Overworld Controls:
◁ ▷ △ ▽ - Move
Ⓧ - Interact, continue dialog
Ⓞ - Speed up dialog
Combat controls:
◁ ▷ △ ▽ - Change selection
Ⓧ - Activate
Ⓞ - Cancel / Back
Standard Pico-8 keyboard assignments:
Arrow keys = ◁ ▷ △ ▽
Z,C,N = Ⓞ
X,V,M = Ⓧ
P,Enter = Pause menu (useful for resetting the game to play it again)
For the best experience, take the time to try interacting with all the objects, too!
Have fun catting around!
Thank you everyone for your support.
Here's my post-jam development diary / full disclosure wrap-up thing:
Known issues:
Earlier versions:
Finished! Barring any minor issues, this will be my final version of Nora's Mouse Chase. I've used up nearly all of the tokens, so adding anything more will require some code refactoring and optimization or converting certain effects from efficient lines / rectangles into sprites.
Fantastic little game! The battles were much more fun than most other similar games as you have to actually think about them. Played through to the end which left me wanting more!
It's squeeze-all-the-little-fixes-in-before-the-jam-ends time.
Changes in Jam v2:
Rebalanced MP costs and changed the skill mechanic to disallow using multiple skills in the same turn to stack the effect unfairly. You should now be able to use "Convert" skills only 2 times per fight (down from 3) and then still have enough MP left over to use Full Random once or Shuffle Next 4 times.
Convert skill targetting was refined some more to use link elements as a tiebreaker, in case you have two pairs of elements to choose from, guaranteeing the best possible effect.
Changes in Jam v3:
- Minor tweaks to some of the wording Numo and the tutorial use.
- Keys now tell you that the door is automatically opened when collected.
- Changed Numo's sprites to closer reflect the intended hair style.
- Added Nora's info card to the end of the tutorial.
Yeah. I opted for a very low color style on the main sprites for some reason. Like it's supposed to be an NES game or something. And then all the overworld tiles are scaled up to make you feel tiny? But then the scale changes when you go through a door like in Pokémon.
Yeah. I didn't use any fancy compression techniques and cut a lot of corners in my coding to get it out the door in time for the jam, so the game became that short because it's more or less all I could fit under the token limit.
I should've probably just made it a continuous battle-after-battle arena simulator with a bunch of random encounters if I was smart, maybe even with a balanced 2 player VS mode, but it wouldn't be as enjoyable to me if it were presented without context, with no story... I wanted to impress people by presenting several distinct screens of gameplay, rather than just a title screen and a static game screen that always does one thing and never changes.
If my cute little overworld with all its flavor text and the cut-in tutorial screens also left an impression on you and added value to this project beyond just the memorably unusual combat system mechanics (which required the detailed tutorial to explain), I'd consider it a success.
Congratulations to Combo Pool for winning Pico-8 Jam #2. It was well-deserved.
I've added some developer commentary / afterthoughts to the first post, as I did after Pico-8 Jam #1 ended for Frog Home.
Everything about this is adorable, from the characters to the dialogue to the battle animations. I love it <3
Do you think you'll ever revisit this idea in the future or would you rather move on? The battle system is really interesting and fun to play with and I would absolutely love to see it being expanded upon.
Super cute game! I included it in my Pico-8 Jam #2 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
That was extremely cute and fun to play, had a blast playing it on my raspberry pi 3 in the living room the other night :)
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