Retro birthday platformer

Tape Loader

A 60th birthday build that opens on a cassette loading screen and drops the birthday person into a bedroom in 1983.

Play Tape LoaderHow it was made

Opens a dedicated game view. Exit game brings you back here.

Title screen of the Tape Loader 60th birthday game, with pixel-art lettering reading 60th Birthday Ideas, a Tape Loader nameplate, and the birthday person standing between a cassette and a joystick.
The title screen, with the birthday person painted in and the name typed into a real field rather than baked into the art.

About the game

A finished build, playing here exactly as it was delivered. It opens the way the machines it remembers opened: a colour-barred border, a byte counter climbing towards 48000, and a line offering to skip the bit everyone remembers.

The name on the title screen is a field, not a graphic, so it is typed rather than baked in. The birthday person is painted into the artwork, and the first level card dates the bedroom to 1983.

  • Cassette-loading opening
  • Three nostalgic levels
  • A personalised birthday hero

How to play Tape Loader

Arrow keys or A and D to move, up arrow or space to jump and climb. C toggles the CRT effect, M toggles sound, P pauses.

Choose Play to open the game. Use Full screen in the player to hide browser controls where supported, or play with the game filling the window. Exit game returns to this page.

Play now

Inside the build

How Tape Loader was made

Tape Loader uses the ritual of a home computer loading a cassette as its opening scene. The striped border and rising byte counter establish the period before the platforming begins. It is part of the game’s presentation, rather than a measure of how long your connection needs to load the artwork.

The bedroom level turns familiar objects into things to collect and places to jump between. The birthday character is part of the artwork, while the name on the title screen is a text field. This separates details that can be edited as text from details that need new artwork.

The build combines a JavaScript platform game with scene art, sound and an optional CRT effect. Its three-level structure shows how a milestone birthday can become a sequence of playable memories.

Screens & artwork

A closer look at the game’s characters, setting and presentation.

Cassette loading screen from the Tape Loader birthday game, showing colour-barred borders and a byte counter reading 12000 of 48000.
The loading screen is the joke and the point. Standing there hoping is the memory this generation actually shares.
Title screen of the Tape Loader 60th birthday game, with pixel-art lettering reading 60th Birthday Ideas, a Tape Loader nameplate, and the birthday person standing between a cassette and a joystick.
The title screen, with the birthday person painted in and the name typed into a real field rather than baked into the art.
Level card from the Tape Loader birthday game reading Level 1 of 3, The Bedroom, 1982, the machine arrives.
An earlier build’s level card. The current player begins in the bedroom in 1983.
Gameplay in the bedroom level of the Tape Loader birthday game, with cassettes to collect on shelves and a score of 1100 points.
The bedroom level: posters, a shelf of tapes, the computer wired up on the desk, and fourteen cassettes to find.

In motion

Animated clip of the cassette loading screen in the Tape Loader birthday game, with the byte counter climbing.
The border, the counter, and the wait.
Animated clip of play in the bedroom level of the Tape Loader birthday game, collecting cassettes.
Fourteen cassettes to find, then the portal.
◆ Questions

Questions about Tape Loader

What makes Tape Loader a personalised birthday game?+

The birthday person appears as the hero, the title includes an editable name, and the levels use the home-computing memories of the person it celebrates.

Can I skip the cassette-loading opening?+

Yes. The opening offers a skip option, so returning players can get into the game sooner.

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