PICROID is a procedurally generated metroidvania-inspired platformer.
Each playthrough offers a unique map, where your goal is to explore and survive as long as possible without shrinking to death.
There are no enemies or boss fights—just pure exploration and challenge.
This is a beta version, and the game is still a work in progress. Feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Controls
Changelog:
- Beta 0.7: Tweaking the shop | Minor bug fixes
- Beta 0.6: New game mechanic: coins & shop | Improved gates | Level design is slightly easier | misc bug fixes
- Alpha 0.5: Fixed health restoring minor bug
- Alpha 0.4: New levels change color, fixed a wall jump glitch
- Alpha 0.3: Fixed top collision minor bug
Notes:
If you're curious about how the map generation works or want to edit rooms in the sprite editor, let me know.
I'm running out of token, this might be the last beta version before PICROID 1.0
Nice work with the procedural levels and 3D effect.
I got as far as unlocking the Wall-Jump.
I'm probably the worst platform game player around, so I didn't make it past level one, but I had fun trying! I'm a sucker for a good minimalist game and this is a really well-done minimalist game!
This is really cool! The progression is really well done with the random generation, I managed to get the dash and double jump before dying my second attempt. It's pretty difficult.
I think it might be a good idea for a dotted line of the gates to remain once opened? Sometimes I don't know how much opening a gate color has actually helped me because they all disappear.
Thank you all so much for your comments and feedback!
I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the difficulty!
I agree—the game definitely gets exponentially more difficult once you unlock the wall jump. I'll work on fine-tuning the wall-jump level design to make it a bit more accessible.
Did you notice the hidden rooms? They have full health restoration bonuses, which might help during your run.
Munchkin
That's a great suggestion about the dotted gates remaining visible after being unlocked. Unfortunately, implementing it would require significant changes, as my collision algorithm is based on pixel color. Unlocking gates simply turns the color invisible using palt(). I'll see if I can find a way to make this work in the future.
Let me know if you'd like any further tweaks!
This is nicely-designed and the 3D effect is simple but surprisingly convincing, good work!
I think maybe providing some slight visual cue for the hidden rooms could help. I had no idea they existed, and checking random lava pools seems pretty risky in a game with sparse health refills.
I got to level 2! But I don't think I'm likely to get to level 3.
Nice job Cowirrie!
I'm currently working on a coin-based collectible system that will allow you to purchase bonuses in a shop—such as reduced damage or extra lives. I’ll keep you updated on my progress!
Awesome. The drop shadow effect is slick. Is it significantly more complicated to achieve that than parallax scrolling? I'd love to add something similar to my game.
The level layout is procedurally generated, with rooms being randomly selected from the sprite sheet.
Each room is designed as an 8x8 sprite. The SSPR function is used to scale these sprites and then centered on the camera's position:
- For the background, the sprites are scaled to 9x their original size and a color swap is applied.
- For the actual level design, the sprites are scaled to 10x their original size.
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