Not exactly Indiana Jones.
A Retraux game by Bernie, and the first in his Treasure Hunter Man series, about a treasure hunter named Marvin exploring Kruz Island, "the last largely unexplored island". Can be found here
. There is now a sequel, Treasure Hunter Man 2.
In 2022, the game was rereleased on itch.io and Steam alongside A Game With A Kitty 1 and A Game With a Kitty 2: Darkside Adventures in a Compilation Re-release as a bonus game, with a few quality of life improvements shared between all three games.
This game provides examples of:
- Books That Bite: A giant sword with a derp face can be found in the Golden King's Tower.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: The golden sun's vulnerability is a spike that the player can push up in a part of the Boss Room where it continually bounces.
- Boss Remix: The Updated Re-release's soundtrack gives us ''Maybe Heroes'', the Final Boss theme, which is an intense Dark Reprise of ''Soultied'', the first area's theme, mixed with elements from ''The Buried Sin''.
- Cute Kitten: One of the treasures is a statue of a kitty, obtained in Silver Desert. By completing the Sky Oasis sidequest, you can bring it to life. This kitten is required for obtaining the Golden Ending, because using it on Justin in the room right before the Final Boss brings him back to life, presumably because it's imbued with energy from the Fountain of Life that was used to turn it into a living being.
- Dark Reprise: ''The Buried Sin'' from the Updated Re-release's soundtrack, the theme for the Moon's Plight area of the Golden King's Temple, is a church organ remix of the Port Kruz theme, ''A New Shore''.
- Dem Bones:
- One common enemy type is a disembodied skull that very slowly hops towards your location every few seconds.
- Starting with the second chamber, you'll start running into big skulls that shoot fire in the general direction you're facing. One variant spawns bones from... somewhere beneath itself in order to match your vertical position.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: Pontz's intro.Pontz: I will read to you the story......OF DOOM!!
- Downer Ending: In the true ending all of your treasure is stolen from you by the locals, you're tied to a raft and exiled.
- Edible Ammunition: Francine attacks with pancakes.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The body of the Golden King, which he keeps concealed when not attacking, has a lot of smaller eyes dotted around it.
- Eye Scream: One of the Golden King's weakpoints is the eye he decides to open wide, which is tall and bloodshot, and spills out giant golden spike balls.
- Flash of Pain: Enemies' colors invert when they're hit.
- Ground Pound: After you get the Heavy Combat Boots in the Sun Temple. This allows you to finally Goomba Stomp enemies and deal the most damage out of all options available to your disposal.
- Hair-Raising Hare: Small, harmless-looking purple rabbits can damage you.
- Healing Checkpoint: Books on pedestals serve this function, and are also Save Points.
- Hearts Are Health: The Life Meter is represented by a line of Heart Symbols.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: A sword is one of the first treasures you find.It's your sword! Every adventurer needs one. Only wimpy ones use whips instead.
- I Call It "Vera": Francine calls her oven "Mr. Oven".
- Improbable Weapon User: Francine attacks with pancakes.
- Kid Hero: Marvin, implied by one NPC's dialogue:Grumpy Housewife: Shove off, filthy kid! You are every mother's nightmare! I DO NOT EVER WANT A KID IF IT TURNS OUT LIKE YOU!
- Kill Enemies to Open:
- The first section of the Sun Tomb is exited by a door that requires killing the yellow enemy at the end to open.
- You have to kill all enemies in the lower section of the Cellar in order to be able to open the chest containing the boomerang.
- Lame Comeback:Marvin: Hey, townsman! I'm seeking fame and fortune!
Townsguy: How about you search for it out of my earshot, shorty.
Marvin: Your pants smell, doofus!
- Leitmotif: The Updated Re-release gives Justin his own theme, called ''Cornerning the Darkness'', an imposing march that starts off with 8-bit synths. It plays during the Golden Sun pre-fight cutscene and before the possessed Justin fight in the Underground Fortress.
- Long Song, Short Scene: The Updated Re-release gives the Golden Sun its own boss theme, called ''Crash and Burn''. It's an intense orchestral piece that befits the first major Boss Battle of the game... and then it's never used again. Every other boss fight in the game, bar the Final Boss, uses ''Fighting for Treasure'' instead, including Justin possessed by the Golden King and the Quirky Miniboss Squad.
