About
Starship is my third Pico-8 game, and is influenced by old single screen ZX Spectrum games like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, and Jetpac. Gather all the ship parts scattered about each of the 20 stages. Take them back to your starship for repairs to transcend into outer space!
Tips
- Skillful play will spawn a cosmic flower. Kneel before the cosmic flower to attain the gift of the cosmos.
- Chasing score will make the game more difficult.
- Don't tread on the worms!
Downloads
Downloads for Windows, Linux, OSX, and Raspberry Pi can be found on my itch.io page:
Updates
v1.0 - Initial release
v1.1 - Added stage select
v1.2 - Fixed a couple of bugs and added a new cart label
Request
If anyone is able to complete the game, please reply in this thread. I'm interested to see if I maybe went too far with the difficulty on some of the later stages. During testing, I was able to complete each individual stage without losing a life, but doing all 20 in one session will be quite the challenge!
Nice :D Glad to see the falling through platforms bug is gone. Nice game!
Haha, thank you! It's always challenging to judge how difficult other players will find your game. I hope it isn't too stressful!
Some remarks after two quick plays (second one with gamepad):
- really great style and music and variety (blue worm! monster with a gun!)
- it’s a little funny that a carried item is always on the left; character could have a backpack or carry on the head?
- we can’t jump down through a platform, but we have crouching and the collisions are forgiving (I noticed that jumping on a platform or putting an item on the rocket succeeds with a few pixels touching, but you don’t lose if you touch an enemy by a few pixels, nice!), so it balances out
- for the first 3-4 levels I felt railroaded: there is only one way to get to the items, they must be picked in order (because pickup is automatic and there is no dropping) and there is one or two ways to get to the ship (we can fall off a platform but not down throug it). in level 2 especially it doesn’t feel like a puzzle but like a railroad! it would be nice if I could decide to pick up the closest item first or the hardest item first
- for the overall difficulty: could we win a heart sometimes, or have checkpoints every five levels maybe?
Thanks for the feedback. I did think about adding a feature where you can start from any stage you have previously completed, so it would be easier to practice stages. I have plenty of tokens to spare to add something like that. Would that be preferable to a checkpoint every 5 stages?
Stage select would be great! From menu to be simple, or with a select screen (like a grid with squares of tiny previews with lock icons). It makes the goals and the progression visible, and there could be a bonus when completing a row of levels :)
I've uploaded a new version (v1.1) which allows you to start the game from any stage you have previously completed.
That’s great! And the difficulty is good after all, even level 2!
Is it on purpose that if you complete level N, you cannot restart at level N+1?
A detail: I was caught by the fast monster in the middle on level 3, the respawning put me on the worm and the 5 points malus feels like a double penalty for one mistake.
Yes, it is deliberate that you can only restart from a stage you have completed. There are only 20 stages, and allowing to restart from a stage you didn't complete would make it too easy IMO.
The worm - yes, that is also intentional. It will make you more careful in future not to lose lives for fear of treading on worms! You'll notice that the creature that patrols the ground level runs to the side of the screen when you lose a life, so it can't kill you when you respawn. I thought about doing the same for the worm, but I wanted the game to be more challenging if you are score chasing.
Ok then! This feels fair given that collision is otherwise forgiving (did some really weird jumps without getting caught!).
Yep, player / enemy collision is extremely forgiving, especially on the left/right sides:
v1.2 released - fixed a couple of bugs and added a new cart label.
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