The lost strawberry by egordorichev
Update: X-mas edition is out! Try it out here!
He loves strawberries
Big thanks to everyone, who came on my streams! Especially to @Nuflee, @retrokin, @brastin3, @grubbermusic, @BeerGoat, @RPanda, @Lord_Am, @ngBattery and @adventuretimeworldwide!
This is a Celeste-inspired 2d exploration platformer, where you play as a guy, who found his self in a strange, mysterious world. He attempts to find his way back, to his world and recover the past. Collect strawberries, fight monsters, avoid spikes, solve puzzles.
The game is written using tiny fantasy console, called PICO-8. It limits you to use 16 color palette, 128x128px screen, 128x64px sprite space, 128x64 tiles map. I really enjoy using it, tho it is really limiting.
The game has 25 levels, including a BOSS LEVEL. I've spent a lot of time and effort on making everything look great and smooth (just watch some animations ;)). The game will automatically save your progress. Also, you can swap the palette on go (read menu part for that)!
I hope, that you will enjoy it!
Controls
- Arrows - move
- Z/C - jump
- X - double jump from evil essences
- Enter/P - open the pause menu
Two main things, you need to know:
Look for objects with tint, they will help you or kill you People miss those ropes a lot
You can double jump from evil essences, once you touch them
Speedrun mode
Yeah, I want to go though this quickly, there is a speedrun mode, build into the game! Once you kill the boss, you from the main menu can select any level, you want, and train on it.
The game also shows you your time and death count on every death. If you will speedrun it, let me know in the comments!
Mechanics (pss, spoilers!)
Jumping
- You can jump only from the ground
- Trampolines launch you up into the sky
You can control your jump height, by holding the jump key longer/shorter
Ropes
You can't jump from ropes, only climb on them using arrows
Keys / berries
You need to deliver them to the door/exit to make use of them
Evil
Once you use an essence, your screen becomes a bit more corrupted. This effect is being decreased if you wait, till the essence respawns.
- You can dash from essences using X
- Skulls die, when you use an essence
- Essences respawn with time
Essences control the Dragon Fruit
Ice
Ice disappears when you touch it
It respawns after a while
Invisible blocks
You can notice them, only if you are close enough to them
They will block your way, and will not let you fall/pass
Platforms
Normal platforms bounce from blocks and destroy ice
Cloud platforms go through blocks
Dart Traps
They shoot out bullets with the same speed, but always async
Background Tiles
If you see, that some parts of the background are lighter than the other, that could mean, that you can stand on them
Huh, that was easy!
The pause menu
Yup, this one
- Continue Get back to the game
- Next palette <3 change the game palette
- Restart the lvl Restarts current level
- To the last lvl Moves you one level back (not always aviable)
- Reset progress BE CAREFUL! This option erases your save (except palette and boss flag). That means, that you will loose all your progress in the game.
General tips
- Don't try to go fast, you can always make it slower (unless you are in the speedrun mode)
- Try to play with the palettes, strangely, but that helps to focus more on the content. I prefer the red and yellow one.
- There is an options menu (activate it using enter), it contains a lot of useful stuff, as well as the palette settings
Is evil really so harmless?
Change log
- v0.1d, v0.1.f Fix music not playing
- v0.1c Noise is not so annoying now
- v0.1b Fix kill() bug, change default palette
- v0.1 Initial release for the compo
Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89AK3xoX9mE
Update
WOW, guys, thank you so much! The game is now trending at itch.io! Thanks again!
Update 2
WOW, on we are on the newgrounds also, now!
Ratings
| Overall | 142th | 3.728⭐ | 294🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 257th | 3.447⭐ | 295🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 398th | 3.014⭐ | 289🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 529th | 2.968⭐ | 284🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 121th | 3.892⭐ | 298🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 83th | 3.704⭐ | 286🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 43th | 3.807⭐ | 290🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 4🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
- I like the idea of having the pickups obstruct your vision more, but I found that in-game this effect wasn't noticeable enough to be effective; it could have stood to be exaggerated a bit more.
- I found the boss fight to be pretty frustrating. The most difficult obstacle on that level wasn't the enemies or the boss itself, but actually the platform which just carries you into spikes if you don't jump off quick enough.
- the default palette is pretty low contrast; I think one of the brighter ones would probably be a better choice since there will likely be players who don't bother switching it.
