A run-and-gun platformer through Mictlan, the Mexica (Aztec) underworld. In the myths, Xolotl, god of lightning and of the evening star, guided the dead on their four-year journey down through its nine levels in the shape of a dog; the xoloitzcuintli, Mexico's hairless dog, is named for him. Here you play as his xolo. It's printed like a risograph, in one red-orange ink on cream paper with a second ink for each level, and every line is drawn in code.
All ten levels: from the canals of Xochimilco down through the River of the Dead Dogs, the Clashing Mountains, Obsidian Hill, the Wind of Knives, the Field of Arrows, the Jaguar Jungle, Templo Mayor and the River of Black Water to Mictlan and its lord. Everything moves to the music, and each level ends with a guardian. Each hit costs a leg or the tail; they grow back. When the Lord of the Dead lets you pass, the colour comes back. Find the jade glyphs hidden along the way and a bonus cenote dive opens.
The story is invented, but it's built on a real one: Quetzalcoatl going down to Mictlan to fetch the bones of an earlier people, so that new people could be made. The gods here set Xolo trials rather than fighting him, and each level's card tells a little of the myth or history behind it.