Following the release and subsequent warm reception (including our Game of the Week!) of DERE Vengeance last September, developer AppSir is back at it again with a new game called Spooky Pixel Hero. If you aren’t familiar with AppSir’s work, their games are typically retro-inspired affairs that are all fine standalone experiences, but are also interconnected with each other in interesting ways that builds a whole universe of lore for fans to enjoy and explore. There’s plenty of 4th-wall breaking and plenty of unsettling things that take place across their library of games, and Spooky Pixel Hero looks to continue that tradition. The premise is that you’re a game developer that is tasked by a shadowy organization with repairing an old game from the ’70s, but given the game’s age it certainly seems far more advanced than it should be. Hmm, strange.

What you’ll be getting with Spooky Pixel Hero is 120 levels of hardcore platforming action, all presented in portrait orientation for the first time for an AppSir game. You’ll also be working to solve puzzles and uncover the secrets inside the game’s “code" as you “repair" it, and this of course leads to all sorts of shocking and horrific discoveries. While lots of games pay homage to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, not all that many elect to dive even deeper into the late ’70s and early ’80s aesthetic of video games, so it’s cool to see Spooky Pixel Hero doing just that. The release date is set for August 12th and ahead of that time you can pre-order the iOS version on the App Store here or pre-register for the Android version over on the Google Play Store here.