Ikachan

Ikachan is a Platforming game that was developed by Nicalis for the Nintendo 3DS and was released on January 31, 2013. In the game, the player plays a squid named Ikachan, who swims through a cave, meeting and helping other creatures. Ikachan takes place in Ironhead’s realm, an underwater cave system. A series of earthquakes had recently caused cave-ins that cut off Ironhead’s realm from the open sea. As such, the inhabitants of the cave ran out of food and were required to carry pearls marking their allegiance to Ironhead.

Ironhead himself remains stuck in a private cave, spreading paranoia and encouraging violence against non-citizens to keep the population of the cave from overthrowing him as their leader. Ikachan wakes up inside the cave and swims around, searching for a way to escape. Ikachan features unique gameplay; as opposed to using the arrow keys to move, the player uses the left and right arrow keys to tilt Ikachan in the respective direction.

The player must then use the ‘z’ key to swim in the direction Ikachan is pointing. Thus, Ikachan cannot swim directly to the left or right at first, but he later acquires an item that allows him to charge horizontally. Also, while being unable to hurt enemies from the start, once Ikachan receives an item called the Dunce Cap, he can attack enemies by ramming them with the point of the hat. The game contains role-playing game-aspects, as Ikachan can level up after attacking enough enemies or eating fish.