The Red Mummy

As hard as some may try to recreate the classics, there are genres where that is not possible anymore, given all that has transpired in the meantime. Hence, 2D platformers with 16-bit graphics are a thing of the past, but there are still games out there that try to recreate the same atmosphere and provide the players with an engaging experience.

The Red Mummy is a 2D platformer in which you play the role of a mummy as it explores environments full of enemies and traps in order to retrieve its hands and legs after they have been stolen. However, the experience is much more cinematic and artsy than you might expect from a platformer, mainly thanks to the great artwork and the neat cutscenes that present the story.

In essence, everything is designed to look a 70s horror comic, down to the graphic style and the story itself. However, the comic panels are displayed in various places around the levels, and they actually blend very well with the backgrounds sometimes. Hence, even if the story is not very complex, it does feel like quite the adventure most of the time.

After finding your hands, you can also attack enemies and make things a lot easier for the mummy, but until then you have to avoid contact at any cost. Hence, every enemy has a unique type of attack and behavior, which requires trial & error or observation in order to be understood. Level exploration is not a big part of the game, unfortunately, since there’s usually just one exit from each stage and one way to get to it.

Even so, the graphics are very impressive, especially when it comes to the artwork and the quality of the level design. Although the tiles can get a bit repetitive every now and again, the artwork pieces are always marvelous, and so are the sprites and all the enemies you encounter along the way. Not much can be said about the music, but it’s definitely not bad either.

The Red Mummy gets many things right in terms of gameplay and atmosphere, but it’s obviously a bit too short to be considered a full game. Hence, we can only hope that the developer expands on his ideas sometime in the future.