I created most of revenge of the sunfish in 2007, in the time leading up to my final year 12 exams, as a distraction from my studies (I still managed to pass somehow). The idea behind the game had been with me for a long time before that though.

The basic idea is that every level is supposed to be a different game playable on it’s own. Games with very diverse gameplay are hard to find, so I always wanted to create a game like that.

The game Incredible crisis is a good example of the kind of gameplay I enjoy, it was an early influence on the design of ROTSF one. A school trip to the local aquarium Provided inspiration for the antagonists, the Sunfish or Mola mola.



Ocean sunfish are the heaviest known bony fish in the world and can grow up to 3.2 meters in diameter. with their unusual appearance, resembling that of a giant floating fish head, it's not hard to imagine them as demonic alien lifeforms. And trust me, they are DEMONIC

During my time working on ROTSF I developed a set of guidelines that the game was meant to follow. This was somewhat influenced by the Kubus manifesto, a manifesto written by game designer Kimberly Kubus and published on his website. The gist of the manifesto was about going against and/or breaking well established game design rules, exceeding/breaking player expectations, not respecting the player by designing games that where easy to follow, understand or even play. A theme of excess, and overkill. In essence breaking the rules that game players take for granted. Actually I might have missed the point of Kim’s actual manifesto but this is what I extrapolated from it anyhow. I started to apply these ideas to ROTSF.

Overtime I developed other ideas, which became critical to my vision of a ROTSF game. these ideas are outlined as follows:

Players should not be able to get stuck at any point in the game. If the player dies a certain number of times they are sent to a latter stage to prevent it from getting boring. I don't have a problem with this. People have asked me, "if you can pass a level by losing then what’s the point in trying to beat it properly" my answer is that passing levels properly leads to different levels, levels only accessible by beating the level properly. That’s the incentive.

this leads to the next important condition, ROTSF is supposed to contain multiple paths and have a dynamic, non linear level structure. If possible it should feature self modifying levels and emergent game play.

I tried to implement these ideas as best I could, but in the end I felt like I only really touched on them.

Due to a hard drive malfunction, ROTSF one was rushed out to completion. I considered it at the time a failure. It is by far not without it's flaws. It contains some bugs, has ms paint graphics described as "awful" lacks any decent animation and is only truly compatible for windows 95. Despite it's flaws I now think it's actually a pretty good game. Perhaps due to it's weirdness it has received quite a lot of attention on the internet, numerous reviews and youtube videos with running commentaries, also some fan artwork. see the bottom of the page for links.



Running the game

revenge of the sunfish is free to play.

If you would like to download it click here to download it in zip form (19.6mb).

The game requires the dll file cncs32.dll to run properly. the file is included in the zip but you can also download it here. If you get an error message then put it in the windows system folder. ROTSF may freeze during gameplay, this is a compatibility problem. TO prevent this from happening try these steps. Disable all other running programs, especially windows media player. Right click the ROTSF icon and go to properties. Under the compatibility tab set the program to run under windows 95 compatibility. If you still have a problem then DESPAIR

Please note that On the second last level if the player moves to the left of the screen they will fall out of the screen and be forced to quit or restart the game.

During game play f2 restarts the game and alt f4 quits the game. the games controls usually consist of the arrow keys and spacebar. On one level the player must control a spaceship by holding down the mouse button, however there is no indication to do this, so some players have gotten stuck at this point.


In April 2014, someone called Matthew S. Paynt sent me an email with this attached piece of ROTSF inspired artwork. I think it's Awesome and sums up the game really quite well.