it isn't an empty one.

Keys, Quests and Angry Bees

The setup is simple. You play a brave hero working through a chain of quests, clearing obstacles and handling whatever the level throws at you. Each completed quest earns a key, and each key opens up a new area further into the game.

The enemies are where the personality shows. The developer lists bouncing mushrooms, rolling balls, aggressive bees and dangerous plants, all of them set on ending your run. I don't know what it is about hostile garden life, but it fits the cheerful pixel style well.

According to the developer, it's not only about collecting keys. The focus is on getting through the next challenge in one piece and beating its odd cast of creatures. Puzzles are mixed in with the action, and the retro graphics come with a soundtrack the developer describes as "captivating."

One early commenter summed it up in a few words: "funky music, clear gfx, scorpion engine." Another said they had been waiting for news on a game with "all the credentials to become a great platformer."

From Bug Reports to Final Release

The road there wasn't completely smooth. One player called it a nice game but reported "lots of bugs." After dying and returning to the main menu, they couldn't restart. After rebooting, they ran into a honey collection problem that stopped them from moving forward even though they had cleared every enemy on screen.

HooGames2017 then shipped what Indie Retro News called a huge update, packed with bug fixes and performance improvements. The changelog was long enough that the site simply pointed readers to the download page instead of listing it all.

In January 2025, a Release Candidate 2 build showed up on the download page. The game is free, with an option to pay what you think is fair. Shortly after, a commenter reported that the final release was out on itch.io. Another reader said they were impressed by how much work had gone into it, based on the developer's logs.

There are a few quirks worth knowing about if you play on an emulator. One player found that loading save states froze the Amiga on their Raspberry Pi 400 setup. Another replied that the game has a password system and that individual levels aren't very long, so save states aren't really needed. A third reported jumps sometimes not registering, but suspected the emulator rather than the game.

Plenty of players were happy anyway. One called it "rather addictive," if a little tough. Another said they liked it so much they donated twice, praising its mix of retro look and clean modern presentation.

Tiny Pixel Adventure is available for free, with optional donations, from HooGames2017's itch.io page.

Our Take

Tiny Pixel Adventure is a good example of how Amiga homebrew gets made today. The game launched, players reported bugs in public, and the developer patched it until the release candidate turned into a final build. That open, step-by-step approach has become fairly normal in the scene. It also means early impressions of a game can be very different from where it ends up.

It also suggests the Scorpion engine is helping developers like HooGames2017 put out more than one polished project. That fits a wider trend of new Amiga platformers, from Nybble & Nibble's jump to the Amiga to the Ash: Askeladden A500 tease. It is worth watching whether HooGames2017 uses this momentum on a third Scorpion-based title, and whether the pay-what-you-want model keeps working for small Amiga releases like this one.