The scope of this is pretty impressive for a LD entry, congrats!
btw, the source you posted errors out after a couple seconds of running, and it's also just the code itself; you should probably put up the actual p8 file so that the rest of the game (sprites, sfx, map) are included.
* I didn't notice that the strawberries obstruct your view overtime. It's certainly a very good concept going forward. It's subtle at first, then you find out the reason why this is the case. Good job also allowing for the player too be seen despite this mess. It's one of the good things preventing you from being fraustrated. Also I thought the strawberries are required to continue. This is not the case, oops.
* The boss fight is really annoying thanks to the obstructions. The boss screwed me up too much after finishing Phase 1.
* Default pallete is really low contrast and annoying to see. The background and some background assets doesn't help, either. The brick texture made me thing it's an actual block for a very good while.
Anyway, this is a really amazing game and you made me compelled to finish all of it. (That or my initiative for platformers is strong...)
(A skill based platformer with a rather large amount of content for 48 hours including a boss fight.)
The game looks great, but the 3 colors thing really messes up the gameplay for me. I have a hard time telling what's a wall, what's a floor, and what's just background decoration. Maybe you should've tried using 4 colors to make it a bit easier to tell what is what. Although it's still a great game for 48 hours! ^-^
@fiakaiera, not the strawberries affect your vision, but the evil. But anyway, thanks ;)
@sean-s-leblanc, thanks, will fix the code here, the valid cart is also on the PICO-8 BBS.
Will change the default palette later today ;)
I liked the idea of how the essence obstructs the view as you collect more, tying into the theme very nicely.
The pixel art and the entire look of the game was great and created a sense mystery, though I was having a hard time distinguishing walls from the background, though that was easily fixed by changing the palette.
Overall, this was a great game for the time spent into it and was a delightful adventure.
Impressive level of polish, content and documentation for 48 hours :thumbsup: !
If I had to nitpick I'd say that the control scheme is very awkward (I'm on a french keyboard and my fingers have to do artistic skating with my finger just to be able to jump and dash in a short time period), controller support would be awesome.
Also sometimes it's hard to understand what's going on the screen or what you are supposed to do.
added it to my collection to play it more seriously later on (but do try to do something about this control scheme plz ;_;).
Overall : great game congratulations !
Even with the 'yellow is solid' thing I eventually figured out, you also used that to indicate what things are deadly, which was just as confusing and led to quite a few deaths as I wasn't sure if they were platforms, traps or pick ups.
I think with a three colour pallete you need to be even more minimalist than you were.
On top of that, the constant white-noise is irritating and I had to turn off the sound in order to even try and continue playing, which is a shame because the rest of the effects were cute.
The game's awesome, well done!
Otherwise, great work on setting out the levels, that's a lot of meat packed on this 48 hr entry!
The real problem comes with the graphics affecting gameplay, for me, it is really hard to see what is a platform and what is not, and for example at first I got stuck until I realized i could grab onto the vines to continue crossing the initial gap. Maybe there is way too much going on on the screen at all times that makes it hard to focus on what is important.
Anyway, it is a superb entry and very skilfully created. Good job!
[edit] I have watched the timelapse, thank you for including this! This gives me a better impression on how making games with PICO-8 works and I've updated the ratings I have given accordingly.
but the only way to tell 'will this platform supports me' and 'what does it do' is experimentation and memory, which is less than ideal.
Also, it took me quite a few tries to find out that you can _only_ dash when a certain sprite is present.
While there is an addictiveness to it, and resetting to current room instead of the beginning helps a lot,
it's still hard to get to the point where the theme starts mattering.
That said, movement feels both very fluid and satisfiyingly 'chunky'.
Mood-text on each new screen is also nicely done, and the music is on-point :slight_smile:
you start vanish immediately, but it's fun, because levels are short and you always start again in the same level.
It's really hard to get the idea at first.
The worst part I didn't notice while playing, but once I closed the window I couldn't see clear for a while. Maybe colors are too bright, the contrast is too high, I'm not sure.
The animation of the character, how it feels when you jump, the level design, the sounds, the music. This game is professional level I.M.O.
The movement feels super tight, I loved when I knew a level well enough I could just blaze through it.
The soundtrack was exactly what I expected a retro 8bit soundtrack to be.
Great work!
will add it to my pocket chip!
sometime its hard to see the platforms but it add difficulties.
keep on the great job
Overall I thought it was excellent for the compo and I can't wait to see more!
