Pickory

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Pickory is a fangame of I Wanna Be the Guy, created by Storyyeller. Unlike the other fangames, it was written in C++ rather than created with Game Maker. It is available here. It is also unusual for being based on a wide variety of games, with different gameplay styles and gimmicks in different areas. It also has a much bigger focus on puzzles, particularly in the Portal area.

The main games featured are Cave Story, Ecco the Dolphin, Hydorah, Iji, I Wanna Be the Guy, Kaizo Mario World, KSpaceDuel, Portal, Super Meat Boy, and You Have to Burn The Rope. There are also several secret levels, and many minor shoutouts to other games.

Tropes used in Pickory include:
  • Because this is a fangame, many of the tropes from I Wanna Be the Guy are present as well.
  • Alluring Anglerfish: Chinchou
  • Anticlimax Boss: The final boss is also the easiest.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: The built in save fixer. In recent versions, Clippy will helpfully pop up to remind you of the feature if you appear to be stuck after saving.
  • Artifact Title: The title itself is fine, but the subtitle "An IWBTG Fangame" isn't particularly accurate anymore. Many areas in the game are straight Puzzle Platformers with no traps at all, and two parts aren't even platformers.
  • Bigger on the Inside: Pickory's "mansion" and swimming pool.
  • Bottomless Pits: The Bottomless Pit of Falling. It even tells you how far you've fallen.
  • Cartoon Bomb: Replaces the chandelier in You Have to Burn The Rope.
  • Chaos Emeralds: The secret items
  • Character Title
  • Corridor Cubbyhole Run: The shark patrolled corridor in the Ecco the Dolphin based area.
  • Credits Montage
  • Crosshair Aware: Naturally, since it copies the General Tor boss from Iji
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The jumping mechanics are a bit different from those in IWBTG. Specifically, Pickory jumps a fixed height, regardless of how long you hold the jump key.
  • Deadly Dodging
  • Depth Perplexion: In the fight with Tor, you can stand on top of some of the buildings in the background, and Tor still deals Collision Damage while in the background. Also, one secret item is actually a constellation in the night sky.
  • Denial of Diagonal Attack: For most of the game, you can only shoot horizontally, just like in IWBTG. However, it is averted in the Portal segment, which allows 360 degree aiming.
  • Dungeon Bypass: One secret level recreates the infamous Veni Vidi Vici segment from VVVVVV, except that Pickory has the ability to jump, making the whole thing trivial.
  • Easter Egg: There are currently seven secret items. Some are obvious, some are hidden very well, and one is hidden VERY cleverly.
  • Guide Dang It: The "Very Obvious Secret" item. Don't even ask.
    • Not to mention the final boss battle.
  • Informed Equipment: The character sprite always displays the pistol you start with, even if you pick up the Resonance Reflector or Portal Gun.
  • Kaizo Trap: The Kaizo Mario segment has a fake one.
  • Nice Hat: Pickory wears a large feathered hat bigger than he is.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: During the Hydorah and Ben Drowned stages, the normal gameover is replaced with one from the respective game.
  • No Plot, No Problem: Technically there is a sort of plot but it makes no sense and may as well not be there.
  • Notice This: One of the secret items is a box that says Secret Item on it which is surrounded by giant flashing neon arrows pointing to it and saying SECRET HERE.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Mostly played straight but averted in the Hyodrah and Space Duel stages, which give you 2 and 5 hp respectively. They used to have 1 hp as well, but it was just too difficult.
  • Oxygen Meter
  • Painfully-Slow Projectile: During the Portal segment, where you get the ability to aim and shoot in any direction, you can kill yourself by firing downward and falling on your own mid-flight bullet.
  • Press Q To Suicide: required to beat the game
  • Puzzle Boss: GLaDOS. Her cores heal faster than you can shoot, so you have to use portals to stack up a lot of bullets at once.
    • The final boss... kind of... counts as this.
  • Ratchet Scrolling: The Kaizo Mario and Super Mario Land 2 levels.
  • Shout-Out: Among other things, several to Mario Rom Hacks, such as an invisible coin block right in the way of a jump that releases a delicious fruit instead of a coin.
  • Space Zone: Set on the moon no less. And the moon still kills you on contact.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills
  • Tennis Boss: General Tor, naturally
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The fight with aiMir is basically a simplified clone of KSpaceDuel, with no platformer elements at all.
  • Unwinnable: Averted by the ability to easily undo saves and go back to a previous point in the game.
  • Vent Physics
  • What Could Have Been: A 2d BioShock (series) level with custom sprites and gameplay was planned, similar to the Portal levels. However, the creator was forced to scrap this idea due to the difficulty of ripping textures and sound effects from Bioshock.
  • Wreaking Havok: Pickory contains the physics engine Box2d. Although most of the functionality is only used in the Portal area, a Companion Cube randomly appears in the cloud area in order to show off the physics some more.
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