hello!

learning game dev. pico-8 has really unlocked coding for me, and i feel like i'm making progress where i never have before.

wanted to use this thread as a blog for the games that i'm working on.

game 1
title: "PicoEco"

this game is an economic sim, similar to offworld trading company. the idea is to buy out your competition. currently have a bundle of raw materials, 4 of them are randomly picked every game. i also have an AI that takes a snapshot of the current prices - it then buys that item if the price is lower, or sells if it is higher. the prices are adjusted based on player and AI buys/sells.

to-do:

• add factories for raw material combos
• add more AI types
• add abilities to affect enemies/market

gifs:
early on, market adjusted prices based on buy/sell

added effect to the cash that doesn't snap to the amount
if you notice the price for mineral ore, it is changing without us interacting with it, that is the AI selling its inventory seeing that the price is high

notes:
trying to go for an 80s, cassette futurism vibe, green on black. more to come soon!

game 2:
title: "untitled survivor deckbuilder"

i recently fell in love with vampire survivors and similar "survivor" type games, so i figured i would make one on pico8! trying to iron out mechanics, but the idea is that you get a deck, you have card rewards after stages, and each stage you are dealt a hand. you can have adjacency bonuses, hand bonuses (flush, straight, etc), and each card augments damage/cooldown/speed/etc. you have a card menu that you can adjust the order of the cards on the fly. still ironing out the details.

to-do:

• finish card database
• iron out mechanics
• animations
• playtest!

gifs:
early days - fun animation, xp gathering and dash working!

current state - hand manipulation, card state/gameplay state, early artwork, health bar

notes:
cyberpunk themed i think, struggling to figure out mechanics with this one.

game 3
title: "PicoPet" - i know this already exists, going to change it

making a cute little tomagachi like game. want to have incremental elements, where you can grow the pets, get currency, get different rarity eggs? not sure what the loop will look like. really focusing on trying to develop lua skills with this game, generating a little more complex AI. i plan to have the pets interact with each other, terrain, objects, etc. we'll see!

gifs:
funny bug, when one drinks, they all drink. they also don't stop. then they slide. more to come!