I have a few minor issues. My main complaint is some rooms have cheap deaths. For example, the room where you spawn on top of a dissolving block into spikes; mixed with the screen effects, it can be hard to find out where you even spawned before you die a few times. That being said, things never got to the point of frustration, just a bit of an annoyance.
Waiting for the coins to comeback before you could dash was slightly tedious, when there's nothing to do but wait. Another issue is the palette, I just couldn't find one that worked well for me. While pretty to look at, it could be hard differentiating things with the 3 tones being so similar.
Despite the few issues, the game holds up well, great work!
That being said, I really liked this game! As some mentioned, the art hurts my eyes a little, but I choose to believe that was entirely intentional. (Granted, I didn't realize you could pallette swap)
Other than that, the only thing is that you don't really feel compelled to gather the strawberries, as there is no clear reward for doing so.
My criticism is only because this game is otherwise incredible for being made in 48 hours. Congrats!
@oivin-f yeah, I need to think about a solution with this rope problem :D Many peps have it :X
I love the graphics. Very impressive what you made out of three colors in that little resolution. It felt a bit frustrating at times because death often comes suddenly because of an unseen trampoline or missing floor.
The essences served three purposes which was a bit confusing at first but I was able to figure it out. I couldn't find out what the strawberries were for though.
I'm impressed how many levels you made in that short time. You even added a boss fight. I liked it overall!
The only reproach I could make is about the game mechanic which is kind of hard to start with.
I guess it would be awesome with controllers ;)
After that hickup the game is good, the red clouds in the background makes the screen to busy but I like how fast you can move, great job :D
Um design simples mas eficiente, jogo muito bem acabado e com um visual lindo! Gostei muito da escolha da paleta de cores! Tive um pouco de dificuldade com os controles no começo. Parabéns pelo jogo.
The only thing I would have liked was a slower ramp-up in difficulty, specifically because I am not very good at these games, but overall I think I caught on fairly quickly still.
Nice one!
I love minimalist art styles, but gameplay should come first. the screen is absolutely congested with stuff that is all the same color. . One of the important things when working with a super limited pallete is careful budgeting of colors and use of negative space. All the swirling stuff in the background and the splotches on the foreground (I know they are intended as a gameplay mechanic, but as a mechanic it simply isn't fun.)
Also I think a few other people have said this, but the controls feel weird when you first start out, which only adds to the annoyance of the screen being clogged.
I think it's a solid game, with a ton of content for a compo entry, but I feel like you put in the screen cluttering effects simply to match the theme and it detracted form the game as a whole.
Oh... I just realized you can change the color palette. Now I must go back and replay it again :)
And with all the polish that's gone into this game, it still manages to offer 25 unique levels and a boss. One playthrough of that, without eventually beating the boss, got me to 32 Minutes.
What more can I say, I love it. :)
**But** this is a great example of when to _not_ use screen shaking. PICO-8 already has a low-enough resolution, so any shake is of very high magnitude, plus the low-contrast color palette, cause it to be very jarring. Had to give up on the boss fight because I got nauseated by the shake. And I'm not a very sensitive person in regards to that.
There were also some severe input lag issues (at least on the web version), which I'm not sure if they are caused by the game or just by the PICO web player.
Also, there were some collision issues in the boss room, as you can see in the screenshot below. I was able to "stand midair" in any of the tiles in a 2x2 area around that point.
Don't get me wrong though, the game was still enjolable _despite_ that!
But anyway, thanks for the feedback!
non-functional platforms would make it easier the read the levels.
So something like this (I bet everyone on their first go try to jump to that "platform" on the bottom right):
The controls were a bit too fast (for me at least). Especially so when dealing with the ropes or springs. Having a different button for the essence jumps was a weird choice and completely unnecessary. By the way, what are those non-keyboard controls you were showing? My PS4 controller at least did not do anything. Can't quite remember if I've previously even tried to use a controller on PICO-8 games (haven't even played one since last LD). Getting to play with controller would have probably fixed the quick controls issue for me, I'm a lot more comfortable playing platformers with one.
I really wasn't a big fan of those invisible blocks. At least those could have appeared a bit further away than only when you were already pretty much touching them.
All in all, good job! You managed to do a good chunk of content and the difficulty curve was pretty much perfect.
Also, if possible, check out my game I made with a few others, it’s a card game with a twist: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/smash-smash-destroy-the-west-jangnanmon
Well done!
Music sounds good, but a little bit of a variety would sound nice. Also I personally didn't like the feel on the ropes. I'd rather have my character stop at it rather than speed through it, because of this I often overshot on the ropes.
