What kind of beast Minipunk is: rules, tricks and a few tips

The igrasu.ru catalog holds hundreds of games, and this is one people keep coming back to. Here is how it works and how to get the most out of it.

What this game is

Minipunk — a short 3D action game by Cody Ebberson, built for the 2020 js13kGames competition. The evil 404 Megacorp threatens to take over the internet, and you are a punk with a glowing sword who has to reach it. This is a true voxel world generated entirely in code: a procedural cyberpunk city of neon buildings, streets, underground passages and rooftops, with a hand-written 3D graphics renderer, bloom glow and tone mapping, blood and explosion particles, and a soundtrack and effects synthesized right in the game (the SonantX library). No raster textures or models — the original weighs under 13 kilobytes.

How to play, in short

The gameplay is a third-person slasher. Enemies are scattered across the city: nimble punks with swords, laser-wielding cyborg soldiers and, at the top, a giant boss on the rooftop beneath the 404 sign. A normal hit is a sword swing; but if you line up the reticle (right button) and strike, the hero performs a lightning dash attack for double damage. A double jump lets you climb onto roofs. Health regenerates on its own if you avoid damage for a couple of seconds. The goal is to hack your way to the boss and defeat him; a final screen records your clear time.

Controls

move with WASD or arrows, look with the mouse (drag), attack with the left mouse button, zoom with the right button (zoom + attack = dash), jump with the spacebar. On a phone: the left on-screen d-pad walks, the right buttons are attack, aim and jump, and you look by dragging a finger across the field. The leaderboard score grows with the number of enemies defeated and the boss kill.

A few final tips

• Check out the demo mode on the game page — the AI shows how it is played, and repeating it yourself gets much easier.
• Play in short sessions: the best results come with a warmed-up head.

Take note: it works great solo and in a "my high score is bigger" company. Ready to try? "Minipunk"