While trying to interest my son in PICO-8, I ended up with code that let you fly a little ship around with Lunar Lander-style thruster control. I'm not sure that he's going to take the bait. But I couldn't leave it alone and had to turn it into a little game.
Visiting waypoints is not a very deep game. But I enjoy the mindlessness of it more than I expected.
The code is not consistent. I'm still figuring out what compromises are worth it in that little tiny editor window.
[edit 2016-12-14] added glitchy text effect, cleaned up some code, reversed the up and down buttons
Love it! The engine effects are very nice. The controls confused me at first. I was expecting up to be thrust forward instead of down. I'm pretty used to a lot of 2D space games with that control scheme. They usually have holding down as point in the opposite direction of your current velocity. That way you can easily bring your relative velocity to zero by thrusting forward.
Thanks! I'll consider swapping the up and down buttons. I went back and forth myself.
In my opinion, a game is far from being good if the opponent is the control scheme
Very challenging, but a fun little sim. I would make the suggestion to fire reverse rotation thrusters when not holding left/right though. Makes it impossible to slow rotation to 0 otherwise.
@MetoolDaddy I take it you don't like simulation games? ;) The real enemy in that game is physics, not the controls. The fun of a sim is learning to master something complicated.
Got all but two waypoints in 8:15 before I had to leave for work. Will try again later. Great work!
Thanks for the feedback!
The best approach for me has been to not try to stop rotation. Instead, pulse the front and back thrusters when the ship rotates through a useful orientation. It's not intuitive, and I usually get it completely backwards at least once per run and have to get it rein in the inertia after blowing past a checkpoint. I think my best run was about 4:20.
@miscbill: That's a pretty legitimate strategy for flying things: https://youtu.be/PptMrBFAO-A?t=40
I'm not convinced some of those pilots are mere mortals though. Heh.
[Please log in to post a comment]