In overall it's an awesome game. I hope you'll make full release with even more hardcore levels. And congratulations on being featured on itch.io!
I did change the pallet often, but I didnt feel satisfied. The problem was, in some levels (especially around the middle) I was confused which part was actually a platform, an obstacle, nothing (ya I even missed that one sometimes). So there wasnt enough contrast in the objects.
Apart from these minor things, the game was amazing. The best one I played so far thanks for making it :)
Congratulations on the great work.
Anyway this game easily has the best physics of all the games I have played so far and I like the graphical style a lot. I had quite a bit of fun with this game though there were frustrating moments as well. As I mentioned in my stream I do have several criticisms I would like to offer both so you can improve this incredibly smooth game and that you can apply to future games!
* The graphics are really confusion and it is unclear what you are and are not supposed to interact with.
* With how important climbing vines are especially given it's the first thing you are expected to do in the game to proceed to any other levels it is really unfortunate that not only are the vines not clear that you can interact with them but that you can jump past them making it really difficult for the player to accidentally figure out they are intractable.
* Each level starts you off with no cooldown time between deaths and some of the levels are really time sensitive to not run into enemies.
* A the various objects you interact with are unclear about what they do.
While I love this game it is games like these that really makes me wish there was an "Intuitiveness" voting category. This is by no means a bad game or remotely close to one however in a jam setting it's easy to not put much thought into how the player will understand the game. I feel an "Intuitiveness" category would push clearly talented developers like you to put more thought into making their games as easy to access and get into as possible.
Fantastic job on this game and I really hope you bring more of your great work to my attention! I can't wait to play more of your work in future jams! I hope the criticism didn't come across as too harsh!
- The mechanics are really opaque, I'm still not sure how the dash works, sometimes it works, sometimes not. Seems only to work if you collect something, but then... Why should you have to press a button if you can only press that button when collecting that thing? Could you store it up? I couldn't tell.
- The visuals are helluva confusing. Yes, the three colours thing is a nice gimmick, but I daresay an unnecessary gimmick that didn't work in favour of the player. There's a ton of trial and error that would have been unnecessary if it weren't for the confusion.
- The controls are tight, but it does feel too fast, there's a lot of super tightly timed things that need to happen. One could dismiss this as "noobs stay away" but I don't feel like that's a good thing. It limits accessibility.
- Totally agree with @drazil100 on the intuitiveness thing - there are many many many games that I encounter that nail that, and many many many that ignore it and slap players with wall of texts and then blame the player for not reading. And that severely limits the game's potential in terms of DESIGN.
The sound is awesome! and the level design is well done (but I think it was difficult to tell what the level design was because of all the stuff on the screen). Max 2 more colors would have been really cool, and made it much more readable. I made it about halfway or more through the game before I realized the evil essence killed the skulls. My biggest problem with the enemies were the tiny little circles that moved straight across the screen and killed instantly, because they were almost impossible to see.
If you can make this in 48 hours, you could make something really amazing in even longer.
Keep up the good work!
The game is a little hard and too fast paced to my taste but you did an amzing job :thumbsup:
I think the biggest flaw is the graphic design. An extra color would be really nice. You only have two colors, but even with just two colors there is seemingly no consistent color design. Platforms, items, enemies, hazards, foreground and background elements all use both colors in the palette. Compare to something like Downwell, where the player, level, and miscellaneous objects are completely white, enemies you can stomp on are white with red tint, and enemies and hazards that cannot be hurt by stomping on them are fully red and filled in. This lets you instantly understand what obstacles are coming your way.
The next problem is with the way the theme is implemented. I think it works well enough, but with how much your view is obscured, it makes going through levels a matter of trial-and-error. I think it's at odds with the fast-paced mechanics of the game. I'm not sure if there is a good way to fix this with this concept, this may just be a thing that will bother some people more than others.
The third thing is the design of the levels. Most of them are okay, but there are some that start you off on a disappearing platform or immediately next to an enemy which can lead to some cheap deaths when you're trying to just look at the level for a second (which is made harder by the lack of consistent color design). Not only that, but having to make blind jumps to invisible platforms is really annoying. They could at least pop up occasionally so it's not completely trial-and-error... Finally, the exit of the level is somewhat unclear. You go off usually the top end of the screen, but sometimes the sides. Either way, there are times when there are no walls despite the fact that you can't actually exit the level through that way.
