Released by Picaro Games in 2018, Fart Escape is a humorous, free to download and play homebrew title that is a variation on the Angry Birds style of gameplay, except that you control a guy who propels himself into the air using only the power of his own ‘trouser trumpets’.

Yes, the title of the game is puerile (and somewhat nonsensical), but the gameplay itself is actually very challenging, mostly because you really need to balance your gas usage versus the burning sensation that accompanies too much farting.

Your methane reserves are shown as a bar at the top of the screen, and when you run out of gas you’ll no longer be able to rasp into the air. There are occasional gas pumps on the ground that – if you run through them – will re-fill your stomach with pump juice. A second bar – located above ‘Gas Level’ – indicates how much your ringpiece is burning from too much trumping. If it tops out into the red, then your guy will incinerate into dust. Which is obviously very realistic…

Hazards include bouncing bubbles, saw blades, and alien saucers dropping bombs. If you get too close to the clouds at the top of the screen you’ll also be struck by lightning. A distance meter in the top/middle of the screen shows how far you’ve travelled into a level, and the aim is to reach the goal at the end without colliding with anything, or exploding from over-farting.

You get three lives per game, and points are scored by how far you’re able to run. There’s no high score table, but the current highest score is shown on the title screen.

Fart Escape does have a decent title screen tune, but in-game sounds are restricted to a few spot effects, and the rasp that accompanies the player’s flatulent propellant.

In spite of the potential of the subject matter, Fart Escape is a bit of a follow-through, as far as good C64 games go. It could’ve been an okay game, but it lacks substance and variety, and is horribly difficult from the very beginning.

Ultimately Fart Escape is not much fun to play and doesn’t stretch the C64 in any way shape or form. Unfortunately the game is more of an “air biscuit” than an “absolute ripper“, and is unlikely to impress even those who think that farting is the funniest thing in the entire world.

More: Fart Escape on CSDb