Woo! 1.0!
I really appreciate all of the feedback you guys have given me.
- Use bombs to destroy inactive beacons
- A beacon that is currently being used as a checkpoint cannot be destroyed. To destroy the last beacon, you'll need to use the checkpoint inside the ship's cockpit, which will deactivate all beacons.
- The "double jump" for the game is actually just an upwards attack (with a power up). It can be used in conjunction with the roll to clear pretty good sized gaps.
- Once you get the dodge-roll, you can use it to overcome some fall damage if you roll as soon as you hit the ground (parkour!)
Hope you like it! Any and all feedback is always welcome.
I love the look of this so much. Incredibly impressive animation in such a tiny sprite.
Looks really fun! I love that little character! Keep going!
I really like what I've played so far. I enjoy the emptiness, and the isolation that comes across with the minimal music and sfx, as well as using 128x128 to really emphasize scale. I have never felt so small in a Pico-8 game. That's something. Nice work!
Nice. I tried to come up with a decent tiny avatar once and couldn't make something visually believable, but you've definitely proved it's possible. Looking forward to more.
Hey thanks for all of the kind words! I appreciate how open friendly the pico-8 community has always been. You guys are swell.
Great game ! I like the jump physics, feels perfect ! The small size of the hero make this platformer special !
i died at the first boss, loaded the save before the spikey hallway, and when i made it back, the boss room was locked. is this intentional?
aside from that, phenomenal work. i'm definitely very jealous of your talent.
@DrakeGraves: Great catch, I definitely need to fix that, it sounds like the doors aren't resetting when you die. Thanks for looking!
man though, i just really can't get over how promising this is. do you mind, can i ask, do you have a background in coding? that is to say, are you a computer science hobbyist or college grad/student? or, are you like some others of us in the community, where it isn't necessarily your cup of tea, but you love games, so you push through?
looking at some of your code, it looks like you really know a thing or two, so i'd assume the former. but, i'm interested to know how you got there. thanks!
@DrakeGraves: I run a web design and development studio by day, so some of the front-end dev stuff helps a ton. My background (and degree) is strictly graphic design, so there's definitely a ton of "failing until I don't fail" going on under the hood.
The Pico-8's awesome for that kind of workflow though, because you have to get weird sometimes to make things fit, and willing to try things and compromise when they don't work out.
Also, the code you're looking at is minified with picotool to save some character space. I'll throw the raw code on here in a minute if you want to dig around.
Really nice so far!
Early warning: if you plan a 40 mins play, a lot of your time-based counters might wrap around!
@freds72 Thanks!
I haven't made a game at this scale before (on pico or otherwise); I'll have to dig through the code and make sure I deal with any counters.
I feel that, I thought learning to code would be my biggest obstacle, but it turns out it's learning to suspend an inordinate number of moving parts over an extended duration of time without having a mental breakdown and/or and giving up.
Still waiting on that code! I really do wanna see. Unless you changed your mind, I'd respect if you didn't want to post it after all
@DrakeGraves fairly simple actually, just use the timer pattern on each entity you want to control:
-- global time
time_t=0
actors={}
for i=1,32 do
add(actors,{t=rnd(90),visible_t=0,x=rnd(128),y=rnd(128)})
end
function _update()
time_t+=1
for a in all(actors) do
-- timer elapsed?
if a.t<time_t then
-- visible for some time
a.visible_t=time_t+rnd(30)
-- "think" time
a.t=a.visible_t+rnd(90)
end
end
end
function _draw()
cls()
for a in all(actors) do
if a.visible_t>time_t then
print("-o-",a.x,a.y,7)
else
print("---",a.x,a.y,1)
end
end
end
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Note: you should start your own thread on this topic!
@DrakeGraves the raw code was up for a while, but it looks like I accidentally removed the cart. I threw it back up there for you under the current cart.
Enjoy!
Good to see this one taking shape.
I feel the transition to the "you died" state a bit too "brutal" (e.g. I can't even see why I died). Suggest to let the game run for half a sec before moving back to respawn point.
Also, what is the point of new game/continue options? Why not use the default 'reset save' menu entry and just have a start button?
Gameplay: I am stuck on how to reach the 'frogs' on the right of the level. Looks like it needs a double jump (that I don't have yet) or an extended jump (that I can't make - is the combination really button+down+right/button+right? If so I can't get the timing right).
bug: after multiple death, the screen is stuck where I died and I have no option but to reset pico to continue.
Hey, thanks for playing!
-
I think you're right about the death being too abrupt. I might need to find some tokens and make that happen.
-
I know about 'reset cart', but Is there a 'reset save' that I'm unaware of that removes saved cart data? That would be useful in freeing up those tokens!
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There's an ability pickup that gives a one-tile boost when attacking upwards that allows you to access a few hard-to-reach areas when paired with the extra momentum you get from rolling. I was messing with alternatives to the standard double-jump, but may still experiment when I start to build the full, non-pico Crater. I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's opinions on the ability set too!
- I've run into the death bug and should have it fixed in the next upload!
Okay - I see where you are heading to and agree, it offers an interesting alternative.
I managed to pull it but that's really tricky to get right consistently + the fall damage makes it really punishing in case of failure (as a failed large jump will end in an equally large fall!).
Some more hint on what to do could be handy (I finally managed the frogs, to be stuck by some green "webby" blocks?!?)
I've actually got a few messages in place in the current build that offer a few explanations. It sounds like they desperately need to be in there.
-
The green webby things can be slashed with the sword
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I've updated the collision detection, which fixed a few odd things... including making the ability to roll out of a fall (down + jump when you hit the ground) and take less damage much easier to perform.
- I'll try and get the newest build uploaded here soon!
I am stuck after the getting the doge roll. how do i get rid of the vine-looking things?
Also stuck at dodge roll. Coyote jumped back to the spaceship and no double jump to clear the lava pit with low ceiling.
@st33d Dodge rolling increases your speed temporarily, so you can dodge roll, then make longer jumps.
@JustFire45 Okay. I come to a dead stop after dodge rolling and it's almost impossible to move. I never would have figured this out by myself.
I've managed to get the long jump to happen but I can't do it consistently.
@st33d It's pretty finicky if you're playing on the web player (in my experience, 60fps is really laggy unless you're playing from splore)
So the input for the long jump would be something like this:
- (down + jump) to start the roll
- while rolling, release (down) and hold the direction you want to run
- you should now be running at a faster speed for 2-3 seconds before losing momentum and settling back into the default movement speed
- your momentum only decreases while you're on the ground, so you can perform long jumps during the sprint (and even chain them together to move a little bit faster - just minimize your time on the ground to stretch the timer out)
Hope that helps!
its impossible to get up from the hole where you get the up dash. You can't dash high enough
 (1).gif)
This game gotta have some ass controls, it’s prob just me but jumps that need sword boost r like impossible, I literally have to time the slash like perfectly, L game
First time casual player feedback:
With damage boost and roll jumps it is possible to sequence break, I managed accidentally to get early to the area where later you get the "defy gravity bombs add-on", could not go back and got softlocked.
With a good jump it is possible to go out of bounds on the top right screen, all the way to bottom right, and get stuck.
If you die but pause and load last save before the death screen, you die again shortly after reloading the save.
After going trough all the game and not sure what to do, I did every room again, stumped I came here and read some comments, one mentioning a boss and I'm like...
...Them I saw the readme explaining I'm supposed to break all those little things I used to save. So please consider putting this information right on the start.
Overwall it was a great time, thanks, hope you keep making great games.
Have a nice day.
I`m stuck :( I got the roll avoid thing.. but seems I can't jump high enough to get anywhere else
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