The fourth thing is with the general game feel. It's nice and fast most of the time, but maybe a little *too* fast. Springs and dashes launch you instantly at a high speed, which can be difficult to track due to the low resolution and obstruction of your view. This problem also happens when climbing ropes. Your momentum is conserved when you hit a rope, whether or not you are holding up or down to climb, so there's no real indication that you even grabbed a rope, not even an audio cue. Your sprite also doesn't change on the rope unless you are not moving horizontally. It interacts weirdly with your momentum and makes the climbing feel... bad.
The fifth and final problem I had was the lack of in-game explanation. This is rather minor, as you could just read the game description on this page, but the description is pretty lengthy. This is evident right on the first level, where you are told that you can press Z to jump, but not that you can climb, or that the thing hanging from the platform is a rope that you can climb! Then, in the next level, you are told "X to dash". This one might be a language thing, or maybe trying to be too brief in your description, but most people would associate a dash with something that moves horizontally. However, this "dash" only boosts you upwards, and isn't aimable horizontally at all, so you might as well just call it a double jump. Two other things with the dash that you aren't really told is that you lose it once you land on the ground, and that collecting one will destroy the enemies.
Sorry to be so harsh on your game, it's clear you put a lot of effort in it, but it didn't work out for me.
This.. was some effort. I played on stream, and I do feel bad for my viewers for each one of those 51 minutes! haha I kid. For me it was a challenging game, but as you heard on stream - for me I didn't find the learning curve and harsh controls too fun to get used to. Also found the visual style make the game hard to play, not sure why you went for the three colours thing. Also the difficulty between "rooms" really varies, some later ones are very easy, where as others require a lot more time for a poor player like me.
The positives - I think a game like this does have a market for speed runners who enjoy such harsh controls and lack or room for error!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uu0JLk6vb4
I'm here after i finished the game, the game is well polished, well done in 48 hours! But i'm frustrating along from my gameplay.
I dont think the mechanics is mixing very well, u create a circumstance that we supposed to observe and explore aren't we? But everything in a fast pace, i can only run and dead and run and dead again, in the end, i've definitely ignore the blob.
I meant, yes, it's still a good game, well done.
Excellent job!
All my gripes aside, the level of detail and work that went into the level design and atmosphere is really incredible. This game is so far the only one I've given a 5 out of 5 on mood. Very deserved. I hope you go far with this.
**
I'm planning to release X-mass edition really soon, which will include fourth color, more simple levels, and a proper tutorial. Thanks everyone for the feedback! **
It's games like these that make me super excited to try PICO-8 myself :)
out there were "Dart Traps" shooting bubble-looking darts at me, but it would have felt less unfair if those dangers were shown to the player _before_ they became hidden from view. Same for skulls. Maybe reset the amount of occluders at the beginning of every level, or on the levels in which new kinds of obstacles are introduced, to give the player a chance to understand how those obstacles work?
Other unfair things which made the problem worse:
* backgrounds which look like platforms
* invisible platforms and auto-grip vines which block your jump and cause you to get killed by a Dart Trap
Despite all these criticism: the game was quite fun, but I enjoyed it in spite of its gimmick, not because of it.
In addition to this main criticism, I also found that the basic rules of the game were unclear. It took me longer than it should to figure out:
* that even though the occlusion effect of potions lasts forever, their double-jump effect must be used before touching the floor. Maybe add a tossed-away-bottle particle when the player hits the floor?
* that those random explosions are keys unlocking the locked doors. Maybe make that happen immediately when the player picks up the last key, or when the player touches the door? Having it happen when the key touches the door introduces a delay which makes it harder to link the action of picking up the key to the resulting explosion, and since there is no longer a door at that location after the explosion attracts the player's gaze to that location, it's not clear what the explosion was about.
* that skulls disappear when you pick up a potion. It's not a logical consequence, and since the skulls can be far away from the player and also their position is now hidden by the occluders, the player will only later discover that the skulls are gone, without realizing which action caused that to happen. Maybe temporarily remove the occluders around them and have them flicker out of existence instead of instantly disappear?
* that the potions allow me to double-jump. Despite making it through the tutorial which is supposed to teach me that, in the level after that I couldn't understand why the X button seemingly only worked during that tutorial level. I think the level in which we're trapped in a narrow pit and we need to jump-dash repeatedly in order to escape would have been a better tutorial, because it's more obvious that the sequence of bottles corresponds to the sequence of jumps, as opposed to a coin-like pickup which guides you during a tricky jump.