Hello y'all! My name is Lobo.
This is my first attemp at making a Pico-8 game.
Some aspects are a little rough (mainly the coding and the music), but I hope you like it!
EDIT: fixed a sound effect playing on ending screen when it shouldn't :)
This is an amazing little game with a surprising amount of game feel once it gets going. The level design and variety of obstacles are great too! I think the title undersells the game and you might lose some players' attention right at the start.
The ending was cute and I think you could add something similar at the start to guide the player into the start of the game. Maybe you can't control the balloon at first, you press X and the balloon floats to the next screen and then gives the player control?
What a charming 10mn little stroll that was ! The backtracking to find the key was also a nice touch. The level of polish is very impressive.
What I also liked about the game is the seemingly relaxed approach of the game build :
A lot of pico-8 games are all about pushing the boundaries : bigger map, more sprites, more colors, bluffing effects, optimizing code to do as much as possible per frame, pushing the sound engine, crazy token optimizations...
Your game feels comparatively stress free :
- a simple 4x8 full screen map, with a bit a scrolling here and there when the level design calls for it to make coherent "rooms".
- sprites used skillfully until there's no more and that's it.
- standard pico-8 palette except for beige that's replace by a blue, I think ?
The final result feels very "pico-8y", you feel the comfy charm of the beloved console alongside the charm of your game.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
@ridgek yeah, the key goes somewhere else, you need a little backtracking to find it ;)
@RealShadowCaster Thank you so much! That's exactly what I was aiming for: to play with Pico-8's limitations instead of against them. Maybe in the future I'll poke some of the console shanenigans to push its limits, but for now, while I'm still learning, I'll stick to simpler games like this one :)
Amazing first PICO-8 game. Excellent level design, sound, music, charm, etc. The only thing I struggled with was knowing which screens I could go to.
Is this just your first PICO-8 game or first game in general?
@SVEDEN11 It's my first Pico-8 game. I've made other games before using HTML and vanilla JS, but nothing too complex, only small minigames
Crazy that this is your first PICO-8 game. It feels so nice to play and looks really terrific! Very well done.
Yeah I loved this.
As others have said this is almost a perfect cozy pico-8 game. Not to demanding, simple idea perfectly executed. echoing @RealShadowCaster comments..
Great game, so fun and charming!
The controls feel real good. Also, I am curious about how you managed the string physics, they look great.
@Elfamir : when you look at the string, it feels elastic, the length of the rope varies. If you move the balloon sideways while maintaining the balloon's altitude, the lower point of the string stays at the same altitude, that's how you can figure out the trick : the string is a sequence of small segments, the points joining the segments are moving exactly as the balloon, but with a delay that increases the further down the wire the point is. Very simple and effective, no complex rope gravity or elasticity computations needed.
@Elfamir It's exactly how @RealShadowCaster described! Nothing fancy going on with the string physics: I use linear interpolation (lerp) to set a few points below the balloon and draw a line between them! The lerp changes based on percentage, so it always stays a little behing the ballon's position when its moving, giving it this elasticity @RealShadowCaster mentioned
A delightful and polished game, especially the different music and hazards of each environment. Gold star.
Lovely little game, full of charm. Thoroughly enjoyed every one of the five minutes I spent with it. Agree with everyone else that this is a perfect PICO-8 game that plays to its strengths rather than fighting its limitations.
Balloon tips
How do they make an balloon game?
Tip 1:
Tip 2:
Tip 3:
Final results:
This is great!! Thank you for sharing this. I love how it starts very innocent, but soon gets more dramatic, with unlocking secret passageways and dangerous environments. This 'simple' game had me hooked! The reduced UI really helps the immersion; like how the timer only shows for a short time after dying. I didn't realize the balloons were checkpoints (I though they were extra lives) until my first death. Some of the passages felt quite challenging - but I managed to finish in around 9 minutes. The secret behind the locked door is wonderful!! Thanks again.
Looked everywhere for another secret ending... No death+rainbow+key didn't do the trick.
Guess I'll look into the code now.
By the way, my daughter (7) loves this game and asked me to bring the frog from frog king into this game, and your balloon into the frog king game. Expect some crossover mod of the two in the future. (September maybe ?)
beautiful artwork very cozy, delightful to play. it feels polished. spoiler image
Great game! The music is good, and its not TOO hard, and I tried a no death speedrun, which was was frankly horrifying, cause I had to keep reseting the game if I made a small mistake. ;P
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