My Pico-8 game inspired by the 1980 Stern Electronics game and made possible by the excellent "Speako8 Speech Synthesis Library" by @bikibird - https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=116919#p
How to Play
Shoot the robots. Avoid the walls. Don't stay in a room for too long!
Controls
[X] - Laser (stands still so you can accurate fire in one of 8 directions)
[O] - Laser (while running)
Thanks To
- Finn for testing
- @bikibird for creating Speako8
Version History
0.80 - 26-Sep-2022 - Released
0.81 - 27-Sep-2022 - Otto now destroys robots
0.82 - 28-Sep-2022 - Updated credits and fixed bug walking through exit door
This is - incredible, @pahammond.
I will state that the voices in the original BERZERK would change pitch. I especially remember these two sentences together when you were shot, they were almost SANG out.
"Got the humanoid." -- low pitch
"Got the intruder." -- medium pitch
And when Otto appeared:
"Intruder alert. Intruder alert." -- low pitch
In most cases the voices would repeat the words but at different pitches.
https://youtu.be/ELE24jchei4?t=43
Here you can hear it almost singing those two sentences above as the player is shot.
https://youtu.be/ELE24jchei4?t=99
Also when the player is hit he has this cool kind of rainbow effect appear around him as if he is dematerializing. I think this can be done in Pico-8.
@pahammond, this is terrific. Congratulations! One favor, though, can you change the credit for Speako8 to just @bikibird? I prefer to go just by my screen name in most places. Thanks.
@pahammond. Great game - lots of fun especially when you get the 8 way fire.
There is a bug that if you keep going left, when the room "x" position goes less than 1, the player is killed instantly when entering the room and then restarts as if they had entered the room from the left door.
Also did you update the game so that you no longer score when a robot dies by any means? I'm sure that when I first played this, my score increased when a robot dies regardless of how it died...
@phil. Damn, that’s the only bug my tester picked up and I thought I’d fixed it. Only happened on the vertical before though. I’ll fix it tonight.
And no, I only ever award a score if the player bullet hits a robot.
Nice game!
Is there any goal of this game aside of scoring? or just survive as long as you can?
@bikibird. All updated, including my page on itch.io.
Hopefully I'll get to use speako8 again, it adds a new dimension!
Cool remake! I couldn't imagine a better occasion to use Speako8
(best: 5100)
definitely one of the pico-8 games of all time.
best score: 6750
every difference from the original: (warning: very detailed, i've played the original on an emulator)
- no "intruder alert" when otto appears, instead plays a short tune
- no "kill", "charge", "shoot", "get"
- no "chicken", "it"
- otto doesn't speed up when you kill robots
- when you die, you spawn in the same room that you died in, instead of another random room
- the robots shoot less?
- no leaderboard
- only says: "exterminate the intruder", "intruder alert", "attack the humanoid", "destroy the human" when you're in a room
- only says: "the humanoid must be destroyed", "intruder must not escape", "the humanoid must not escape" when you exit a room
- no bonus for killing all robots on screen
- score is shown on middle instead of left
- no alternating 2-player with a purple humanoid
- power-ups with shadows
- intro tune
- "game over" text
- you move faster
- all sprites are smaller (as expected)
- no strange beeping sounds on boot
- better run animation that doesn't reset when you stop
- no shooting animation
- particles
- different sfx
- no "got the humanoid, got the intruder" when you die
- no 1ups from 5000 points, instead pick up 1ups that randomly appear in rooms
- starting the first room, you spawn in the top left of the room, instead of middle left
- room coordinates
- only shows lives when exiting a room or respawning after dying
- leaving a room is faster and smoother
- door blocking the opening you came from is always white
- otto is always red
- lives are shown as hearts instead of stick figures and take place of the score when leaving a room
- diagonal movement is not 40% faster (that's fine)
- otto doesn't block shots
- otto has shadows
- you can only have 1 of your shots on-screen at a time (can be increased with power-ups), instead of having unlimited bullets on screen and shooting at a fixed interval of about 0.3 seconds
- some rooms have weird bouncy things that bounce around the roomshoot bouncing shots
- otto's eyes move as he is bouncing across the room
- music on the title
- explaning game rules similar to your other arcade ports
- you can shoot without stopping in place with the 🅾️ button
- voice is different (obviously)
- player explodes on death instead of getting zapped
- player doesn't flash on spawning in
- robots take time to spawn. in this time you can still move
- always says "intruder alert" when game starts
Every time I leave a room there's a fraction in the lower right corner, like 17/21 or 16/20. What does it mean? By best score so far is 6750.
@pavo6503 the fraction is actually the room number. Rooms are in a 256x256 grid so 14/16 would mean (counting from the top-left) that you're 14 in and 16 rooms down.
Means you can rediscover interesting room. Otherwise you can just ignore it.
@pahammond Thanks, I had a feeling it was something like that. Very nice job on the game, it's been my go-to time killer for the past week
Really impressive use of speech on Pico-8 and a great remake.
I made a video for my channel here:
Would like to add this if possible, @pahammond:
If you hold the fire button but are not holding down the direction arrow, you still continue to fire in the last direction you fired (auto-fire). No need to hold down the arrow key.
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