You might already be whittling away a mind-numbing Wednesday afternoon at work with some internet thing or another, but if it's not this free 8-bit Game of Thrones platformer game, you're probably doing it wrong.

The game is the brainchild (and gift, really) of Abel Alves, an engineering draftsman and comics artist living in Uruguay. His game (available for free download here) is multi-level side-scroller complete with Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister (!), and even Davos Seaworth (!!) that plays like all the Sega games – Sonic the Hedgehog and the Wonder Boy series among them – that Alves grew up playing. The kicker? He made the best Game of Thrones videogame we've seen yet, despite having a degree in law – and not, you know, computer science.

"I've tried to make some videogames before, but I was not very happy with the result," Alves, 31, told WIRED in an email. "This time, I spent more time and effort thinking about reaching a larger public. I knew I had to use a franchise that is known, and Game of Thrones has a universe very easily adaptable to a platform game: Mythical creatures, great heroes, terrible battles. So the decision was easy."

A Spaniard by birth, Alves moved to Uruguay last year, looking for work in the wake of the extreme economic crisis in his home country over the past five years. There, he's been publishing his comics, like Zombess: Teenage Psycho Killer and the graphic novel Blood and Sun (spoiler: they're all in Spanish). He says it took about three months to put together his Westeros-set 8-bit wonder (well, it's closer to 16-bit, but that's OK). Using some free time from his day job (shhh!) he built the game using software called Arcade Games Studio, pixel art by Carl Olsson, and a couple of theme songs already released by 8-bit YouTube cover artist Floating Point. When it came to the gameplay he chose the characters closest to his heart, but more importantly those with the most adventurous arcs on the HBO show.

"My favorite characters are all Lannisters and Starks (I love Arya, Tyrion, and the Kingslayer), but I had to choose characters that have some action in the series," Alves said. "As much as I like Sansa, for example, I think it could not make a stage for her."

Lucky for us, though this is his first on-record attempt, it's likely not to be his last.

"I never imagined [it would] be so successful," he says. "I guess from now on I'll come at this with a little more intensity, maybe even find a career opportunity in this world. I love the idea of transforming current products into retro games, so I may follow that path."

Good, because we'd like to talk to you about Downton Abbey.