ElGregos [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Defender of the Crown

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 21:06:52 UTC

defenderofthecrown

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

WishItWare Games just released a demake of the iconic Amiga game Defender of the Crown. Alas, this is just the title screen and music for now, because to be honest, as much as I loved the original game back then, I don't think it's interesting enough to demake it completely today. But well I can't promise I did not already start working on another screen and tune, so who knows?

Xmas Patterns

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:13:27 UTC

xmaspatterns

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Hi! You want to draw pixel art? You like puzzle games? You can't wait for Christmas? Well the game's for you! Solve puzzles by following clues on grids to draw pixel art that'll turn onto Xmas-themed patterns. Each solved pattern is saved and retrieved in following sessions.

Xmas Patterns is part of the Twelve Days of PICO-8 Christmas 2022 you'll find there: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=50644

The game lacks a proper ending and some other bits I'm probably the only one to know. Despite two months of work the game's never looked like it wanted to be finished. It's sorry about that and hopes you'll like it nonetheless.

CluePix Halloween

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 18:40:12 UTC

cluepixween

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Hi! Here is a Halloween themed CluePix with 31 new images to solve, each unlocking every day of october. Yup, just like Christmas advent calendar, only with ghosts, zombies, vampires and other scary stuff :)
If you're not familiar with CluePix you can play the original game there or just read the shamelessly copied & pasted rules below (in short, think Picross meets Minesweeper). In any case, I hope you'll have fun!

CluePix is a picture solving game. Draw pixel art using those 2 clues:

Color bars show mixed pixels from their line.
Digits show how many pixels around are the same color.

There's an ingame tutorial. Once a picture is solved, it is saved and reloaded on next game sessions, so no hurry, even though the game is short and might be finished in one sitting. CluePix is a proof of concept for an original puzzle game, hence the low number of pictures to solve. So I'd be glad to read your comments, thanks for playing!

Controls

Arrow keys to move cursor
🅾️ to add/remove pixels
❎ to switch between grid and palette. Press twice to pick a grid color.

Solutions

You can watch each puzzle being solved in this YouTube playlist. Walkthrough are only posted once puzzle's day has passed, so no spoilers.

CluePix

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 10:40:59 UTC

cluepix

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

CluePix is a picture solving game. Draw pixel art using those 2 clues:

Color bars show mixed pixels from their line.
Digits show how many pixels around are the same color.

There's an ingame tutorial. Once a picture is solved, it is saved and reloaded on next game sessions, so no hurry, even though the game is short and might be finished in one sitting. CluePix is a proof of concept for an original puzzle game, hence the low number of pictures to solve. As such, feel free to comment on what you liked or didn't about it!

Controls

Arrow keys to move cursor
🅾️ to add/remove pixels
❎ to switch between grid and palette. Press twice to pick a grid color.

Intent

CluePix started 3 years ago in search for a puzzle solving game that felt like drawing tiny pixel art. I love how much you can put in a single 8×8 sprite, and I'm sure any of us Pico-8 worshippers do too! I also love logic puzzles with a drawing flavor in the likes of Nurikabe, Picross or even Minesweeper, but they only scratch that "pixel art" itch, not even mentioning their lack of color. They also often have issues with being solvable by pure logic, ie without any sheer luck or wild guess. CluePix tries to fill that gap.

Can't autostart Pico-8 on Raspberry

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:15:23 UTC

Hi,

First, I'm a noob regarding Linux and alikes. I've been trying for last 24 hours to make my Picade (a small arcade bartop by Pimoroni, running on Raspberry Pi 4) start into Pico-8 in Splore mode. It boots in the desktop and I usually launch Pico-8 manually in the console with:

~/pico8/pico8 -splore

(my folder is pico8, not pico-8)

Works well, figured I could as well make Raspberry OS do it for me.

How naive.

Followed tens of tutorials, with no success. To the most, it looks like Pico-8 launches for a second then closes. Feels like this because there's a black screen opening that closes 1 sec later. I've made a .sh file with:

echo 'Launching Pico-8...'
/home/pi/pico8/pico8_dyn -splore
echo 'Pico-8 closed'

with 'pico8_dyn' in place of 'pico8' if that matters. If I run it on console it works with the added echos on start and closing of Pico-8.

Then I made a autostart file at .config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart:

@lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
@xscreensaver -no-splash
@xset s off
@xset -dpms
#@sleep 5s
#@/home/pi/pico8/pico8_dyn -splore
@sh /home/pi/pico8/launchPico8.sh
#@/usr/bin/chromium-browser https://www.discogs.com

Note the 3 commented lines:

the sleep 5s was a tuto suggestion to wait for desktop loading, with no effect.
the following line tries to start Pico-8. As said the result is a black screen showing briefly (this doesn't occur once the line commented)
last line launches Chromium on the discogs website at desktop launch. This works, so the autostart file is indeed called.

