FORLORN SHORES

A puzzling adventure about finding clues and items to explore strange places.

[A gif showing gameplay of Forlorn Shores, including both overworld and first person gameplay.]

[An area in Forlorn Shores covered in bleached coral.]

[An area in Forlorn Shores overgrown with red mold.]

Released: May 2026
Developed: January 2026 - May 2026
Team: Joseph Henry Stadolnik IV
Tools:

PICO-8
Pyxel Edit

Programming Language: Lua

My Role: Solo Developer
I made the entirety of this game by myself, aside from a few functions created by PICO-8 community members (such as PX9 compression).

My achievements on this project included:

Implementing or integrating multiple compression and minification schemes to pack much more game content than conventionally possible into a PICO-8 cart.
Implementing a first person rendering and navigation system for exploring sub-areas, including a custom level data format.
Designing 9 distinct overworld areas to explore with varied visuals and mechanics.
Designing a varied set of puzzles revolving around observation, pattern recognition, tool use, and lateral thinking, including deciphering a coded language.
Creating a secondary "editor" application in PICO-8 to provide myself various tools for previewing, exporting, and modifying elements of the game.
Creating a companion application in PICO-8 called Forlorn Shores Atlas that serves as an imprecise visual walkthrough to assist players struggling to progress.
Refining puzzles in communication with early players.
Drawing all visual assets using PICO-8's editor and Pyxel Edit.
Creating all audio assets using PICO-8's editor.

About:
Forlorn Shores came from two major drives:

Wanting to make a puzzle-adventure game somewhat in the vein of things like TUNIC (ISOMETRICORP Games Ltd., 2022) and FEZ (Polytron Corporation, 2012), as well as my own prior games FUZ and NULL.
Wanting to push the limits of how expansive of an authored game can be made within the strict limitations of a single PICO-8 cartridge.

I believe I was successful in achieving both goals, although the game's deliberate lack of direct guidance does limit the audience to more dedicated and patient puzzle solvers.
I also released the optional Forlorn Shores Atlas companion application as a means of making the game a bit more broadly accessible, but its hints are still intentionally vague.

Other Notes:

The first-person sections were directly inspired by the stage intro minigame from Angeline Era (Analgesic Productions, 2025). This inspiration was actually the catalyst for me to start development on this game.
This would not have been possible to release without Shrinko8 by thisismypassport.
The minification tools were very helpful for crunching down the compressed size to be small enough to release, although it also took a lot of manual finessing due to the amount of code stored in strings.
No generative AI tools were used in any way in developing Forlorn Shores. This is standard for my personal games, but warrants mention here given the timeframe of development.

Links:
PICO-8 Forum Post
itch.io