Escape from 8-Bit High is DuckMadeOfWood‘s new 80s horror and conspiracy-themed point-and-click adventure. It’s a nostalgic trip back in time for anyone who was there the first time around and a glimpse into the past for anyone born after 1990. 

As with any good point-and-click, 8-Bit High is filled with puzzles that need to be solved in order to progress. With the demo having just been released unto the masses, and plenty of puzzles within to get you scratching your head, you might find yourself wondering what you’re meant to be doing next. 

When Escape from 8-Bit High gets a full release, this article will be updated to become a full walkthrough for the whole game. Until then, though, let’s dive into the demo. 

Where are the van keys?

As soon as you gain control over Hank, you’ll quickly learn that you need to figure out a way to get the keys for the van so that you can leave and pick up Alex and Duck. The first thing you need to do is talk to Uncle Seamus. 

It doesn’t matter what order you perform the dialogue in here; all roads eventually lead to the first and main puzzle of the demo. Eventually, Seamus will tell you that he needs a pizza to lure the turtles out of hiding, and he leaves it up to you to source the bait. 

How to get pizza

Of course, this is a point-and-click, so getting your hands on a pizza is not going to be as simple as grabbing a slice out of the fridge. Instead, you’ll need to think outside the pizza box and get creative.

Inside the house, there are a lot of hotspots that can be interacted with. Press space to see them all, and I’d recommend looking through all of them just in case you miss something that can be useful later. If you want to speed run getting a pizza, here’s how:

Click on the red flyer on the door of the fridge and use the eye icon to look at it, giving you the phone number for Fratelli Brothers Pizza. Then, interact with the phone to call up the pizza joint and place an order. Sadly, they won’t be able to make a delivery, so you’ll need to do something different. 

Before you can begin to craft a ‘pizza’, pick up the instruction manual on the floor beside the TV and look at it within your inventory to take note of the combo inside (shown above). This will come in handy pretty quickly. 

With that done, all of the items you need to make a ‘pizza’ are inside the house:

• Pancake
  • Pick up the microphone on the rug in front of the kitchen to enter a music battle with the pancake stuck to the wall above the kitchen. Perform the above-mentioned combo three times to defeat the Pancake, making it slide off the wall, then pick it up. (You can always use super easy mode to get this done without fuss!)
• Ketchup
  • Inside the fridge, Hank will automatically pick it up when you open the door.
• Polystyrene Beads
  • Over to the left of the room, behind Van Halen the cat, there’s a cardboard box. Use the hand icon to open the box, and Hank will pick up a handful of the packing peanuts inside. 

With those three items, you can successfully make a ‘pizza’ that’s good enough to please Uncle Hank, but there are a few steps to get through first. 

First, you’ll need to put the Ketchup on the Pancake, but the sauce is all stuck at the bottom of the bottle. To get it to the top, take the Ketchup from your inventory and use it with the washing machine towards the left of the room.

Then, within your inventory, combine the Polystyrene Beads with the almost-pizza. The last step is to take the ‘pizza’ from your inventory and put it in the microwave, resulting in something that could fool a turtle into believing it’s a delicious treat. 

You can then show the pizza to Seamus outside, who will tell you to put it in the pizza box on the path in front of the house. But you’re still not done, because now you need to make a turtle for Seamus to ‘kill’ to end his ‘mission’. 

How to make a turtle

To make a turtle target for Uncle Seamus, you’ll need to find all the following items inside the house:

• Balloon
  • In the upper right kitchen cabinet, automatically picked up by Hank when you open the door.
• Hot Sauce ‘La Bomba’
  • In the middle bottom cupboard in the kitchen, added to your inventory as soon as you open the door.
• Scissors 
  • Pick up the red folder on the table in the middle of the living room and flip to the second page, then click on the Scissors to pick them up.
• Bandana
  • Interact with the laundry basket on top of the washing machine and use the hand icon to pick up the red Bandana.
• String
  • Pick up the Cat Toy that’s on the floor close to Van Halen, then use it on the cat. It will break, leaving you with just a piece of String.
• White Marker
  • Look at the green couch close to the TV, finding the White Marker on the floor underneath

With this long list of strange items, you can now make a turtle target for Uncle Seamus. 

Begin by selecting the Balloon within your inventory and using the mouth icon to blow it up, then combine the inflated Balloon with the White Marker to draw a face on it. Then, combine the Scissors with the Bandana to cut out some eye holes and turn it into a mask. Finally, deflate the Balloon by using the hand icon. 

To make the Balloon float when inflated, have Hank drink the contents of the Hot Sauce ‘La Bomba’, then use the mouth icon on the Balloon again to fill it with hot air. Combine the re-inflated Balloon with the Mask you created out of the Bandana, then combine the resulting Turtle Effigy with the String to make it float. 

Head back outside and, with the ‘pizza’ inside the box on the path, click on the bush and hide inside it. Then pull out the Turtle Effigy and use it on Seamus so that he shoots it, ending his ‘mission’. When he’s done that, exit the bush and talk to him. Seamus will retrieve the van keys for you, and you can use them on the van to get to prom, effectively ending the playable part of the demo.