Welcome to hwd2002's Elite for the Pico-8 home console!
This game is intended to be less-grindy and slow re-imagining of the old Elite, suited more for an evening of fun rather than a week of space-trucking. If you're wondering how to play, I've written a Game Manual
I should mention this out of the gate: This isn't a faithful port of the original Elite. This is just my own idea of what makes a fun game. If you want a completely faithful port, see Jamesedge's Picolite.
About Development: Four months ago I downloaded the NES Elite. While it was very fun, I desperately wanted a higher framerate. Now here I am, with a 60fps version that I made myself! Since I ran out of space on my cartridge I am going to bite the bullet and call the project finished.
I'm 100% sure there are weird bugs I've never even thought of, so please ask where the bathroom is.
About Worlds: Trade will affect the prices of certain commodities, as well as the Tech Level of the systems traded with. Additionally, Bounty Hunting and Pirating will affect the Piracy level of a system.
About Trade Items: Every trade item now grants a good amount of profit, if you know where to buy and sell. Missiles are also doubly useful as a trade item and a way to re-arm your ship cheaply.
About Ship Stats: I tried to make each ship's characteristics match the original game's as much as possible, but it isn't perfect as the stats aren't 1-to-1. Ships now have shield, pitch, roll, and yaw values as well as their base energy, speed, and weapon stats. Most ships can't yaw anymore, so dogfights are more interesting IMO.
About Encounters: There is not one, not three, but two special encounters in the game. These are slightly different from other Elite versions as they both use mechanics unique to this game. There are also about 7 minor special encounters, such as Rock Hermits and Ace Pirates.
About NPC AI: As with all of my games, it seems I overcomplicate my NPCs. There are a significant number of variations an NPC pilot can have. The same type of ship might fight differently depending on the pilot's stats.
About Secrets: There are a few unique and bizarre things found in the game. There are no hidden quests or special things you need to do in these cases. Pico8 just doesn't have space, sorry!
About Post-Game:
Changelog
1.1
player now drops cargo containers based on their inventory
fixed player damage sound playing after death
made price differences more extreme for some cargoes.
fixed scooped cargo being forgotten on warp
tweaked stats of cargo container, asp
tweaked dice rolls for encounter table
escorts now stay with leader during fast forward
fixed drake spawn routine
hopefully fixed a bug with negative kill tallies
@Minion Oh, well that's not a good start! I can't recreate it on my end, but I think you've got a corrupted save file. I altered the cartdata call so others hopefully won't encounter your issue. If it continues to be a problem, I'd like to know what browser/standalone Pico-8 you are using.
Working fine here for the record! Took me a little while to figure out it's X+L/R to choose a menu item and double-X to select.. not sure the best way to communicate this to the player though. This is really impressive once getting into the meat of it, still figuring it out but I will be returning for more! Incredible work for PICO-8!
Very good game but I had a hard time understanding it too.
@Truncana: Yes, but it is disabled because I didn't like how it altered progression. The Cobra Mk3 is far and away the best ship so none of the other ships were a logical purchase. Right now buying ships is unlocked after you reach Elite (576 kills), allowing you to restart the game with any ship and buy new ones.
I think there's a bug in how the game handles bounties. I warped into a star system and got attacked by a pirate. I managed to take that pirate down and got a bounty for it. Then several other pirates, and police ships, appeared, and a battle ensued -- somehow I got the bounty for them even though I took no part in the battle.
@rnd That is somewhat intentional. The player only needs to be nearby to be awarded a bounty. This was to incentivize players flying with other trade ships rather than being alone. Some traders will stay with you whether you want them too or not, and I didn't want them stealing kills from the player.
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