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Sharing this post I wrote up a few days ago for cleaning up my code and reducing token costs:
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2022/12/11/jinja2-as-a-pico-8-preprocessor/
In summary:
- Constants would be a very useful language feature to have
- Pico-8 doesn't have it and doesn't let you extend its preprocessor
- You can roll your own and it works great
An undertale-themed bullet-hell survival arcade game.
Survive for as long as you can against waves of bullet patterns.
The patterns will get harder if you persist. But stay heartened.
Graze against bullets to build your green energy meter. Fill it to heal slightly.
Hold square to dash at the cost of green energy (if you have any).
You can still dash when your energy is at zero, and it's free.
Every time you heal, the amount of energy you need to heal again gets bigger.
Get bonus points for each wave you complete without taking damage.
Get bonus points for healing. Get more bonus points for healing when at full health.
Controls:
use d-pad to move and make menu selections
press square to confirm selections
hold x to skip text
hold square to dash
hold x in the library to switch to menu navigation
hold square and x to exit the library
Music in the prelease is Dimensional Gate by @gruber_music (Pico8 Tunes vol II)
Parameter string (stat(6) breaks between reload.
Stat(6) is read correctly on first boot, but after reloading the cartridge (ctrl+r), the parameter string is cleared and calls to stat(6) in the "new session" are always blank.
This makes using stat(6) for something like a debug flag unfeasible, and seems to me to be a bug.
Demo Cartridge:
print("stat6:")
print(stat(6)) |
Invoking the program with pico8.exe -run stat6 -p debug:
First run
This is correct; the parameter string was 'debug'
After reloading with ctrl+r
This is incorrect; the parameter string should still be 'debug', but was cleared.
Pico-8 has very strange behavior when logging information to stdout.
On Windows, running pico8.exe from cmd.exe doesn't block the shell (which running a program that outputs to stdout should), but statements from printh are still logged to the console window.
However, using a standard terminal like cygwin bash does correctly block the program and wait for output, but the output doesn't show on screen.
Demonstration: (bash first, then cmd)
I can't inspect the Pico-8 source code to be sure, but it seems there's some strange workaround for Windows behavior going on that breaks standard stdout behavior?
WIP pacman clone.
Focuses heavily on accurate ghost AI.
Changes:
- Physics enhancement. Side to side is more slippery.
- Floating points. Wow. Yikes. I don't want to talk about it.
It's a balloon trip remake!
Tentative release, there's a lot more to be done, but it's stable.
Controls:
Left/Right to strafe
Up/Square to "jump"
Mash up/square to gain velocity
Avoid the mines and last as long as you can
old:
Looking for thoughts, suggestions on tightening up the gameplay and feel.
Rules:
Match 3 or more tiles in any direction on the bottom game board
3: 50 points
4: 250 points
5: 1000 points
Score multiplier for quick matching.
You can hold 5 tiles at once.
Extra drop at 1000 points
Additional colors introduced every 1000 points
Controls:
Down arrow to speed up drops
X to drop a tile
if you lose you can reset the cart
Todo:
Need a better game over sound.
Need to fix some bugs with the matching algorithm
(Try this pattern:
__X _X_ XX_ |
)
