Nitrome is an independent game developer known for its Flash games, many of which are on Miniclip. Nitrome's games often have highly unusual gameplay that forces the player to think well outside the box.
Nitrome's games
Hot Air!
Sandman
Chick Flick
Roly Poly
Feed Me!
Gift Wrapped
Scribble
Frost Bite
Tanked Up
Magic Touch
Skywire
Space Hopper
Dangle
Hot Air 2: All Blown Up
Square Meal
Toxic
Yin Yang
Nanobots
Off the Rails
Headcase
Pest Control
Twang
Thin Ice
Snow Drift
Jack Frost
Aquanaut
Go Go UFO
Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam
Magneboy
Cheese Dreams
Snot Put
Knuckleheads
Skywire 2
Small Fry
Mutiny
Final Ninja
Onekey
Mallet Mania
In the Doghouse
Numbskull
Bomba
Flipside
Toxic 2
Fat Cat
Frost Bite 2
Ice Breaker
Pixel Pop
Flash Cat
Twin Shot
Mirror Image
Glass Works
Ice Breaker: The Red Clan
Rustyard
Final Ninja Zero
Power Up
Cosmic Cannon!
Droplets
Double Edged
Castle Corp: Castlewear for All Occasions
Parasite
Twin Shot 2: Good and Evil
Rockitty
Nebula
Cave Chaos
Graveyard Shift
B.C. Bow Contest
Cold Storage
Ice Breaker: The Gathering
Avalanche: A Penguin Adventure
Rubble Trouble New York
Skywire VIP
Blast RPG
Tiny Castle
Chisel
Bullethead
Fault Line
Ribbit
Worm Food
Squawk
Temple Glider
Sky Serpents
Enemy 585: The Last Henchman
Super Treadmill
Bad Ice-Cream
Rush
The Bucket
Canary
Test Subject Blue
Chisel 2
Knight Trap
Steamlands
Test Subject Green
Silly Sausage
Test Subject Arena
Office Trap
Rubble Trouble Tokyo
Canopy
Mega Mash
Steamlands: Player Pack
Stumped
Nitrome Must Die!
Lockehorn
Rubble Trouble Moscow
Rainbogeddon
Skywire VIP Extended
Gunbrick
Nitrome's games contain examples of:
Advancing Boss of Doom: Present in both "Ribbit" (as a hybrid of a rhinoceros and a beetle) and "Off the Rails" (as a train.) The final level of the latter has two such bosses, one in front of you and one behind, preventing you from going too fast or too slow unless you do a jump and manage to get over it, in which case you can reach the level's end quickly and without impediment.
Advancing Wall of Doom: "Avalanche" has a straight one. "Cave Chaos" uses an odd variant: the scenery constantly assembles in front of you and disassembles behind you, forcing you to keep up or fall to your doom. "Super Treadmill" takes place on a treadmill, and you lose if you fall off either side.
A Winner Is You: Rarely, but "Bullethead" stands out in this regard.
Bad Boss: The Big Bad of "Office Trap". He forces prospective employees to make their way through an office building riddled with death traps and agrees to give a temporary work contract to all the survivors.
Be Yourself: By Day 17 of "Super Treadmill", Billy no longer cares about his weight or the competition, and if he decides to lose it, he'd rather eat healthy and exercise than use the Super Treadmill. Of course, his Uncle Rico is hell-bent on making Billy lose weight on the treadmill...
Biological Mash Up: The Mooks in "Ribbit" are standard versions of this, like a snake with porcupine quills. The title character is a variant, with a rabbit's head and a frog's head joined by their necks, lacking a torso or limbs. (Note that Ribbit is not a Multiple Head Case, referring to itself as "I.")
Cyberpunk: "Final Ninja" has a lot of elements of the genre.
Damsel in Distress: Referred to as such in "Graveyard Shift". You've got a Hostage Spirit Link to them, and they die in a single hit from a zombie, so be careful.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: "Fault Line". You're merely sent back to the last checkpoint you accessed, and any fastened fault nodes that hid it are unfastened.
Deliberately Monochrome: Each level of "Yin Yang" is essentially two in one: one that's on a white background, with everything in black, and one that's on a black background, with everything in white. Everything that's empty air in one world is a solid block in the other. The two main characters can't directly interact, but can sometimes move crates around to open up holes in the other character's landscape.
Dem Bones: Seen in "Small Fry", "Mutiny", and "Numbskull".
Difficulty Spike: Practically their Signature Style. The first five to eight levels will be pretty easy tutorial levels, but then things get crazy. Averted by some games, though, like Tiny Castle (it's just one level) and Blast RPG (the level system is a bit different).
