thanks to RealShadowCaster i made an update with a mini-map and a compass to help you to find all the bugs... enjoy
"Mum is missing" is a contribution to the LOWREZJAM 2024
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One optional theme is Peaceful, you'll find no fight, no lost life, no gameover, you just have to find your mom. It's a little very tiny platformer which will take you a few minutes to complete.
On Itch.io you can download the low booklet.pdf and make your own little fanzine.
you can grab a map too...
https://pbes-studio.itch.io/mum-is-missing
Nice style, peaceful exploration game... until I made two full circles of the map and got bored. Was at flight level 18 at time of stop.
Maybe add some hint or mini map when reaching the nest ? Or maybe an arrow pointing to nearest animal/bonus if nothing was caught in the last 3 minutes ?
Very nice. I beat the game with 15 out of 20 feathers.
I’m impressed by how much character you managed to get out of so few pixels.
Pleasantly peaceful. It felt nice getting stronger with every feather collected. And the ending was an interesting change of scenery.
Really nice game. It is lovely and peaceful with a nice dedication.
I spent far too long trying to get back to the nest and trying to get the game to end when that was achieved. Maybe I should read the title of the cart more carefully.... Your map did help too.
I think @RealShadowCaster is right and (if you can fit it in) a hint as to where to go next would be very welcome.
Very nice and peaceful game. The jump/fly mechanic is well done, and everything fits the theme nicely. Chapeau!
@cat-8 thanks !
@dredds lovely! thanks a lot!
@dejvino thank you to notice the scenario ! it's cool
friends, you put your finger on the problem, at the very beginning I wanted to make a game where we would get lost without a map, or anything... then I realized that for some people it annoyed them and that it didn't amuse them... so I implemented a compass... a compass that indicates which is the closest feather (and I had a bit of a hard time... but I succeeded)
but I didn't want the compass to have an effect like the minimap in a metroidvania or the radar in a GTA, namely you end up looking at only that, a very small portion of the screen....
So as a compromise, I said to myself I'll put it rather towards the end like that for people who want to explore everything they can leave... but it's not satisfactory... I hear you...
that's why i also draw a map...
@PBES-studio, I have a compromise to suggest :
At the start of the game, there's a strong emphasis on the nest. You fall from it and have very limited ability to go up, so it makes sense that it's a main objective.
The reward I suggest for reaching the nest is a mini map that shows only the squares the you've already seen and is only active when in the nest. This is not to hard too do : a LUA array with one cell per map square that tells if the cell has been seen, in _update set the 8x8 square around the player to visited, and when in the net, a grey rectangle overlayed with a bunch of tlines showing the minimap, based on the visited array.
If you want, I can mod the game with said modifications next week-end.
@RealShadowCaster have you try the compass? don't you think that i can place it in the nest for exemple?
@PBES-studio , as a reward for the nest, the compass would be very nice, but after that you'd follow the arrow and grab all 20 feathers... and be stuck again. You could make the compass point to the mother once you reach 20 feathers, but that's a relatively dull follow the arrow until you win 2nd half of game play. The missing grey areas on the map involve memorization and exploration.
@PBES-studio ,thought about the mini map, and at 64x64 resolution, you can only fit half the map onscreen at one pixel per tile.
Maybe have the bird close his eyes when in the nest, so we understand he is visualizing his memory of the place, and as he walks the nest left and right, the map scrolls left and right : so you'd see the map, the nest, and the bird with closed eyes.
left half of the map when the bird is at the left border of the nest, up to right half when at right border of the nest.
@PBES-studio , the mini map bonus looks cool. For the map itself, even though you see it drawn in the gif, i think that the "map" will end up fully white once you're done exploring. Might work better if drawn map pixels are some kind of average color of the 64x64 area it represents ?
I'll do a few tests to see what that would look like.
Here are the 64 potential colored mini maps in 8l 16c resolution.
None of them seem that readable to me. Using two sprites and doing a manual drawing would likely look much better.
Full screen mini map when in the nest would look much better.
when you would be in the nest you would see one side or the other of the world? is that what you say? so it takes up space to draw a big sprite... it's true that it's very pretty... and I see the idea in Hollow floor by Ahmed Khalifa
https://amidos2006.itch.io/hollow-floor
you see the map when you are at the save point that's a bit what you say...Well in any case... I'm doing a last update and it will be very good, thank you for the inspiration
A nice short hike... eh, nice short game. I got 100% on my first try but also got compass last and late. I wish the map and compass could be gotten earlier to encourage exploration.
But nice short exploration game nonetheless.
@PBES-studio , had my 7YO playtest the new version... No problem whatsoever. She went for the nest, got the "map", had no problem trying to turn it white, used the bug radar to get every bug, and used the black area of the map to find mum and win with 18 wings. She then did a 2nd run for 20 wings 30 bugs end. She never found the wing compass but really like the overall experience.
@Bloodbane yeah like i say in the itchio post the two inspirations are a short Hike and what the crow on playdate... i love them very much...
@RealShadowCaster so cool for your daughter, I'm happy that children play video games on PICO 8 ! my 10yo son didn't want me to put the compass for the insects, he thought that it should remain optional to collect the insects... on the other hand I removed the compass for the feathers with the map I thought that it was too much... but now I'm happy with the compromise between pure exploration and a little help to succeed in collecting everything with the map and the compass.
If you have gamepad you can test Don't fart don't die 2 with your kid, It was created so that parents could play with their children !!!
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