Rising: Hungry Lizard

Rising: Hungry Lizard is the first episode of Rising, an 8-bit pixel-art survival game planned as a series of self-contained episodes, each telling a distinct story. In this episode, you play a lizard trying to survive in a dangerous natural world.

Survive as a lizard

You eat butterflies and worms while avoiding parrot attacks. A satiety bar means you must keep finding prey, and you can hide, stop moving and choose the right moment to eat. Movement uses the keyboard’s directional pad, while the lizard’s physics let you move freely and cling to walls and trees as you find a route through the map. Each action depends on timing.

An arcade experience

You can play slowly and improve your score by staying in the first zone, optimizing each movement. Runs can be short or long, and you can continue playing for points without reaching the ending, though the game has an ending. Death is inevitable; each time, you can restart or let the game run on its own while you take in its graphics, music and physics. Each death differs and offers a moment to pause and reflect.

A minimal world

The game uses pixel art and sound design to create a minimal, spacious world, with an emphasis on isolated moments rather than what comes before or after them.