Escort Mission: The owl in "Fat Cat" functions rather like a standard plane in a standard shmup, but is completely Immune to Bullets. The cat is slow and vulnerable, but must be kept alive so that it can smash down walls the owl can't damage. In later levels, this means deliberately moving the owl into hails of bullets to keep them from reaching the cat.
Enemy 585 is all about escorting a slow, fat mook escape.
Every Car Is a Pinto: Even if it's a hand-powered trolley car, as seen in "Off the Rails".
Evil Laugh: The protagonist of "Mirror Image" gives one every time he survives a level.
Excuse Plot: Very, very common. However, games that descend into Plot What Plot often have The Reveal at the end explaining what you've been doing the whole time.
Expansion Pack: "Ice Breaker: The Red Clan" and "Ice Breaker: The Gathering".
Eyepatch of Power: Both the title character in "Dirk Valentine" and Akuma in "Final Ninja Zero".
Faceless Goons: "Castle Corp", "Double Edged", and "Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam". Note that the former two also have faceless protagonists — apparently, helmets are sometimes antiheroic.
Fake Difficulty: Nitrome's specialty is to take things that would usually be considered such, particularly Interface Screws, and try to make them reasonable and enjoyable limitations.
Follow the Leader: Many Nitrome games can be traced to an individual game they're copying (for instance, "Small Fry" is a mimic of Lemmings.) To its credit, it's often quite inventive in creating new challenges within the same basic framework.
Goomba Stomp: Your alternate attack in "Frost Bite." "Ribbit" is an interesting variation in that you can only do this if you've charged up for a high jump — standard jumps just result in Collision Damage.
Grappling-Hook Pistol: Your way of getting up the mountain in "Frost Bite," as well as your primary weapon.
Gravity Screw: "Rush" has as its gimmick the ability to flip your character from floor to ceiling, not unlike VVVVVV. You can also flip your opponents' tracks, causing them to get screwed over as well!
Have a Nice Death: It's worthwhile to lose intentionally in "Mutiny" just to see the unique messages for every battle.
Healing Potion: "Graveyard Shift". Somehow, it works by shooting it.
He Knows About Timed Hits: Usually, the necessary information is on signposts scattered around the level. "Cheese Dreams" gives these from the main character's perspective, with the inevitable lampshading of "Why are my thoughts appearing on these signs?"
100% Completion: There's a fuse in each level of "Rustyard," and several vials of acid in each level of "Toxic 2." In each case, you're encouraged to collect them all, though neither explains whether anything special happens if you do (a screen in the former says "Have you been collecting those fuses? What for?"). Of note is that these are among the few Nitrome games that have no leaderboard for Scoring Points or completing a level in the smallest possible time.
Husky Russkie: One of the protagonists of "Rubble Trouble." He has a tendency to provide powerful explosives with only vague explanations of where he got them.
Interface Screw: "Super Treadmill" and supposedly it's Spiritual Sequels are based on old NES games, so Nitrome has put in occasional TV static and glitches into AV mode.
Invisible Monsters: The levitating swords in "Tiny Castle" aren't actually levitating — they're held by invisible swordsmen, who flash when struck.
Just Toying with Them: Your Sarcastic Devotee in Toxic 2 is certain the robot leader is doing this — you can't possibly have gotten this far without her wanting you to. It's never entirely clear whether he's right about this, though either way, a good player is being underestimated.
In "Headcase," it teleports the main character to "a world where everyone walked on walls" and turns him into a superhero.
Luckily My Shield Will Protect Me: How you prevent zombie goop from killing you in "Graveyard Shift". Pieces break off it as it blocks more and more hits, but it never completely breaks, and you can replace it at some points.
Ludicrous Gibs: "Graveyard Shift" and "Parasite" are straight examples. "Off the Rails" has gore, but no blood, with dead bodies splitting into neatly sliced bits resembling steaks. "Final Ninja" has no blood or gore, just body parts flying every which way in a disturbingfashion.
Powered Armor: The protagonist of "Final Ninja" wears some, though it's not quite as powerful as most fictional examples, being more focused on stealth.
The Power of Love: Twisted in "Parasite." Certain areas are covered in "happy gas," somehow related to an overwhelming force of positive feeling. The title character is unharmed for gameplay purposes, though he strongly dislikes the feeling. His mind-controlled minions explode.
Reality Warper: The protagonist of "Fault Line" can fold the 2D levels in on themselves, causing everything in the folded area to temporarily vanish from existence—for instance, he can bypass walls by folding the space around the walls and leaving empty air behind.
