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Cart #balls-3 | 2022-07-24 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA
9

Hi there!

"Balls" is a simple juggling simulator made with love for Pico-8 (My daughter helped with the graphics!). I'm new to programming, and the code may be a little messy as I've pieced it together over time while learning new things.

The balls are generated randomly (within certain conditions), so – much like real-life multitasking – this may result in some unfortunately impossible scenarios.

Have fun!

P#114733 2022-07-24 09:56 ( Edited 2022-07-24 10:34)

Great job! It would be nice to have a way to make the hands get closer or farther apart, to give the player more control over the game. I really like the idea of this game, it makes for a great first game with pico-8! Would you mind if I borrow some of its design concepts? I was interested on making a tutorial series for my fellow Brazilians about how to start making games in pico-8, but I never really settled on what kind of game would be a good start for new developers. A juggling game such as this is one is a perfect fit for a newcomer to start learning the engine!

P#114755 2022-07-24 17:23

Actually this is quite good, @kaba. Gold star work ! My High-Score is 86.

It is possible to have one ball fall and there is absolutely no way for the hand to reach it in time in attempting to catch the others.

You might check the distance between balls and ensure they are not falling at the exact same vertical position and vertical acceleration.

You might also have it so 🅾️ and ❎ slide the hands farther apart or closer together depending upon your keystroke, preference of the player. Arrow keys as normal to move the hands left and right.

P#114758 2022-07-24 17:42 ( Edited 2022-07-24 17:49)
1

Thanks! I thought about the hand placement too but then decided to split the screen in two halves with one hand covering one side to keep things simple.

And go right ahead, @profpatonildo! It seems there aren't too many juggling games out there and it was a fun project to do.

EDIT: And yes, balls falling out of reach is a problem that I never did solve fully, and some solutions that I tried made the game too easy. Manually adjusting the randomised positions made the game playable and fun enough for me, so I wrapped things up and decided to move on to another project.

P#114762 2022-07-24 18:05 ( Edited 2022-07-25 06:40)

Yeah, this is fun. I got 133 with 7 balls in the air but I feel like I could have done more if I was focusing :).

P#114768 2022-07-24 22:36

249!

That was a lot more fun than it had any right to be :). I really like how you sort of get into a rhythm that you need to reverse each 'cycle' of bounces. It was a great decision to have the bounce height stay constant rather than having a small amount of randomness - this makes the game more of a rhythm recognition activity than just reaction based.

I actually like that you cannot move the hands separately - gives it a feel like those old LCD games. Good job!

P#114807 2022-07-25 14:07

Thank you @kaba :D I hope to see more games from you in the future!

P#114813 2022-07-25 16:42

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm so glad I found Pico. I have more ideas I would like to try out with other game concepts, and the environment is so wonderfully approachable that I know they won't remain just ideas forever.

P#114887 2022-07-27 05:04

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