- Made of Explodium: Everything explodes when killed. Including Marvin.
- Money for Nothing: Aside from getting the ability to read stone tablets for a daunting early game sum of 100 G, which is by all means completely optional as they all just amount to hints on where to go next, or lore in the case of the start of the Golden King's Temple, any money you collect from then on has zero gameplay purpose, but it does make narrative sense.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If you get the bad ending where Justin dies.
- Noob Cave: The Dark Cellar, a short, easy, unnumbered dungeon containing the first two weapons.
- Number of the Beast:Grandma: Keep away from the cellar! It's evil!! 666!!
- Only One Save File: Can only load from one file or make a new one, but making a new file doesn't immediately delete the old one, only when a Save Point is hit, so it's not a big issue.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Theo, Pontz, and Francine. Despite having the ability to pass through walls and possess objects, they're seemingly as material as any other enemy in the game, and are susceptible to the Goomba Stomp. They also closely resemble humans or imps. This is in contrast to the ghosts the Golden King himself conjures during one of his attacks, which are invulnerable and transparent, and far more demonic looking in design.
- Point of No Return: Once you cross the door past the Bottle Rocket Travels cannon in Deep Pyramid, you cannot go back from where you came from. This is just as well, because the save point is also located in the same room as it, which means you can go back and do the Sky Oasis sidequest to get the Plot Coupon to break Justin out of his coma in the room before the Final Boss, meaning you can't lock yourself out of the Golden Ending.
- Powers via Possession: Justin gains the ability to fly and conjure magic weapons from thin air while possessed by the Golden King.
- Punny Name: Mr. Tipi lives in a tepee.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Theo, Pontz, and Francine, the servants of the Golden King.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The Updated Re-release's soundtrack is mostly comprised of music originally from the Nintendo Switch's own updated rerelease of Treasure Hunter Man 2, alongside a handful of new exclusive tunes made specifically for it. The reason why was that in order to get the game on Steam, Bernie had to replace the entire soundtrack from the original version
because it used music from other games he didn't work on. - Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Golden Sun boss has red eyes.
- Retraux: In contrast to previous 2D platformers by Bernie, this one both looks and sounds more like a traditional 16-bit game than an 8-bit one.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: When confronting the Golden King, he drops a bombshell: he was being sealed within the sword in the Cellar, and upon striking Justin at the start of the game, he winds up using him as a vessel. Were it not for Marvin, the Golden King wouldn't have returned. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!
- Shout-Out:
- The spiked blocks in various fortresses are very similar to Thwomps from the Mario series.
- The description of your sword:
It's your sword! Every adventurer needs one. Only wimpy ones use whips instead.- The snake enemies look and act like Cobrats from Super Mario Bros. 2.
- The big skull enemies are a very clear nod to the Bone Pillar enemies from Castlevania, acting the same way.
- The Rival: Justin, the mayor of Port Kruz, who self-proclaims to be your new Arch-Enemy after you strike him with the sword at the town. He sics the Golden Sun on you during the first chamber and serves as the boss of the second chamber, the Underground Fortress, albeit under Demonic Possession by the Golden King, so he's something of a recurring element in the story.
- True Sight: The Seer's Eye, which lets you see hidden pathways.
- Turns Red: Bosses move faster when they're low on HP.
- Updated Re-release/Compilation Re-release: The itch.io and Steam versions that come bundled with the first two A Game with a Kitty games come with an updated, much more professional-sounding score that's comprised of music repurposed from the updated rerelease of Treasure Hunter Man 2 plus a handful of new tunes. It also has native fullscreen and gamepad support without the need for a launcher to customize things beforehand.
- Vague Hit Points: Enemies are like this because the early ones die in one to two sword hits, the sword being Starter Equipment.
- Weird Moon: The moon is attached to a chain for some reason.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe:
- Justin talks like this when possessed by the Golden King. Naturally, once you confront the Golden King himself at the end of the game, he talks the same way.
- Pontz also talks like this.
- You Bastard!: After you defeat Francine:Francine: How can you hate pancakes like that?! YOU MONSTER!!
- You Have Researched Breathing: Pay Tipi 100G for the ability to read stone slabs.
