WARNING!
Stage 21 contains full-screen strobe effects.
About
Pico-Tron is my second Pico-8 game, and is an homage to the arcade classic Robotron, with a few extra twists added. Battle your way through 21 stages of chaos and destroy the evil genius Eugene!
Controls
Press 
to move your super destruction robot around the screen. Tap 
to rotate shot anti-clockwise, tap 
to rotate shot clockwise.
Collect These Things
Destroy These Things
Tips
- Keep moving! It's easier for enemy homing shots to hit you if you're not moving.
- Prioritise the most deadly enemy types on each stage.
- Keep your distance from fast enemies that move unpredictably.
- A bonus is awarded on each stage if you collect all innocents before destroying a single enemy.
- To score high, you need to quickly eliminate the enemy that destroys the innocents.
- If you focus only on score, the game will be much more difficult!
Downloads
Downloads for Windows, Linux, OSX, and Raspberry Pi can be found on my itch.io page:
All-Clear
Below is a video of the game being completed that might be useful for anyone needing gameplay tips. WARNING! flashing strobe effects on stage 21!
Updates
v1.0 - Initial release
v1.1 - Fixed a bug where high score wasn't saved if player completes the game.
Just gotta say this is an exceptionally compelling and well crafted game!
Obviously the concept isn't particularly new, but it's just so incredibly PLAYABLE! I have it on heavy rotation on my PC and plan to play it on my Clockwork Pi once I get PICO-8 upgraded there :)
Thanks for the kind words. There was a distinct lack of games of this type on pico-8, which is what motivated me to make it.
Very nicely done ❤️
You beat me at making a lacking Robotron type of game as I'm currently demaking Destruction Carnival :D
Automatic fire and the use of buttons to rotate is an interesting choice!
Very well done - good take on Robotron.
Neat sprite work.
I would be a bit more reserved on the button+fire direction thing!!
I took the button+lock direction for Nuklear Klone :)
@freds72 Interesting you felt that way WRT the button+fire mechanic, I actually thought that the slight quirkiness of it actually improved the playability :)
it works - just that I am more confortable with button/direction scheme.
I think your scheme works best for your scenario. In your game you have more space to change direction, due to scrolling, to accommodate a change in directional firing based on player orientation.
Would be 100% better with friendly fire being a gameplay element. But still great work :-)
I did consider that at one point but thought it might annoy more than entertain!
This is an awesome game! I love single-screen games for their simplicity and focus on action. Excellent job!
It's a bit hard to distinguish between friend or foe (a consistent color scheme would have helped there), but not doing friendly-fire makes that almost a non-issue.
I had no idea the levels were 21 with an ending, I would have tried harder on my first playthrough. I would maybe add a little emphasis on the level progression as you transition between levels? That would help knowing there's an end-goal you're working towards.
Love them chunky outlines on those sprites so much! <3
Very early on I had the same issue and was sometimes colliding with certain yellow enemies thinking that they were the things you had to save. I haven't had it happen recently though. If anyone has any ideas how to improve that aspect, I'm all ears! The things you collect all have the same colour, and are not coloured the same as any of the enemies, so I'm not sure why we confuse them with enemies early on.
About progression, this is also something I thought about early on and forgot about. I'd like to scroll the stage number up the screen as the player and enemies are spawned into each new stage. If anyone knows how I can scale text so it would be more prominent I might add that. There are currently zero tokens to spare, but I may be able to do a few optimisations here and there to free a few up.
Thank you! The in-game music was done with just two channels, so I could use the other two for sound effects:
Lovely game. Well polished, good variety of enemies, fun to play and a nice challenge.
I find the low scoring aspect of it strangely appealing
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