Wrapped up my second game, and this time it's an actual game! glares at Blocksy
PICOMMANDO
A top down twin-"stick" shooter, since I felt that wasn't a very active genre around here. Utilizes P1 controls (arrows) for movement, and P2 controls (ESDF) for shooting. This may change in the future, specifically when I get a PocketCHIP and need to figure out what layout will work best there.
Zombies will come running at you from the entrances and from the corners at various speeds and in various numbers. Firing excessively will drain your clock, but successfully killing a zombie will restore some time.
Features high score saving to cartdata to give some sort of goal/objective. My high is around 600 on this build, a no-prize for whoever beats it first.
I consider this 'finished' but I'm interested in feedback on the gameplay loop, i.e. is it too hard, are the zombies too fast, is there enough time on the clock, etc as well as feedback on the controls.
Enjoy!
(p.s. this is my first stab at making any sort of music in any capacity, ever. hopefully it's not too annoying)
(p.p.s. before anyone says so, yes, I know, my main function loop got completely out of hand and should be broken up into about 40 or so actual functions. This was my big lesson learned to apply to Game #3 lol. So use the source however you like but PLEASE try not to learn anything from it)
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Ha, nicely done...Commando was on my list of P8 remakes too! Hadn't thought how to do a 2-sticker shooter...that's tough on a keyboard.
The only thing that stuck out to me is the actual laser. I think I just feel like a bullet stream is better and gives more feedback than a line. Maybe a laser could be a power-up...like Smash TV.
Very cool though. If I ever get around to making my own flavor of arena shooter, I'll be coming back to this one for reference.
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yeah the laser originated because drawing a line was easier than anything else but then...i ended up liking how it looked and it stuck haha
weapon types is a fun idea tho..
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820 points! (note I really like reversing the weapon and movement controls to be on opposite sides for a laptop)
Would love to see powerups and maybe shields? Maybe just a grenade that acts like a "smart bomb" and kills everything?
Lots of fun!
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cant believe in making this i didnt even think of weapons/powerups. so integral to the genre!
starting to look like game#3 is going to be Super Picommando already...
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welp just got my pocket chip and near as i can tell there are no 2p controls mapped to the keyboard i can use, unless i'm just not finding them. anyone know of a doc somewhere that lists all the remaps for the pocketchip version of pico8?
so far i've found
z -> 0
x -> =
q -> /
but thats it
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Takes a while getting used to playing this kind of game with a keyboard! Very nice, though, and the music is both excellent and a good fit for the game.
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