Working in sprints of 3 hours. We'll see how much sprints I can do. It works quite well at work, so why not here 😎 I'm using PICO-8 so it's much easier than my previous attempts ;-)

Genre

I'm doing a shmup, since it's the easiest genre to code with Pico-8, and one can be rather creative with the game dynamics to be interesting.

Sprint 1 - Skeleton - Done

The basics of the gameplay are done. Also with rather simple sprites.

Evolving towards the theme

Now, to stick to the theme, I'm planning to have limited ammo (the second bar), that can be charged (I just don't know how yet). And of course, you'll start with 0 (zero) ammo at first.

Let's see how it spans out.

Found how to apply the theme, finished the basic engine mechanisms. Now I have to find a clever idea on the how to let the player interact with it.

Hi, I managed to have a playable game in 3h, but I'm thinking about enhancing it post-jam. As I won't have more than 3-4h per week, I'm crowdsourcing ideas.

So, what would you add ?

my game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-loop-5

I implemented a scoring system in my entry, with score & hiscores, as it was the #1 complain in the comments. Now the game is quick, fun & challenging to be better.

I also added some sounds & fixed a bug in the spawning system that makes it less "unfair", as every enemy will spawn in the opposite half of the loop, giving you decent time to anticipate.

TheLoop: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-loop-5

Note : Be sure to play the original one first, rate it, and then enjoy the updated version :rewind: :wink:

Well, as usual, I have to scrap hours here and there :wink:

So, here is the result of my first hour:

1. Found the main gameplay mechanic "a shmup that drills its way"
2. Found a working title : "Driller"
3. Creates some prototype

As I'm a huge fan of minimalism, I went to "colored circles" as sprites.

So, here I have my game mechanics working.

Basically, you have to shoot matching color bullets to incoming bubbles. Then, you can "eat" them to resize yourself.

Touching a non-edible color will make you smaller. Diving deeper will make you smaller.

If you are too small, you die. Well, not implemented yet ;) And, the video shows some bugs also.

So, I changed the name, as it is a bubble, and doesn't make sense to "drill". So "Diving Bubble is better".

I learnt from the previous LD that an in-game explanation is better than when it written in the LD website. And I also learned that SFX is important.

Now, let's try to create some music.

WIP : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/diving-bubble

Well, I didn't managed to create any meaningful music. But I did some polish : nicer colours, acceleration of diving & appearing bubbles are never of the color of the player.

My game is out, but as early testers noticed, the reset part doesn't work. I fixed it with a one-liner... :face_palm:

    function _update_game_over()
-     if (btnp(4)) _update = _init()
+     if (btnp(4)) _init()
    end

I updated the game, as I think it is still within the rules.

Here is another gratuitous screencast:

After 4 times an hour, I got finally my 20 ratings in less than a week on my PICO8 game!

From the comments, it seems that the testers found it rather nice, but brutally difficult, yet addicting.

Which, no matter the final score, is already an achievement for me :trophy:

Thanks everyone!

As I fell again in the Pico-8 trap (it is way too effective for me), I'm looking for some games by fellow pico8 lovers to try & rate :wink:

Feel free to also try mine.

I started my "4x1 LD challenge" several LD ago which is participate in the compo for 4 hours during the event. Those 4h are split into 4 blocks of 1h in order to make it painless in term of time investment.

Note that it doesn't stop me to think about it between those blocks, but I cannot actively contribute (code, paint, test, ...) to it.

And, on this entry, I'm very happy with the results of my 4h game.

Thanks everyone that tried & rated it, and everyone else to contribute to make that JAM what it is!

Ok.

Found an idea, started execution.

Genre : Multiplayer dodgeball like.

Rules: * Each player has a color * You have a certain amount of balls * You can throw them. Each ball that hits a player is picked up, and become of his color * Every 10 seconds you are scoring 1 point if you are the one that has the color with the less balls * After 10 time 10 seconds, the player with most points wins.

Let's see if it can code & make it fun at the same time.

Again this time, working in PWM mode for a max of 240 minutes!

So, balls are here. Multiplayer is fixed 4-way. Pico 8 support up to 8 players, so I guess I have to find some friends & controllers :wink:

What works: * Balls lauching * Balls collision with players * Dashing, means you get a 50% speed boost, but also attracts balls to you. Might lead interesting strategies.

Must Todo: * Scoring * better HUD. The HUD is kindof very non-intuitive for now * Some sound * Menu system to choose number of players & game over

Maybe Todo: * Bots, for single player
* Particles. Everyone loves particles effects :grin:

Remarks: * Solid color for player means "dashing" * Hollow color for balls means "ghost" for some time. Which means "uncatchable", to cheaply avoid recatching your balls immediatly after launch.

Ok, half time.

The game is almost finished. Only remains: * Sounds * Start Menu to choose the number of players

And, then optional stuff :grin:

Everything planned is done.

Now the only thing that is missing is * better HUD * AI

I guess it will be challenging in the remaining hour, but let's try!

How do you do it?

As I have some reluctance into randomly running things from the internet without proper sandbox that a web browser offers

Now it is my turn to resort to spam the message wall. I'm at 18 ratings, so close to 20.

I know there's ample time to finish, but the sooner the better :rolling_eyes:

Also, I will do an improved version with bots, maybe even music. As I'm planning to port it to various Retro consoles, can you add a comment to which ones you'd like? I'm doing it as a learning experience, so only consoles that have an adequate SDK 😉

My game is at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/dodge48 and it is a couch multiplayer in pico8 (so html5)

It seems that there are less pico8 games nowadays than some years ago.

I guess the killer feature of being quick to start on the web has been delivered by many others, such as Godot.

So if you have used pico8, please leave a comment. I'll be glad to play your game!

Mine is https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/dodge48

Thanks all to let my game reach 20 ratings in all categories!

I'll work on an updated version now. Mostly adding bots as it is the most requested feature. I left it out as I know AI is something that needs lots of tuning, and that takes time.

I'll still work in 1-hour slot mode and I don't think I'll have time for more than 4 slots.

Let's see.

Again, thanks 🙏