The Sword of Stolen Books is a short retro platformer created in one week for the The Queerness and Games Jam 2023.

Play as a vigilante librarian in a hoodie and horn-rimmed glasses. Wield a sword imbued with the souls of books that have been banned, burned and locked away. Fight monsters and rescue queer books.

REQUIREMENTS

A keyboard or controller is required. For the full retro platformer experience, playing with a controller or Steam Deck is recommended.

The default keyboard buttons are [WASD] for movement and menu navigation, [J] for jump, [K] for attack, and [spacebar] for pause. Open the "Controls" menu to change these.

Mouse and touchscreen/mobile are not supported.

RESOURCES

American Library Association's Banned & Challenged Books advocacy page
The Human Rights Campaign's LGBTQ+ Inclusive Schools Booklists
Sources for the author quotes that appear in-game.

Neither the ALA, HRC or any of the authors were involved in or endorsed the creation of this game.

More information

Status	Released
Platforms	Windows, macOS, Linux, HTML5
Rating	Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (4 total ratings)
Author	dandelion dino
Genre	Platformer
Made with	Godot, Aseprite
Tags	8-Bit, LGBT, Retro, Short
Average session	A few minutes
Languages	English
Inputs	Keyboard, Gamepad (any)
Accessibility	Configurable controls

Download

the_sword_of_stolen_books_linux.zip 35 MB

Download

the_sword_of_stolen_books_windows.zip 35 MB

Download

the_sword_of_stolen_books_macos.zip 59 MB

Install instructions

Web: For Windows and Linux, the web version should be compatible with Firefox, Edge, and Chrome, but may have some lag compared to the desktop versions. If there are problems, please try a different browser, or download the desktop version. Unfortunately, the web version is not compatible with any browser on MacOS.

Mac: The MacOS download is not notarized, so you need to temporarily override Gatekeeper in order to run the game. See Running Godot apps on macOS for instructions.

Steam Deck: This game has been tested and works great on the Steam Deck, but please use the joystick instead of d-pad for movement.

For installation instructions, see How to play itch.io games on the Steam Deck.

Install the game via the Itch.io app, then open Steam in desktop mode, click "Add a Non-Steam Game...", and add /home/deck/.config/itch/apps/the-sword-of-stolen-books/linux/the-sword-of-stolen-books.x86_64.

(To see the .config folder, enable "Show hidden files". To see the the-sword-of-stolen-books.x86_64 file, change the Filter to "All Files".)

Development log

Sources for author quotes
Oct 23, 2023
Credits
Oct 23, 2023

Comments

Beth and Angel Make Games188 days ago(+1)

Oh heck yes, I love this! Rainbow freaking epic sword, pride-flag-colored books, avenging the banishing of books, an epic librarian.... YES! And it was cool you squeezed multiple additional mechanics in there, like the water and cutting down the hanging, caged books (I didn't save the first one in a cage because I couldn't figure it out, but when I saw the second one I was like oooooohhhhhhhhhh I get it!)

Terrific experience!

- ✨Beth

Patran189 days ago(+1)

so cool to make the game about banned books!

dandelion dino188 days ago

Thank you so much!

Litda192 days ago(+1)

I'm really bad at platformers, so I struggled but the subject matter is very topical.

dandelion dino188 days ago

That’s totally on the platformer, not on you! The controls could use some real playtesting/rebalancing. But thank you so much for trying it out!

grave snail games193 days ago(+1)

This is so impressive (and a lot of fun!) for a jam gam! Loved, loved the quotes between lives. Amazing work! 💖