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Hey all!

So, as it turns out, porting Picovania to Picotron was pretty straightforward! I've decided to
continue, now that constraints have been lifted!

Pardon our dust...

Cart #picovania-112 | 2024-10-09 | Embed ▽ | No License
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Controls:

Press ⬅️ and ➡️ to move left and

right

Press ⬇️ to duck

Press ⬆️ or ⬇️ in front of a stair
railing to ascend or descend stairs
as appropriate

Press ❎ to jump

Press 🅾️ to use your whip

Hold ⬆️ and press 🅾️ to throw a
sub weapon

Instructions:

  • Whip candles to collect sub weapons,
    hearts and money bags

  • Hearts supply you with ammo for your
    sub weapon

  • Money bags award points

    • Collect a porkchop to gain 6 health, up to a maximum of 16
  • Collect the Multi stone for Multi Shot, which allows you to have more sub weapons on-screen
    at once!
    • Multi Shot can be upgraded twice, but if you collect a different sub weapon or die you will lose it

I will update this post to keep everyone up to speed when I upload a new cart. Check out the spoiler
below if you're interested!

Change Log:

(10/9/24)

  • Nothing to Lose has been added
  • Heart of Fire has been added
  • Bat has been added to the title screen. He's just a placeholder until I can get one of my very own
  • Panther has been added. A fast moving cat that can sneak up if you aren't careful
  • Fishmen have been added. They burst from the murky waters and belch fire. Tread lightly
  • Reworked the map a bit to utilize the new enemies
  • Simon can now jump backwards if you tap the rear direction, and press jump at the same time
  • Made a pass over some animations

(9/30/24)

  • This release was me taking a small break from coding to work on some music

    • Stalker has been added
    • Wicked Child has been added
    • Walking on the Edge has been added
  • Made a pass over gameplay and visuals to be a little more polished and readable,
  • Crushers have been added, but wont be used in the first level
  • Dialed in the boss' behavior

(9/22/24)

  • Moved some stuff around on the map...
  • Polish on the boss
  • Fixed Multishot getting broken
  • Simon now has a moment of hitstun
  • Tweaked the axe hitbox a bit
  • Adjusted Simon's walking speed

(9/20/24)

  • More work has been done on scoring. There are now multi hit combos and more money bags
  • Secret areas and breakable walls have been added! Can you find them all?
  • Bats have been added
  • The boss has arrived! He is pretty tough... I may have to nerf him... like, a lot.
  • First stage now has just about everything to be considered a complete first draft!

(9/17/24)

  • Level loading issue has been fixed!
  • Tweaked a few sound effects
  • Added a more dynamic health bar

(9/16/24)

  • Map has been expanded. Only rough dev art for now
  • Castle entrance has been added
  • Zombies have been added. They're numerous, but slow and weak
  • Initial work on a scoring system has begun
  • Brazier candles have been added

(9/15/24)

  • Added door transitions
  • A new area is in place, That boss position is vacant...

(9/13/24)

  • Porkchop has been added. Collect it to gain 6 health
  • Bone towers have been added. Watch out for their fireballs!
  • Map layout has...changed? Castlevania itself is a creature of chaos, after all
  • Damage functions are enabled
  • Tweaked a few hit boxes for some balance
  • Intro is in... Mind the construction, and wear your hard hat. Don't lose it...

(9/12/24)

  • Work on title screen has begun. Artwork by the ever talented Cephaccino!
  • A stub has been added for the intro. It's left disabled for now

(9/11/24)

  • Added HUD to Game Over screen
  • Added a few more platforms to play with, and rearranged some candles
  • Revisited Vampire Killer to sound a little less harsh (I'll get it eventually...)

(9/10/24)

  • Floating platforms have been added
  • Initial map loading is implemented. Use the stairs to traverse the different levels
    • Lower level added to try it out
  • Still tuning the stairs. They're still not quite perfect, but getting there...

  • Made another pass over music and SFX, to balance audio and to prevent clobbering

(9/5/24)

Alright, peeps. I need to do some research on map manipulation and loading.

Let's see what I can learn, then I can continue! In the meantime, let me know how

the current features feel.