So the line supposed to launch Pico8 is the call to my .sh file above. No better result, but the echo may tell what happens in the log file at ~/.cache/lxsession/LXDE-pi/run.log. So a tail -n50 shows:

** Message: 13:08:18.528: utils.vala:45: System system path location : /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/desktop.conf
xprop:  no such property "_NET_NUMBER_OF_DESKTOPS"
xprop:  no such property "_NET_DESKTOP_NAMES"
** Message: 13:08:18.542: app.vala:721: polkit separate
** Message: 13:08:18.542: app.vala:721: polkit separate
** Message: 13:08:18.554: app.vala:76: Launching lxpolkit
** Message: 13:08:18.568: utils.vala:127: User config used : /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
** Message: 13:08:18.568: utils.vala:148: Final file used : /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
** Message: 13:08:18.569: autostart.vala:42: Autostart path : /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
** Message: 13:08:18.589: app.vala:76: Launching lxpanel
** Message: 13:08:18.598: app.vala:76: Launching pcmanfm

** (lxsession:542): WARNING **: 13:08:18.611: app.vala:86: L’exécution du processus fils « xscreensaver » a échoué (Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type)

** (lxsession:542): WARNING **: 13:08:18.611: app.vala:87: Error when launching xscreensaver
** Message: 13:08:18.623: app.vala:76: Launching xset
** Message: 13:08:18.632: app.vala:76: Launching xset
** Message: 13:08:18.636: app.vala:76: Launching sh
** Message: 13:08:18.646: options.vala:107: Create build-in Clipboard
Launching Pico-8...
** Message: 13:08:18.710: main.vala:441: Check keymap_mode (null)
** Message: 13:08:18.715: app.vala:76: Launching /usr/bin/ssh-agent
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-7wbdwvahPc3f/agent.630; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=636; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 636;
** Message: 13:08:18.859: x-terminal-emulator has very limited support, consider choose another terminal
** Message: 13:08:18.897: app.vala:130: xset exit with this type of exit: 0
** Message: 13:08:18.897: app.vala:139: Exit normal, don't reload
** Message: 13:08:18.897: app.vala:130: xset exit with this type of exit: 0
** Message: 13:08:18.897: app.vala:139: Exit normal, don't reload
** Message: 13:08:18.897: app.vala:130: /usr/bin/ssh-agent exit with this type of exit: 0
** Message: 13:08:18.924: x-terminal-emulator has very limited support, consider choose another terminal
Openbox-Message: Impossible de trouver un fichier de menus valide  « /usr/share/lxde/openbox/menu.xml »
** Message: 13:08:20.464: Connecting ...
** Message: 13:08:20.464: Status changed to down
Unit pt-device-manager.service could not be found.

** (lxpanel:609): WARNING **: 13:08:20.659: Battery 0 not found
ALSA lib pcm.c:8424:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
** Message: 13:08:21.563: Status changed to opened
** Message: 13:08:21.563: Connected to dhcpcd-8.1.2
** Message: 13:08:21.564: Status changed to connecting
** Message: 13:08:21.564: eth0: Link is down
** Message: 13:08:21.565: wlan0: Associated with Livebox-098B
** Message: 13:08:21.566: wlan0: WPA status connected
** Message: 13:08:21.566: wlan0: Received scan results
** Message: 13:08:25.766: wlan0: Configured 192.168.1.20/24
** Message: 13:08:25.766: Status changed to connected
ALSA lib pcm.c:8424:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
ALSA lib pcm.c:8424:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred

You can see the echo 'Launching Pico-8...' at 13:08:18.646 so the .sh is launched. The close message is not here, so I guess Pico-8 is running but does not show.

This all feels like a pb with Pico-8, as the autostart can launch Chromium or any other program.

Also tried with adding a pico8.desktop as told there: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-run-a-raspberry-pi-program-on-startup/all

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Pico-8
Exec=/home/pi/pico8/pico8

Doesn't work neither.

So I'm getting quite tired and depressed about how difficult it is to simply launch Pico-8 at startup. Againg, I'm a noob, but I feel like that's not the only problem here. An idea, anyone? Am I doing something wrong? Is it a problem with Pico-8? Did someone achieved what I'm trying to do?

