[SMALL] Caramel Action Micro
[!!! WARNING : THE WEB BUILD RUNS LIKE SHIT! PLEASE USE IT ONLY FOR PREVIEWING THE GAME & GRAB THE EXECUTABLE TO PLAY IT PROPERLY IF YOU LIKE IT !!!]
A very small, difficult & heavily randomized arcade run-n-gun game inspired by Elevator Action, Rolling Bird & Tank Force. The game has 7 stages and 2 unique loops (it keeps looping past that point but without any new content). The first loop is properly tested & completely doable, the 2nd loop is tested enough to be beatable but not guaranteed to be fair.
Collect all the gold items to spawn the staircase leading to the next floor. Don't die.
--- CONTROLS & MECHANICS ---
Use arrow keys & z/x/enter to navigate the menu by default. You can resize the window freely in the desktop version, or press alt + enter to go fullscreen.
You can move, shoot, hold the shoot button to toss a grenade, or use up a bomb. The grenades & bombs are strictly limited. You can get more bombs by meeting certain score thresholds.
Extra score can be gotten in 3 ways : get to the staircase in under 30 seconds, kill more than 1 enemy with the same projectile for a MULTIKILL BONUS, and destroy golden blocks in the environment. The longer you stay in a room, the more points enemies will be worth. Also, the further you are in the game, the more lucrative everything becomes.
Rooms get more & more difficult the longer you stay in them. Eventually ghosts will start appearing from killed enemies & chasing you down.
Exits appear on the opposite side of the screen relative to your current position, so you can plan things out a bit. Your initial starting location is picked at random from 6 possible locations.
--- Background ---
Most of this was made over the course of 2 weeks at the end of 2025, with some extra finishing touches added at the start of 2026. It's a very small scale project that I made for fun, basically the kinda game I'd wanna play myself as a big fan of Elevator Action & Rolling Bird. Because of this, I am unlikely to do any sorta major updates or anything unless I decide to return to it way later down the line and turn Micro into Macro.
Tools used : GMS2, Aseprite, Blender, Clip Studio Paint & Procreate, FL Studio.
Download
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Development log
Comments
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It's fun! All the enemies layering on top of one another leads to some intense gameplay!
love it, maybe let's get a linux build bro? if not that's fine but u should throw this on steam too
Glad you're digging it! Couldn't you run it through steam proton as a non-steam game? That's what I'm doing on the steam deck anyhow. I'll def make a Macro steam version down the line though
yeah it runs perfectly through proton i just always prefer native personally
This game is fantastic! I love the random spawnpoints, the aggressive enemies and the adorable art and character designs. I had so much fun learning the first loop that I want to try making it further into loop 2!
Wow! It took me a while! What a blast! It's a short but dense one. Very well made. So many good game design principles applied altogether. It inspires me! In relation to the aesthetics, what a cute beautiful protagonist. Lady Apple-chan? Anyway, very nice character design.
Congrats on the 1-ALL & thanks a ton! Happy to hear that it inspired you as well 😎
I've played this game for weeks and still trying to get pass 1-5 WHYYY! good game. fun and hard. REALLY HARD.
FUCK YEA - er I mean my bad hehe
Really gotta spam those cherry grenades on 1-5
I started playing it and started getting that "hook" of one more try! I'll see how far I can go :)
Congrats on your release!
(Came from Electric Underground btw!)
Thanks! Hopefully the "one more try" will have a healthy amount of anger & frustration for that arcade-accurate cute-em-up mix
This game is extremely fun and unique! You should make this a full on game on Steam. :D
Thank you! Yea I def will first thing after I finish my bigger games
It looks super cute, and the movements are so comical that it’s incredibly fun just to watch! At first, the difficulty felt unbelievably high, but as I kept playing, I started to understand the different behaviors and managed to clear a few stages. After that, I cleared up to 2-7 once each in Practice Mode while using bombs a lot, and when I went back to normal play, I somehow made it to 1-5! Improving feels so rewarding, meow!
Thanks a lot! Very happy to hear that about the visuals + difficulty curve. Also damn, you're learning it quite quickly too, the power of using practice mode 💪
Amazing and cute!! I with I had time and skill to create something like this >W<
Thank you!Just gotta DO IT, though time's always a problem...
Cool game!
When I maximize the window it no longer get any keyboard input (using macos 15.6.1 + chrome 143.0.7499.171 on apple m1).
Thanks & ah shit you're right, that's weird. Well you know, I did warn about the web version 😬
this is really fun and the art is so cute! it would be nice if the practice mode had a way to exit without having to restart the game though.
Thanks! Exit as in go back to practice mode rather than the main menu?
exit as in go back to the menu, if there is a way to get back to the menu i couldnt find it
Was Kirby's Dream Course an inspiration for the visuals and animations?
Not Dream Course in particular but Kirby was definitely in the back of my mind when making it, along with stuff like Bomberman, Mr Do, Goof Trop, Shiren, etc.
What a cool game!!
Wheeeee!
Really showcases a lot of the mechanics you talk about in your videos. I-frames, punish frames, good feedback for everything. Balls hard but fair and very fun.
Thanks! Yea I'm actively trying to apply a lot of what I've been thinking & talking about on yt & patreon
Small mistake on practice mode, level 1-1 actually takes you to 2-1.
Fixed!
this game is so gorgeous but I can’t make it past the first 2 levels (only reached the 2nd one once). Do I need to do my homework and play Elevator Action, Rolling Bird & Tank Force?
Very interesting list of tools used. Clip Studio Paint AND Procreate? Also presumably you used one for textures in Blender? What was your pipeline for the graphics of this game
Nah you don't need to play them and I think this game's different enough that none of the skills will transfer anyway, but you shouuld play them regardless cuz they're awesome
The CSP/Procreate thing is mostly cuz I prefer drawing on Procreate when using my ipad, and then use CSP on PC for image editing. I didn't use textures in Blender at all, it's just a simple color ramp "toon shader" rendered at low res. Most of the assets like tiles/etc. are 2D pixel art but the characters & moving objects are pre-rendered 3D
The visuals and audio are very impressive! Did you do all of this by yourself?
The game is pretty addicting. And hard as hell lol.
Thanks a ton! Yea mostly solo but I got some help from my gf
old friend ... this game is cool as HELL and I'm super impressed by the audio/visual work. Super charming and lovely!
Thanks buddy! Been a while since I had to make music, was a lot of fun
Banger action / arcade game, just enough BS to keep you hooked. Made it to stage 5, I'll be back.
I'll be waiting
sick game
Happy you liked it!