I’m Going to Hell is a surreal, 8-bit, Point and Click adventure game full of hand-drawn art.

The game is focused on the surreal visuals, atmosphere, and storytelling. Pixel hunting and complicated item-based puzzle solving is kept to a minimum.

Visually, it’s strongly inspired by classic 8-Bit NES games.

I’m Going to Hell runs on a with a custom-built engine using Unity3D as a platform, and is written in C#.

This hand rolled engine lets me work with some specific NES limitations in order to create a fairly authentic 8-bit feel.

Every image is created from 8×8 tile elements
Each individual tile can only use a maximum of 4 colors (3 unique, and 1 background color)
There are 8 separate 4 color palettes available for use at one time. 4 for use by the background, 4 for use by sprites
Only the 64 (56 unique) colors from the original NES hardware are available for use in those palettes
Backgrounds share palettes in 2×2 tile chunks, similar to original hardware

These rules keep me honest about the 8-bit look, and let I’m Going to Hell use a number of cool palette swapping tricks that would be impossible, were it designed with assets that only looked 8-bit.

There are a few concessions to modern hardware, though:

The screen size is wider than the original 4:3 aspect ratio, so less of our 16:9 screen space is wasted
There are no limits put on the number of sprites per line. The NES only allowed for 8 per line, which led to workarounds like flickering. Any number of sprites can be displayed without flickering in I’m Going to Hell
There are no memory limits on the number of unique tiles or sprites loaded at once
Mouse input is supported (It is a Point-and-Click game, after all!)