EDIT: the command "ps -ef | grep pico" shows that Pico-8 is in fact running. If I launch manually the .desktop file above in the desktop, it runs Pico-8 as intended, and this Pico-8 also appear in the "ps" command as a 2nd pico-8 instance. So it looks like all those attempts really launch Pico-8, but it just doesn't show. Alt-tab don't show them neither. So why don't they show, and how can I make them to?

EDIT 2: pico-8 sound was muted, but after I unmuted it, I now can hear its little tune playing once the Pi has booted in the desktop, so I'm 100% sure Pico-8 IS RUNNING, but not displaying, and no way to make it show.

_update60=nil creates empty tabs then throw an error

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 21:01:24 UTC

Hi,
Run this simple (and dubious) code:

function _update60()
_update60=nil
end

It then show this error:

runtime error line 2 tab 6
< eof >
attempt to call global '_update60' (a nil value)
at line 0 (tab 0)

Go back to code editor: 5 empty tabs have been added.
While the code above may be questionnable (dont ask ;p) it shouldn't create empty tabs. It also seems it shouldn't push any error as there's no pb running the same code with _update in place of _update60.

Forever Hungry

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 16:26:06 UTC

foreverhungry

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Cute little guy must keep eating to grow or it'll just shrink back to a young larvae. Use (almost) any key to rotate the opposite way and grab those delicious redish things to grow up to impressive length. Since the game starts slowing down at 700, let's consider this score a winning condition!

Made for the TweetTweetJam 6 in 554 chars. Just click the "code" button above to copy & paste the whole game to any Pico-8 near you.

Goal

Eat those juicy red things to grow bigger, or you'll get back to larvae state!

Controls

Any button to switch rotation.

ctrl+Tab to switch between recently used tabs

Mon, 24 May 2021 10:49:59 UTC

Hi,

Currently ctrl+Tab switches to right tab, and ctrl+shift+Tab to left tab. There's no way to switch between recently used tabs, which would be very useful on projects over 2 or 3 tabs. For now the only way to achieve this is to continuously grab the mouse, which is quite annoying. I suggest that:

that current behaviour is moved to ctrl+PageUp & ctrl+PageDown to go respectively to left & right tab;
ctrl+Tab now switches to previously used tab. In fact it should behave like ctrl+Tab in VScode and NetBeans or like alt+Tab in Windows. Ctrl+Tab brings a small window with a list of tabs sorted by history: the top one is the current tab, the one under is the last used tab and is the one selected, the next one is the next that was used, and so on. That list shows as long as ctrl is pressed. A new press on Tab goes down to select the next label; shift+Tab goes up. As soon as the ctrl key is unpressed, the list closes and editor switches to selected tab.

As a bonus, or maybe an easier replacement for a way to switch between recently used tabs: being able to rearrange tabs by drag & dropping then.

That would greatly improve the experience and fun of creating games in Pico-8 editor.

alt+Up & Down to also stop on special comments

Mon, 24 May 2021 10:16:29 UTC

Hi,

Alt+up & down allows to go to previous & next function, which is very useful, but sometimes functions are very long, or you have large tables that go lines and lines and you wish there was a way to browse them as easily. I suggest alt+Up & Down also stop on lines containing a comment that starts with exclamation mark (or any other character but this one is simple and makes sense imo) like this:

function _init()
 myHugeWeaponTable={
 ...
 --!1=default weapon
 ...
 --!2=laser
 ..
 --!3=rocket
 }
end

function thatBigOne()
 ...
 --!important
 ...
 camera()--!also stops here
 ...
end

Boards of Canada - Roygbiv

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 16:26:08 UTC

Hi, here's a cover of Board of Canada's Roygbiv in Pico-8 (with its new sound effects) playing over a tweetcart synced to the music. Because, well, I love BoC and Pico-8 :). Also playing in pattern mode on YouTube where you may also enjoy the original music.
You can play the tweetcart along your own Pico-8 music and it'll sync to it as well. Or it'll play at its own pace if there' no music.
Hope you'll enjoy.

boc_roygbiv

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Web player is blurry

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 07:10:29 UTC

Hi,

Is it just me or did the web player all suddenly become blurry? All Pico-8 games on Lexaloffle look like the pic below. This is on Chrome/Windows 7. This is ok when switching the game to fullscreen though.

Buggy SFX editor (on azerty keyboards?)

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:37:21 UTC

This bug has not been fixed since july 2017: https://lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=29699

Maybe it's on AZERTY keyboards only, but it makes the SFX editor painful. Here's what this layout looks like: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#/media/Fichier:KB_France.svg
The keyboard we frenchies use. Sorry. We love our diacritics.

the "6" key used for upper G# also decreases current pattern.
the "," key (right to "N") used for lower B also decreases tempo.
Those are really annoying. There's also this which are a bit annoying but I can do with:
numpad "+" moves to 4 patterns forward while the "-" above moves only 1 backward.
"=" (left to Backspace) moves 1 pattern forward while underscore ("8" main key) moves 4 backward.

