(Click to expand)
This is part of a bigger project I've been working on for quite some time now. This pico8 game is a mini-game where the events depicted in it which will be accompanied by a comic book(WIP). The events present here on the game happens in the comic, some four pages of it. The project consists of several comic books, some games and a podcast. The whole thing revolves around a war, now cold, between a race known as Zeta Reticulans and a political group known as The Union for control over reality. It's also about Omnia, a company founded as a revenge plot by two genocide survivors that became the biggest conglomerate ever know.
You know, the usual megalomaniac kind of project we all like to make :D
Credits
A huge Thank you to all the people that helped me with art and music, I really enjoyed working with you talented and amazing human beings!
Game Cover Art by Fausto
Insta
Game Art by Carolina Sayuri
Linktr
Music "Sector Unknown" and "Escape Velocity" by Gruber
Gruber
Comic book for this game
Still WIP, as soon as it’s finished I post a link to it here.
Cover
Technical stuff
I wrote this game over the course of several days, some minutes a day. Since many weeks passed from one coding day to another, the overall quality of the code varies dramatically hehe, some days I was very worried about token count, others I was like “they [tokes] are here to be used!” In the end I used almost all the available tokens to make a game that is very simple, but I liked doing it! I also really loved pico 8! And since it’s my first complete game using pico8, I like it despite its many flaws :D
Cut scene coroutines
By @dddaaannn
Tutorial
Original post
Although my code uses the overall idea, it's now a very modified and somewhat expanded version of the original. If someone is looking for a good way to make cut scenes with coroutines, a better option is to look at the original article
Sprite rotation
I changed it a little, so now it only handles 1x1 spr(for speed) and ignores color 15(my transparent color)
Big monster
Polygon code and idea for movement comes from @krajzeg
Cart
For the sake of speed and organization within my game I had to split the original drawing code into two, for logic and draw. I also changed the tentacle shape, added an edge(contour) to it and added a sprite for the tentacle’s tip, so it looks like it has spikes. I also did many other tweaks for it to respond to gameplay actions.
Px9
Gold star for an incredibly polished cart, with smooth play and very atmospheric.
I think more than half of my deaths come from falling into pits. At times trying to keep health up feels like a waste of time when that keeps happening. Sometimes two consecutive lightning bolts create pits spaced so the second one is impossible to avoid, because I'm already in the air jumping over the first. Could you make it so falling into pits just causes damage and bounces you out to keep running?
Despite that, I like the transitions between jumping over the blocks and avoiding the thunderstorm, and that some lightning strikes are among the clouds, so only some of the time do they make obstacles.
Do you have plans for the down arrow on its own to do something? If not, could this cause the slide action instead of needing to press down+jump? On the other hand, there are times it would be nice to be able to press down+shoot for a lower shot, if you can spare any tokens.
Here is my best score. This is one time I did last until I ran out of health.
@Cowirrie WOW you totally smashed my score!!!
@Cowirrie I think more than half of my deaths come from falling into pits. At times trying to keep health up feels like a waste of time when that keeps happening. Sometimes two consecutive lightning bolts create pits spaced so the second one is impossible to avoid, because I'm already in the air jumping over the first. Could you make it so falling into pits just causes damage and bounces you out to keep running?
- Fair! but, since the player is supposed to be in a bridge, way up in the sky, the bounce mechanics would be 'weird', but what about this: I will check if the player is on the ground before letting a lightning bolt hit the bridge, and give it a small delay before another one can happen, this way I will ensure at least a walkable path between pits. Sounds good?
A page from the comic where the player is walking this bridge:
@Cowirrie Do you have plans for the down arrow on its own to do something? If not, could this cause the slide action instead of needing to press down+jump? On the other hand, there are times it would be nice to be able to press down+shoot for a lower shot, if you can spare any tokens.
- The reason I used down+jump for the slide is megaman's fault :D When I started thinking about the game and all the major actions run, jump and slide. Also (jump and shoot :D) Megaman was the first thing to come to mind and, since you press down+jump to slide in mm, here we are hehe. About shooting while sliding, well, I will change it and give it a try to see how it makes me feel hehe. Something tells me it will make it too easy, I have to try :D
@Cowirrie Gold star for an incredibly polished cart, with smooth play and very atmospheric.
Thank you so, so much for your feedback, I will change the mechanics of the lightning bolt!
@jonatassantos Thanks!!!
As suggested by @Cowirrie, I changed it a little bit, now the lightning bolt only strikes the ground if the player is walking on it, i also added a tutorial on the controls right at the beginning. Did some minor tweaks as well, but nothing big.
I didnt get the slide at all on my first tries. I would suggest to let the player do it with one button, bc as far as I played, you only need three buttons: jump, shoot and slide, right? so this could even be mapped to multiple buttons to let each player use what they are comfortable with. eg:
- shoot: A / right
- jump: B / up
- slide down / left
the music is nice, the intro conveys much character - I will give this some more tries :)
@AncientPixel Thanks for the "playtesting"! Beginning from the end hehehe, yes the music is awesome, @Gruber is just amazing! And i'm happy you liked the intro, so many tokens went there :) Now, about the controls, I was looking for a megaman(ish) kind of control, that's why I left the slide action as it is. I modified the game to put an on screen tutorial, but I'll evaluate your suggestion, since many already told me they found the controls akward, maybe my megaman addiction made me think it is natural while it it's not.
Thanks \o
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