CONCEPT:
Castlevania SotN/Zelda II demake. The main focus of the game is the Zelda II-style combat; but also with palace-building scripts that... well... at this point, basically generates pathways to two keys (or enemies that drop them), an item room (that requires one of the keys), a boss room (that requires the other), and an in-palace shop. There's seven "palace chunks" in total, and later I'll be scripting closeoffs for passageways that aren't used.
DESIRED OUTCOME:
A seven-palace romp with progressive/changing enemies, decent assortment of weapons and passive items, enemy drop RNG that on occasion includes some of these weapons and items, to give it more of that SotN replay/uncertainty, a couple of secret areas of some sort?
[b]SPRITING SUNDAY
4 comments
Okay, so right now, it's a bunch of design-doodled stuff for the time being; something like a "development wishlist" that I'm hoping to grind myself through soon... and hoping I can squish into PICO's limitations.
MARLO AND FRIENDS
Basically, a SMB "demake" comprised of 4 levels, repeated with some factors changed like enemies/placements, coins and platforming widgets. It follows the typical SMB pattern of "overworld, underworld, scarce ground, fortress," except that the bridge battle at the end will require you to cross it once forwards, once backwards, and a third time across. The "and friends" part is for pallette swaps, switching the focus of the game (and maybe, if enough tokens remain, the end-of-level widget, we'll see):
Marlo (red): Flagpole, clearly.
Zonac (blue): Speedrunning, distance jump at end instead of height.
Dunky (brown): Enemy combos, the DKC2 end-of-level prize-hammer thingy.
Roshi (green): Collectables, flowery-roulette wheel except now it's stars.
Warlo (yellow): Coins!! Slot-machine-card thing from SMB3.
I don't think I'll do much with powerups - just one that makes you big, and if you recollect it, you can do a mid-air trick one time. Marlo gets a double-jump, Zonac gets the Fire Shield-style dash from Sonic 3, Dunky... I haven't decided yet, probably the ground slam, though; Roshi does the ground pound drop, and Warlo... don't know about him yet either. There'll be bouncing starmen too, but only for scoring purposes, no invincible crap in this game!!
[b]ZWORD
14 comments
I'm serious! Everything is so gorgeous and animated, sounds fantastic, and I'm all... "I have 64 tiles/frames and sfx/sequences to make THAT happen!?" :o
/curls into fetal position with all my jellybeans
...and here I'm butting my head against a wall, trying to figure out how to correctly phrase "make a sceneID, make a doorway.sceneID table, cross-reference sceneIDs in the appropriate doorway tables."
4 comments
So, I just barely got started with PICO-8, and I'm very excited to do so.
The idea of implementation so far:
-Title Screen (Simple and straightforward; shuffles the collection of powers and allows the player a selection of game lengths, short being 4 powers, normal being 7 powers, long being 10 powers, and hardcore being 13 powers for the session)
-Starting Screen (a single start/end screen that produces the first neighboring "hub" scene)
-Hub Scene (a single screen blocked on two walls, the layout flips horizontally and vertically to create a four-screen block; with which to branch off transition rooms and corridors)
-Transition Screen (here's where the For loop takes the first 'n' powers, and applies them to the layout; before making the feedback loops relating to the items)
-Horizontal/Vertical Corridors (two endpoints with two or three screens of obstruction along the way, and mechanics defined in part by the powers used so far... the corridors go out from the transition screen, link to a second hub screen, and immediately double-back the same direction, to another corridor, that takes you to the item/prize room.
-Item/Prize Room (has the items, along with a one-way door often utilizing this power, to feed you back to the chamber you came from)
Finally, find a place in the feedback loop to hide two upgrades: a shot class, health up, or damage up, in the terrain that's generated along the way. This completes the item distribution cycle and accomplishes one important thing - it adds a new Hub scene, so now subsequent powers can be chained similarly from more Hubs, expanding the world while basically using the same fundamental setpieces.
-Objective/Puzzle Rooms
Finally, these will function like transition rooms, but for a thing you can collect for completion by utilizing your acquired powers; preferably in a resettable puzzle-like setting. I haven't thought this much through yet, so I'm not sure what I'm going to make these objectives be; but it's certainly part of the original Gentrieve formula that was missing. Perhaps generate a puzzle room that transitions to an objective room?
The powers, so far:
-Rollerball (planned to use more like Sonic Spindash more than traditional "morph ball")
-Bombs
-Grenades
-Double Jump
-Dash Drive
-Unlimited Jump
-Missile
-Super Missile
-Ice Missile
-Pong Shield
-Laser Blade
-Grapple Hook
-Warp Hole
-Shot Power Up
-Health/Battery Up
-Speed Booster
-Spread Shot
-Burst Shot
-Bank Shot
-Piercing Laser Shot
-Jetpack(?)
-SCUBA pack
-Shot Eraser/Blade Up
-Shot Deflector/Blade Up
*Shot effects are planned to stack up this time, rather than be toggled; charge shot for Grapple Hook.
Hopefully, the base sprite and rotations thereof will provide the variation of animations and mobility options I'd like to consider featuring...
15 comments