Alt+up/down broken in code editor

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:12:24 UTC

zuhihenit

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Alt+Up/Down keys allow quick functions browsing in code editor, but oddly this is broken on the 3rd tab of my 5 tabs project, where alt+up/down won't go below the 2nd function (all other tabs are fine). Have no idea why, I even got rid of all my code & data to see whether this comes from that. This is the cart joined here: no data, only function names & some comments, but in tab 3 alt+down won't go under the parts_add function.

Running carts randomly shuts down Raspberry Pi 4

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 21:43:18 UTC

I've assembled the new Picade with a Raspberry Pi 4 inside. It boots on the NOOBS SD card, being myself rather a noob once outside of Windows :). Besides the recommended upgrades & updates, I've installed nothing else than the latest Pico-8 for Raspbian, as I want my Picade to be a Pico-8 machine first.

I launch Pico-8 with the command line and use splore to browse favourite games. Everything is fine until I relaunch games either by ctrl+R or the "run" command. And then it's the russian roulette: either the cart restarts, either it simply shut downs the whole Picade. Sometimes it happens after the 20th rerun or more, but this bug is so reliable I use it to turn off the machine instead of using the "shutdown" shell command.

Just Push the Button

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 21:47:18 UTC

justpushthebutton

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Digging up old Pico-8 jam games that were only on itch.io. This one was made for the Meta Game Jam 2018.

All you have to do is just push the button. It should be easy, although it's been a long time I didn't do it myself, so who knows? For example, the mouse no longer worked and I had to quickly patch keyboard to control pointer. Just use arrow keys, X and C. Hope I didn't mess things up. Coding is strange: you let everything for a while and when you're back, it's like functions have started a life of their own and nothing works like it used to be. Oh well.

The game runs at 60 fps, which is a bit demanding for the web player. For a better experience it is recommended you run it on Pico-8 (download the p8.png or just enter "load #justpushthebutton") or download the game executables from https://elgregos.itch.io/just-push-the-button.

Have fun!

2018 Picade idle animation "as seen on TV!"

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 16:57:18 UTC

picade

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Hi, I bought the new Picade from Pimoroni (also own the previous version) and thought the video showed a cool Pico-8 animation. You can watch it on the product page: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/picade?variant=29210087489619
Pimoroni kindly gave the p8.png file, but there's a bug where horizontal lines disappear after a while. So I made my own version above. No game, just a cool idle animation. Feel free to use & modify it to your needs and, why not, let us see what is beyond that "Press START to play"! ;)

Below is the original untouched Picade animation by Pimoroni:

picade_original

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Colored Answers

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:12:57 UTC

A 2017 game I made but forgot to post here :|
Mix colors spurts and send them to the exit by setting walls and floors. 2017 Fantasy Console Game Jam entry, which theme was "Union", made in 6 days with Pico-8.
Only 18 levels for now, but it's in my "There's potential for a full game" list ;)

coloredanswers

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

She Lost 8-bit Control

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:25:06 UTC

Hi, this was first a tweetcart, to which I added some music because, well, I HAD to!
Let's call it a tweetcart with a bonus. Hope you'll enjoy this.

She Lost 8-bit Control

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

Quickly Slow

Sat, 19 Aug 2017 17:04:13 UTC

Quickly Slow

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

My second contribution to the One Hour Gamejam which, as you guessed, about making a game in 1 hour. Wish I had more time for some levels, those here are a bit random and the game could get a bit more interesting with well thought timings. Not enough time neither for a playable random generation. Well, you ain't do much in 1 hour. But this one has sounds, yay!
http://onehourgamejam.com/

Edit: corrected a bug crashing the game when accessing last level.

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People are the power (LD jam 39)

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 20:32:15 UTC

Untitled 0.5.0

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

People are the power (LD jam 39)

by ElGregos

[Click to Play]

You're the main operator at the Powarvester, one of our spaceships spread over the universe to gather power from local resources. Collect at least 1 gigawatt before moving to next area. The Powarvester has different modes that all need power, so use them wisely!

Use arrow to move target, C to fire Powarvester and X to change Powarvester mode. You can restart or skip area with the Enter menu.

Hints:

Please rate this game at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/people-are-the-power. I hope you'll enjoy it, even though there's more work to do (made in 2 days).

Development log

0.5.0: bugfix. Cops kept shooting once area was won, thus depleting player's power.
0.4.2: release

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