fox flux DELUXE by eevee

fox flux DELUXE is a puzzle-platformer about being a little cartoon fox who turns into things rather easily.  Sometimes that’s quite helpful for puzzling and/or platforming!  Other times, it is…  less helpful.
Along the way you may also contest with elaborate contraptions, play a completely unrelated minigame, or decide to ignore all of that and just grab all the candy in sight.  But keep your eye on the prize: you’ve gotta collect enough hearts to rescue your girlfriend, who has been kidnapped by…  your girlfriend.  The same one, I mean.

about the game #

The game is still a 🚧 work-in-progress 🚧, but there’s a fully functional demo of the first few levels!  That should be enough to whet your appetite, and maybe even give you a few hours of running around.
A few features are accelerated so you can play with them early; a few others have been cut out because um I didn’t finish them yet.  But the important stuff is there.
The original iteration of this game was fox flux, a jam game from way back in 2017.  I’ve been plugging away at this version on and off ever since — and it’s taken a while because I had to take some detours to do stuff like learn to draw.  The jam game was very nearly the first pixel art I ever made!
Here is an obligatory bulleted list of features:

• Transform into stuff, and back again (hopefully)
• Solve little puzzles — or avoid little puzzles, if you prefer
• Navigate your way around various thingamajigs that might react to different variants of you in different ways
• Make your way through the world entirely non-violently because what kind of monster would go around stomping on wildlife
• Bump into large bees
• Play an old arcade minigame to earn little bonus artwork
• Visit Star Anise’s shop for the best deals on whatever he found lying around
• Push a big rock
• Collect treasures that go into a satisfying grid where you can look at them
• Wonder how the fuck you’re supposed to get that star

I don’t know when this will be finished — there’s a lot to do, and this is largely a one-fox operation.  But if you’re “hype” (as the kids say) you can chip in on my Patreon to get new builds of the game irregularly; tell me when I totally broke something; and even join the secret Discord channel where I’ve already spoiled the plot.  You can also check out:

I will likely update the demo with some missing features later on — stuff like music and a useful options menu — but won’t be adding any more levels or story.  If you want more of those, you’ll have to either pledge, or wait until I finish!

playing #

The controls are currently a little dubious and can’t be rebound (yet), but I’ve been playing with them for months, so they can’t be that bad!  They’re mostly prompted in-game, but in case you forget:

• arrow keys to move
• spacebar to jump + select in menus
• E to interact
• F to use a special ability
• R to use an inventory item
• Esc for menu
• F11 to toggle fullscreen

Gamepads also work, in theory.
The game saves automatically.

known issues #

• Some sound effects and special-purpose music tracks are missing.  Making those is hard whoa
• Any art you don’t like is a work in progress
• I didn’t do a Mac or Linux build yet sorry
• It is possible, though considerable effort and ingenuity, to render some levels unwinnable.  This is a feature.  I’m not your mom
• Personally I think the farm level might be a bit too long but that’s just more game for you to enjoy I guess

tech notes #

Linux, Mac, and 32-bit Windows users: you want to install LÖVE 11.x either from the LÖVE website or your package manager, grab the .love file, and drag the latter onto the former.  Or run `love fox-flux-deluxe.love` in a terminal, if appropriate.
Please note that official releases of LÖVE up through 11.4 have a buggy version of LuaJIT that can cause rare but erratic behavior, including sporadic crashes and the complete failure of collision detection.  The provided Windows release includes a fix for this bug, and Linux users will most likely have their own more recent copy of LuaJIT.