Thunder Castle for Pico-8

My Pico-8 remake of the glorious Thunder Castle by INTV Corporation (1985) for Intellivision, with some quality-of-life improvements:

• UI: shows the magic objects you're carrying; a progress bar at the bottom of the screen shows the duration of your energized state;
• Achievements: the top 5 high-scores are recorded as well as the maximum level reached; the time indicates when you’ve reached such level (not the total time at game-over), plus the final score of that Best Run;
• Anti-leeching system: automatically prevents scoring abuse which is the issue on the original regarding high-scores, e.g. see how World Record rules on Twin Galaxies try to discourage leeching.

Game Manual:

The vintage Manual is available in Downloads as PDF file

TL;DR

⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️ move
⭕️/❎ [Z,X,C,V] Action button

Touch the flashing creatures (bats, rat and skull) to energize your knight in order to slay all the guardians (Dragon, Sorcerers and Demons). Collect and use at your advantage the magic objects that appear (details in the [P]ause/[Enter] menu, choose "CHEAT SHEET" for a quick in-game help).

For all the details please read the manual above.

Thanks to:

@solar for his work on the tunes for a 2016 WIP on this game that unfortunately has been abandoned long ago; a precious reference for note sequences in two of the fanfares and life-lost tune.
thisismypassword for creating Shrinko8;
@Cowirrie and @morningtoast for testing and feedback
you for playing the game!