Wampus by John Vanderhoef

Wampus is an overhead arcade narrative adventure game developed as a homebrew for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
The wampus live on a planet invaded by colonialists, who farm and mine the land for its natural resources. These resource-stripping activities threaten the local flora and fauna, especially the Mountain Wampus, who get hunted for their treasure.
As a young wampus, players set out to rid the planet of the settler invaders and restore harmony to the land. While a fun lark, Wampus explores themes of environmentalism, conservationism, stewardship of the land, and the destructive nature of colonialism.
* * *
Wampus is the first game in the MULEniverse series, which narratively extends the work of Danielle Bunten Berry’s MULE economic simulator game.
The MULEniverse games include:
1. Wampus
2. Wart Worm Wingding
3. Bat Lizard Bonanza
4. Leggite Luta Livre
5. neMULEsis
***
Controls
Directional Pad — move up, down, left, and right
B — Wampus Claw attack (once unlocked)
A — Wampus coin projectile (once unlocked)
Hold B and press A — Wampus Burrow (once unlocked)
Hold A and press B — Wampus Rock Bomb (once unlocked)
***
FOR BEST EXPERIENCE: I recommend getting an original NES controller and a USB adapter for it. You can find one here or here.
For really enterprising types, this game is fully playable on an actual NES. You can use either an Everdrive, a PowerPak, or flash an empty cart, as long as each has mapper 30 support.
* * *
Wampus was made possible thanks to NESMaker, an engine developed to make NES development a reality for people who are not versed in assembly language.
In order to play Wampus, you’ll need an NES emulator. I recommend FCEUX. Many emulators do not have mapper 30 support, which is the mapper NESMaker uses for its games. 
Once you have FCEUX downloaded, start it up and open the Wampus.nes ROM. The game should work fine.
FOR MAC USERS: Download OpenEMU for Mac. When you open the program, right click on the Nintendo (NES) category on the left hand sidebar and select “Default Core.” Then select FCEU. 
* * *
Music
Princess Quest by Ben Burnes (Abstraction)
Pixel War 1 by Ben Burnes (Abstraction)
Save the City by Ben Burnes (Abstraction)
Out of Time by Ben Burnes (Abstraction)
MULE Theme by Roy Glover, translated to NESMaker by Ben Burnes (Abstraction).
To learn more about Ben Burnes’s music, visit:  http://www.abstractionmusic.com/
* * *
Wampus is part of the MULEniverse.
* * *
More from this developer: https://johnvanderhoef.itch.io