I'm very pleased to finally release TRAIN, a game I've been messing about with for months and months. It started out as an attempt to build a nice interface that would look right in a very old point-and-click simulation game, and grew a lot from that aesthetic. It's definitely one of the things I've made that I'm proudest of with PICO-8, as minimal as it seems.
You have a large control panel for a very small toy train. The controls are supposed to be something of a puzzle. There are no instructions, only hints, but suffice it to say that you can make the train move. Fuel is limited, so the goal is to maximise your distance. Ideally, you won't go hunting in the source to figure out what the buttons do, but the buttons used are these:
Left Shift
Z
X
S
D
F
UP
DOWN
You should see a definite effect from most button presses, so most of it will be fairly simple after an initial trial/error period.
It's a weird little game, but I hope you enjoy it.
brakes in danger? no!
wait, how do i stop?. stop!
you've inspired me to sit down with a piece of paper and reverse engineer it all. don't think i've ever been so stressed by moving just a few pixels around.
edit: makes me think of that don't touch anything game from last year.
@mzxio I'm glad you've enjoyed playing around with it! It wasn't really made with any grand design in mind, I just wanted to evoke a certain (slight) adventure game/mysterious buttons aesthetic. The easiest way to get that is with a thing that will move and be obviously affected by pressing buttons, so here we are.
Nice! I love the idea of 'mystery box' type games mixed with complex controls. Didn't realize this was the output of the 'famous' tutorial from the zine :) very cool. Thanks for giving me the idea of using the other p2 button mappings to add additional controls to the game!
@penthouse_guy
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! It wasn't so much the output of the the tutorial from the zine, as something I stripped apart (at one point in its developement) to create that tutorial. :D
Yeah, using the P2 buttons is handy when you have a lot going on. Happy to help!
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