Hi all,
Now that family stuff is a bit more under control, I want to fire this up again! I've got limited availability but I'll do my best to give prompt replies. If in doubt, stick to the guidelines below.
Let's make a 17-in-1 cart of minigames! 16 games plus an over-arching "meta" game to tie them all together, give the player a "final score" etc.
I've built a space-themed meta-game already (see below). I'm looking for people to make some minigames for the player to explore. The first 16 (serious and functional) submissions that conform the the rules will be added to the cart.
Please read the rules fully before submitting your game. I'm flexible to a certain extent but please check with me first!
Games finished so far: 6 of 17
Some links:
Discord: https://discord.gg/rncwcsR
Twitter hashtag is #17in1jam
List of resources currently being used: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fbx8x01bvg2g3z8/17-in-1%20memory%20usage.xlsx?dl=0
Help with reducing tokens: https://github.com/seleb/PICO-8-Token-Optimizations
Help with reducing characters: https://pastebin.com/MVhr16td
Main Rules:
-436 tokens each
-3901 chars each
-865 compressed chars (about 5.6% of cart)
-4x4 chunk of sprites from any of the 4 tabs on the Pico-8 editor. See resources spreadsheet for what's being used.
-16x16 section of map from the top half of map only, to avoid corrupting the sprites. This is flexible, some devs aren't using the map, so ask me and I can give you more. See resources spreadsheet for what's being used.
-4 SFX in a row, aligned to every 4 (0-3, 4-7, 8-11 etc). The shell cart uses 4 too so I guess the last dev to add sound will need to find 4 slots that are left over from the others.
-4 music patterns in a row, aligned to every 4.
-no real limit on cartdata other than check the spreadsheet and consider other devs.
These are rough estimates, and the more that devs come in under budget, the better for all of us.
If we have stuff left over I'll offer it out as required and try to get some fancy transition GFX from some of the tweetjam legends on Twitter.
More rules:
-Please please ASK if you are not sure.
-Please use update() rather than update60(). Yes it's not ideal.
-Do not use single-letter variable names, other than h/i/j/k/v/w/z which you can use for loop indices etc.
-If you need more global variable names, pick a single letter to use as a prefix for all of your names, so if you choose 'f', your variables can be 'fa', 'fb', 'fc', 'fscore' and so on. See the resources spreadsheet to find out which prefixes have already been taken.
-Local variables you should be able to call whatever you like.
-ALL of your global variables need to be declared and initialised inside _init() so that I can just call _init() to reset your game.
-You MUST call my global function ret(n) on win/lose/die/timeout/whatever, so it can switch back out to the meta game. n should be a number 0-128 (inclusive) that represents how well the player did. This number will be used to refuel the player's ship and increase their final score.
Don't use any controls outside of the Pico-8 standard, i.e. no mouse controls etc.
-Use the following function references, defined for you to save chars:
e=all f=flr m=camera p=print r=rnd |
-@UncleSporky has provided the following "pretty print" function which I've made global. Feel free to call this in your code:
function pp(h,i,j,k) ?h,i-1,j,0 ?h,i+1,j ?h,i,j-1 ?h,i,j+1 ?h,i,j,k end |
-If you turn something on (via fillp(), pal(), etc) be sure to turn it off again. Exceptions are color() (assume this is regularly overwritten) and palt() / camera() (these are reset on game exiting via ret()).
-Please make it clear when you post the cart which resources you have used and where they are.
-Please make something especially for this, rather than posting something you recently completed. Existing ideas are fine.
-There is no need to produce something space-themed, as the "anomalies" (see below) are meant to take the player to random dimensions. In fact, the more eclectic, the better :)
-Make the controls intuitive, or provide tooltips.
-Each game should only play through once before booting the player back out to the meta-game. One playthrough should only take 60-90 secs because the overall aim of the cart is to play all the games in a row.
-During gameplay, at (0,123) on the screen, display a string that says "GAMENAME (YOURNAME)", max 32 chars
-Make it as polished as you can!
I've made the shell of the cart, and the "meta" game is 99% complete. See below:
In the meta-game you fly around in space looking for "anomalies", each of which takes you to a random minigame. You play the minigame only once and, win or lose, the anomaly closes and you have to find another one. The aim of the game is to close all 16 anomalies and get the highest score. Flying uses up fuel, as does touching the aliens, but you get fuel bonuses (and points) depending on how well you do at each of the games. The anomalies are at fixed positions, but there's no map, so you might want to jot down their locations as you find them (deliberately old school!).
This shell cart takes up roughly 1202 tokens, 3112 chars and 1511/15630 compressed chars (about 9.8% of cart), these stats are what I've used to work out your budgets.
I hope you have lots of fun!
Neil
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