Hello and Happy New Year!
I'm new to PICO-8 but I've been dabbling with coding and game development for most of my life. So far, I'm really impressed with this platform and the community around it. I'm looking forward to creating and sharing with all of you!
Without further ado, I present my first PICO-8 cart. Thanks to @dw817 for the Applecart prompt/challenge! Little projects like this are a great way to learn and engage with the community.
Saucer Invasion is a game in which you shoot missiles at flying saucers. You can move the silo horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fire vertically at your foes. Your score for hitting a target is based on its height and speed, and there's a penalty for missing. The game ends when you run out of either time or ammunition. This is explained in a big ol' wall-o-text intro at the beginning, in keeping with the spirit of the original 1977 Apple ][ game that served as inspiration.
I put a lot of comments in the code but there could be more. The code is a bit sloppy, I'm sure, but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I'm happy with how the sprites came out, but my sound composition could definitely stand improvement. (BTW, I love the PICO-8's retro sound! I could play around in the SFX editor for hours.)
Constructive criticism always welcome. Enjoy!
Oh my !! This is outstanding ! I ... well, I was actually hoping to see some carts reproduce what the Apple did with only the purple color graphics but you went above and beyond the call of duty BIG TIME !
Wholly smokes this is lovely ! So very nice !
Definitely putting out a link for this on the Applecart.
Here is a gold star you most certainly earned it ! ⭐
Seems like there might be an issue with the UFO getting its Y pos. And maybe reduce the frame count for each missile state. Otherwise, nice work. Thank you for sharing.
@dw817 Thanks for the kind words! I was thinking at one point it might be fun to draw the game elements with lines and rects like it was probably done in the original. Maybe I'll add a "classic" graphics mode. ;-)
@chizel9000 The UFO can move randomly up or down 0, 1, or 2 pixels each frame. I did this to add some challenge (and because I think the saucer made small vertical movements in the original) but I agree it looks jittery and could use some smoothing out. Obviously the aliens found our espresso. ;-) Not sure what you mean about the frame count for each missile state, can you clarify?
@Nosnibor28 im not quite sure but when u launch the missiles its either the sspr or the drawengine() or how u initMissile()... thats about the best i can do for now XP
@chizel9000 I'm not seeing any graphical glitches or anything there. Is that what you're experiencing?
Another thing I can guess is that you're talking about the speed of the missile as it exits the silo. It is slower during the first stage of flight (by design). Maybe the problem is that the rocket is so tall that it reaches its separation point too soon after launch, so you only get to see the bottom stage briefly before the warhead zooms upward. Does that line up with what you're seeing?
Due to a family obligation I might not be able to work much on this before Sunday, but I'll definitely be factoring in your feedback as I try to polish it up. Thanks again! :-)
@Nosnibor28, I'm not seeing any problems here. Played your game quite thoroughly. It's possible @chizel9000 is referring to the erratic vertical movement.
Personally I think that adds to the challenge and lets you know how flighty the UFO is.
Once again you really did go full avocado on this. Superb work !
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