  • Made another pass on the stage one music, and rebalanced the audio

(9/5/24)

  • Added stage one music
  • tweaked a few sfx and instruments

I'll have to make another pass to try and eliminate sfx clobbering

(9/2/24)

  • Added a victory state, it currently just sends you back to the title screen
  • Added some more music, victory and game over

(9/1/24)

  • Game is now fullscreen, gameplay and hud adjusted accordingly
  • Axe now has a new feature: when throwing an axe, hold the movement arrow in the direction you're facing
    to throw it farther
  • boomerang now goes faster to cover the screen

(8/31/24)

  • Candle contents take some context
  • took a crack at fixing the stairs
  • You can now travel up and down on the stairs,
    it's the same area, but im testing transitions
  • Fixed subweapons not throwable after dying
  • Tweaked small heart to drift to the left first
  • Continuing from game over resets score

(8/30/24)

  • Adjusted some sfx
  • Tweaked hitboxes for whip and all subweapons
  • Fixed stopwatch not honoring the ammo cost
  • Added initial multishot
  • Stopwatch tuned so you can only throw it once
  • Multishot added. Collect a II to double your shots, collect a III to triple!
  • if you have no subweapon or a stopwatch, they give points instead
  • small score graphics added

(8/29/24)

  • Added in some SFX

  • Adjusted hit boxes to more closely
    match visual feedback

  • New playground map with candles to
    whip

(8/23/24)

Initial release on Picotron!

LEGACY

(8/9/23)

  • Several powerups have been added, as well as all sub-weapons
    • Stopwatch: Freezes time to give you some room to breath, but it costs quite a few hearts to use
    • Cross: Emits a blinding holy light, destroying all enemies on screen! One use on pickup only.
    • Invisibility potion: Makes you invincible for about ten seconds.
  • The whip upgrade is now fully working. Grab 1 to get a chain whip. Grab another to make it longer!
  • I've sprinkled candles throughout the level to play with. Every available item and sub-weapon should be attainable, but some of the more valuable stuff is placed in harder to reach areas. Can you find them all?
  • First Enemy has been added; The Bone Tower! (Thanks again for the art @HeyNetters. I saw your Bone tower and
    was inspired for my first enemy!)
    • Acts more like a sentry than anything, but where it lacks in mobility it makes up for in toughness. Recommend at
      least a chain to deal with these guys. Watch your footing...

(11/22/22)

  • I've decorated the map a bit, using assets and ideas provided by @HeyNetters. Many thanks go to them for the art! This is all preliminary for now, but these just looked too good to not include them.

  • Chain upgrade has been added. The chain graphics reflect the first upgrade, and the added length reflect the second. Collect the whip powerup to upgrade.

  • Gameplay pause added upon collection of the whip powerup.

  • Whip has been fixed so that you can no longer hit things behind you. Still need to look into that janky
    animation...

  • Thanks to suggestions from @dw817, Simon's walk speed has been increased a bit, with matching animation. The whip also stays out for just a bit longer.

  • Minor changes to small heart to keep it from flying around so much.
  • Tweaking pass on SFX.

(8/26/22)

Sorry for the long delay, guys. I recently started a new job, and I have less time to work on this project now. I do, however, fully intend to see this project to completion. I need to work on some systems that can cut down on repeated code in here, as the token count is getting dangerously high. Despite that, I'm happy with where it is at so far. Let me know how you guys like it!

  • Candles have been added. Until I can work out a feasible spawning system, these are hard coded. Whip them to make
    items come out.

  • I have mocked up a status bar along the top of the screen. This is all subject to change as I figure out what will
    fit and what will not.

  • A game clock is in place. It ticks down in seconds, and once it reaches zero, you're dead. There isn't much you
    can do about it at the moment, but I thought it would be fun to add, and it was really simple to implement. The
    clock will even start to beep after awhile, just to give you some unnecessary stress.

  • Hearts have been added. You now have a limited stock of ammunition. Whip candles to find more.

(7/21/22)

  • Boomerang can now be caught. Small reason to post an update, but I thought it was important.

  • Boomerang graphics rearranged so it animates like in the original game.

    This may be the last update for a little bit. The code for climbing stairs MUST be rewritten before I will
    continue. While it works great as it is, the code is just too darned bloated right now.

(7/20/22)

  • All throwable weapons have been added. Hold ❎ and press ⬆️ or ⬇️ to cycle through them,
    and press ⬆️ and 🅾️ to throw one. Like before, you can throw 3 at a time!

  • Holy water was redrawn to not be so huge.

