Hot Diggin'
A game in less than 1kb for PICO-1K jam 2022
Help Digson get away from the falling lava! Dig as fast as you can! Why is the lava falling? Who knows!
HOW TO PLAY:
- arrow keys (or gamepad DPAD) - move left and right
- action button (Z,C, or N on keyboard, "A" on XBOX gamepad) - dig!
- you can dig left and right by holding that direction while digging. Otherwise, you will try to dig down. You can only dig when your feet are on hard ground.
- Your only goal is to outrun the falling lava. Touching red blocks will make the lava run faster. You can dig through red blocks, but doing so will GREATLY speed up the lava, so try to avoid this.
- If you lose, pause (ENTER OR START) to restart.
Thanks to https://liquidream.itch.io/ for hosting. Game made with pico-8.
Please set it so if you touch the lava blocks there is no penalty, @paloblancogames. Currently if you touch a lava block it acts as if you were digging through it and speeds up the lava.
I think that’s the point @dw817, and even though it’s really hard, I think it would be way too easy if you only had to dig through it to speed up the lava.
This is a pretty fun (though very hard) game for a 1k limit!
Well, @Munchkin. It could just be I'm not good at these sorts of action games. There are also points where you cannot avoid touching the lava blocks at all making the game a bit more random than skill when the creeping lava touches you.
In any case for its size and scope, it's a good game and definite gold star work.
@dw817 Yeah, my vision is that touching the blocks is a small penalty, and tunneling through them is a big one. I can't make it very far in this (i've made it to level 6). I could remove that effect,but that just makes you last longer, and I think the average gamer has seen everything this cart has to offer within 30 seconds lol.
The random generation is not great - there are points where you MUST touch the blocks, you MUST tunnel through them, and you occasionally MUST tunnel through a huge hunk of them, all but guaranteeing your demise.
This, like the actual Mr Driller, is a little too twitch-focused. I would like to explore this concept more and have it be about WHICH blocks you drill, rather than how fast you can do it.
This 1kb cart is so fragile, I am worried it will explode if I make any more changes lol.
How about this, @paloblancogames ?
Ice blocks.
You don't get anything by sitting on them but if you DIG through them then the lava slows slightly, giving the player a definite goal to find these ice blocks and dig through all they can find. Naturally they would be rare as gold nuggets.
You could also use vector lines or streaming shots when you dig through an ice or lava black, that is lines shooting upwards to where the lava is showing that you are directly affecting the lava flow with what you are touching or digging through.
@dw817 sounds like you are looking for an incentive, to counteract the only interactable entity in the game right now, which is an impediment.
I like the idea alot... but i only have 6 or so bytes left. I also agree that an extra signal should indicate that the lava is flowing faster/slower. I might mull this over before the submission date closes.
@paloblancogames I might try making a game with this concept and gameplay but without the byte limitation if you don’t mind. The idea could be expanded upon so much!
@Munchkin By all means have at it! FYI, this is heavily based on a game series called "Mr. Driller." There is even a pico-demake of this already, with much cleaner code! https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=77021
Since I was trying to hit a 1kb limit, my code here is a total mess to read. I can dig up a cleaned-up version if you specifically want to jump off this code here.
@paloblancogames No need for that, though thanks for the offer!
I remember playing pico-driller now actually, but I think it’s gameplay felt very much different, the obstacle being not getting crushed and keeping your health percentage up, while in this one’s it’s speed.
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