
Originally developed as a birthday gift for my nephew, Jackroid is a heartfelt indie game that blends classic action-platforming with Metroid-style exploration. After several requests and growing interest, I’ve decided to bring Jackroid to Steam. Free—as a thank you to everyone who’s supported me.
Revenue comes from in-game items and microtransactions, which our price-based model doesn't estimate. Copies below reflect the player base, not paid sales.
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About
A Retro-Inspired Sci-Fi Platformer Adventure — Now Free on Steam
Originally developed as a birthday gift for my nephew, Jackroid is a heartfelt indie game that blends classic action-platforming with Metroid-style exploration. After several requests and growing interest, I’ve decided to bring Jackroid to Steam—for free—as a thank you to everyone who’s supported my game dev journey. This is the first game that I built after quitting PCL work (aka automation) seven years ago.
Play as Jackroid—the first machine-human hybrid built for deep space exploration. Journey across mysterious galaxies and uncharted planets in search of your identity and purpose. Along the way, uncover hidden upgrades, solve environmental puzzles, and fight to protect the future of the human race.
🪐 Open Map Exploration
Inspired by the classics—discover secret areas and unlock powerful abilities as you traverse hand-crafted alien worlds.
🤖 Action-Platforming Combat
Fast-paced gameplay and satisfying controls designed to challenge and reward.
🧠 Puzzles & Upgrades
Use your wits and tools to access new paths and evolve your abilities.
🎭 Story, Characters & Cutscenes
Dive into a narrative about identity, humanity, and courage in the face of isolation.
🎮 Built With Love
Originally made for my nephew's 11th birthday—this is more than just a game, it’s a memory brought to life.
Part of the Goliath Corp franchise with upcoming games "Jaws of Hell" and "The Hive Pandemic"
Controls:
Arrow keys,
Z - Jump/Select,
X - Shoot
C - Rocket (You must first get the rocket upgrade, see the tailer)
V - Shrink
Enter - Map
Jackroid was developed 6 years ago, and while I’ve lost the most recent development build to a house fire, I want to keep the game alive and share it with more people. Until I rebuild it or release Jackroid 2, this game will remain free on Steam. Thanks for being part of this creative journey.
If you want to support me please check out my games on Steam! Like "Path of the Ory," and "Maid of Venia."
"The Hive Pandemic" will be coming out late this year or early next and is set in the same universe as Jackroid.
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Stats
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Reviews
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Fun game. I made it past the nuke, I did not arm it, fun choice mechanic. The game is really hard though, so thanks for making it free.
A metroid zero mission clone. There are too many bugs, the spawn rate of the enemies in the pipes is too high. Regardless, I've gotten it to work on the steam deck. Use the "jackroid for steam deck" profile on Steam deck to make the game playable. However, I recommend playing all of these metroid zero mission ROM hacks instead as they are all better than this game. https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvaniainfo/comments/1gc313w/list_of_good_metroid_zero_mission_rom_hacks/
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Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Jackroid, klasik aksiyon-platform oyununu Metroid tarzı keşiflerle harmanlayan içten bir bağımsız oyundur. Çerezlik.
♥♥♥♥♥
Awesome game and you have come so far as a dev. Maid of Venia is such an improvement. In case anyone is wondering this game is much better than what that d-bag is selling with his Reddit links.
как пройти в самом начале дальше ракет? работает кнопка z - прыжок, x - выстрел, c и v не работают, при том что я убил обоих жуков и с них выпало, но ничего c и v не делает а при нажатии m музыка отключается и обратно не вкл.... кажется не работает игра!
11歳の誕生日プレゼントとして作ったゲームということで何となく呪いの館みたいなエピソードを思い出したがこちらはちゃんとしている。 SDキャラのメトロイドみたいな感じの横スクロールアクションゲーム。F12でキャプチャしようとしたらChromeのあの画面みたいなの開いちゃってダメだった。その関係もあるのかゲームオーバーになると特定のフラグがクリアされる。ちなみにESCを押すとメニューに戻るので注意。 マップチップやマップの配置バグなのか演出なのかわからない部分がいくつかあるが、それ以外は割と普通。でも回数制限と探索系は相性が悪いと思った。 誕生日おめでとう。
By all accounts i should give this game negative review, it's buggy, unpolished and sorta frustrating but i can't... Because of a few reasons, first of which being that the game is completely free so i didn't lose anything playing this other than half an hour of time. Second reason which is the determining one is that this developer lost the source code for this game in a house fire, that's just heartbreaking and i don't wanna further make his life worse by beating this dead horse with a thumbs down. Thirdly the game is already at mixed ratings, with only 54% positive, which might feel discouraging for this developer's future. So i'm gonna give this game a thumbs up to encourage this person and whatever future endaveours they take. For the sake of having an actual review though with some valid criticisms i think the game has a few issues that should be a priority in future games. It's pretty buggy and unbalanced, with annoying enemy placements (especially the spammy bats that come out of the ground). The coliders are also off and the terrain feels like it's not properly aligned sometimes. The controls are very clunky on keyboard and on controler not every button has a use, with some things like shrinking not working whatsoever. Pausing the game also reloads your save with no confirm or undo button, if you press ESC or SELECT you'll lose progress which is rather annoying. It's not all bad though as the music is actually pretty decent and the pixel art is quite nice on the enviroments. I wish the game worked better because i think it could've been fun. The fact it was made for a nephew's birthday is very wholesome and the free upload to steam is a sign of gratitude by the dev, as listing a game costs a hefty amount of money (several hundreds afaik). I hope that this person has recovered from the tragic fire and that this small token of kindness can motivate them to persevere!
this game really sucks, its unfinished and there are no doors and the map is really glitchy