(7/19/22)

  • Holy water has been added, press ⬆️ and 🅾️ to throw it. You can throw 3 at a time.

  • Simon's sprite has been redrawn to make him more detailed and look a lot less scrawny. Many thanks go to the
    Discord community for their feedback on this matter!

(7/18/22)

  • Stairs now work in all 4 directions.

  • Plenty of stairs have been added to the map, so play around and let me know if anything breaks horrifically.

  • It is no longer possible to jump when a block is directly above the player.

(7/16/22)

  • Commented out the code and formatted it so anybody could take a look and decipher it all...

  • Taking a hit will now interrupt your attack.

  • Player can no longer warp through the ceiling when hurt.

(7/15/22)

  • Player health, hurt state and death are implemented. There aren't any enemies yet, so for now you
    can press ⬆️ and ❎ to beat yourself up. These are disabled while on stairs...

  • Continue screen has been added

  • Made a pass on music and sound effects. I feel like the music instrumentation is way better now, and many of the
    sound effects are improving as well!

  • Initial HUD elements added. There are here only for a visual to pair with testing health and lives for now.

(7/12/22)

  • Changes to walk and stair climbing movement and animation speed. It felt just a tad sluggish before...

(7/11/22)

  • Stairs are in progress. Right now there is only up-right and down-left movement, but this is a pretty good proof of concept. Whip is disabled for now while climbing them until I flesh out that aspect.

  • The bottom of the screen is now a bottomless pit, and you will die and be reset.

  • A small map to test out the mechanics and play around in.

  • Preliminary artwork has been added to make the view a little more interesting

(7/10/22)

  • Jump physics have been reworked and the jank is now gone for the most part. I feel like the jumping is in a pretty good spot now.

  • Initial work on the whip has been started. The animation is just a little janky, but I'm working on that :)

  • I am currently prototyping ideas for stairs. I haven't added stairs yet, so don't try...

(6/26/22):

  • Basic movement is implemented; Walking, ducking, jumping and hard landing are in. There is one little niggle
    with collision and platforming. I'm sure you guys will know when you find it. (Edit) I've created a temporary workaround
    for this. Please let me know if you like how it handles. Collision is still not perfect, and you might still get
    hung up, but I'm working on that.

  • First draft of music has been created. Let me know how you like it! I might need to shift things around a bit
    before I release: I've not included everything I'd like to, and I've run out of room due to some initial (less
    than optimal) SFX layout choices.

(6/27/22):

  • I've tweaked the jump physics to more closely match the original game.

  • Invisible walls have been added. I wanted a way to create impassible areas without changing the collision.
    You can test this out near the lone block on the right.

    Now is the time where I sit down and take a class on Picomap by @JadeLombax. I may as well get this figured out
    and implemented now, since stairs will likely rely on it...

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Happy to do more sprites now that the sprite cap is lifted! We could make it really gorgeous!


1

(Huge, over dramatic gasp)
@HeyNetters?! Oh my gosh! I was actually thinking of your work when I picked this project back up, musing about how cool it would be to collaborate. I would be honored to have you!

I'd like to stick with the 8x8 aesthetic for now, as well as pico 8's palette. If you have discord, or some other preferred method of communication, please let me know.

Top billing, man. That is what you'll get. On the title screen, front and center! Your work deserves no less.


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I'm cephaccino on the PICO-8 discord!


Hey @JadeLombax. Would your picomap project work on Picotron?


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@Turbochop,
Hmm, I haven't thought of that. I'm sure a version of it could, but I don't know how much work would be involved in adapting it. Also, because the cartridges can store 8x as much, and some map compression seems to be baked in, I don't know if it would be necessary for a lot of projects. I think the world map for Castlevania could actually fit fine in one Pico-8 cart using PX9 instead of PicoMap, as it's only about 100 screens.

The trickier thing is the token limit. I have a basically complete version of Super Mario Bros. for Pico-8, and I figured out some good token-saving strategies, but it's right at the token limit, and I'll need to optimize things some more for any big future Pico projects. A lot is possible with Pico-8, but stretching its limits can be tough, Picotron does seem more friendly for bigger projects.


@JadeLombax I understand. I'm sniffing around for a nice map chunk loading solution before I break down and write my own. Thanks for replying!


Thanks


@Dunard For working on PicoVania? You're welcome! Stay tuned, as I'm not finished by a long shot!


@dw817 I finally included backward jumping, like you always wanted!



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