Screen Tap: In "Test Subject Blue", the scientist occasionally taps on the window in the test chamber.
Secret Level: Several in "Toxic 2", accessed through blue teleporters in out-of-the-way areas.
Segmented Serpent: One of the nastier enemies in "Graveyard Shift", and the final boss in "Aquanauts". Naturally, you kill them bit by bit.
The ones in "Bullethead" can take relatively few shots, but are only hurt when shot in the tail. They move left-to-right and right-to-left, descending a little with each pass, and are long enough that you only have a small opening to shoot the tail before another part moves in front of it.
Shout Out: Many in pixel form in "Skywire VIP". In fact, that's practically the whole point.
A tutorial box in a remote place in "Final Ninja" says, "The ninja must be like a snake, sneaking through the darkness, hiding from the light. To never be detected is the way of the solid snake.".
As explained below, the Uncle from Super Treadmill is named Uncle Rico.
Enemy 585 has many to Super Mario Bros., consider the layout of the "boss" room at the start.
"Mega Mash" has it's first level pretty much identical to the first level of Super Mario Bros, apart from the bit where you turn into a spaceship.
Soliloquy: Uncle Rico does one in Day 24 of "Super Treadmill", summing up his true motive:
Rico: That stupid boy is going to make me lose the bet! I can't afford to lose, the price is too high! I'll make that boy super thin, even if I have to get on that treadmill myself! HAHAHAHAHA!
Sugar Apocalypse: The technology-free garden world on which "Parasite" is set is full of cartoonishly happy animals and benevolent nature spirits. The titular parasite kills the animals, harvests the spirits, and turns the entire world into a barren waste.
Super-Deformed: The signature visual style in the more recent games.
Super Drowning Skills: Explained as part of The Reveal in "Twang" — you bet a substantial amount of money that you could get from one side of the ocean to the other without using a vehicle and without getting wet. Also present, with a handwave, in "Parasite".
Teleporters and Transporters: The one and only ability of the main character in "Mirror Image"—he can't even walk.
Theme Naming: The leads of "Nitrome Must Die" are named Austin Carter and Justin Bennet.
Tomato Surprise: The end of "Tiny Castle", where your knight, bound to save the beautiful princess, turns out to be A debt collector chasing down the princess, who refuses to pay rent on the castle.
Unexpected Gameplay Change: We have "Test Subject Blue", which plays out like Mega Man meeting Portal, then "Test Subject Green", where it's still the same formula, but not long after that we get "Test Subject Arena", where instead of getting a food pill, the blue and green enzyme fight with proton/enzyme blasts.
There's also "Mega Mash", which is a gameplay roulette of seven different sub-games with an overall puzzle element. The premise is that you're playing a broken Nitrome Enjoyment System cartridge which is constantly glitching out.
Up to Eleven: Nitrome takes their small retraux games to new heights with Gunbrick. The entire game is played in the tiny 50p x 50p icon! They have a full screen option so you don't scream in pain from the eyestrain, thankfully.
Verbal Tic: Ribbit, Ribbit in "Ribbit" constantly says "ribbit", ribbit.
Villain Protagonist: "Parasite" is about as clear-cut as you can get — you destroy entire planets both for survival and because it's fun. A few other games, like "Castle Corp", have protagonists who're Anti Heroes.
"Droplets" has a bizarre twist example. The bunnies you've been carefully stop from dying are an evil invading army.
Austin Carter and Justin Bennet from "Nitrome Must Die".
In Cave Chaos 2, worm-like enemies crawl into the protagonist's ear to reshape him into something halfway between his normal self and the standard enemies in the first game. (It's even more disgusting than it sounds.) This forces him to constantly move forward, just like those enemies, although he can still turn around. It also changes the level-complete animation—instead of dancing around happily, he'll stand in one place for a moment, then suddenly start vomiting (apparently purging the worm, since he's back to normal in the next level.)
Waddling Head: The vikings in the "Ice Breaker" series are a non-enemy example.
Wall Crawl: The protagonist of "Glassworks", due to the special gloves he wears.
Weird Sun: The sun in "Ribbit" has bulging eyes, a slightly downturned mouth, and clenched teeth, and appears to be in significant pain. This is never explained.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: "Tiny Castle" is pretty blatant about this—the princess is in a cage hanging by a rope, and several times you reach the cage just in time for the rope to be pulled and for her to get moved to another part of the castle.
is an independent game developer known for its Flash games, many of which are on Miniclip. Nitrome's games often have highly unusual gameplay that forces the player to think well outside the box.
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