I aspire to out-Action 52 the Action 52 on PICO-8.
About
Witches study various ancient mysteries, but some mysteries are too arcane even for them. Such as retro technology.
This game is largely based on Falcom's 1984 Dragon Slayer, with my reference version being the MSX port. Much of the premise is the same: you collect different power-up items and bring them back to your base, which allows you to level up to allow you to fight stronger monsters and in the end you face the final boss -- which is the Dragon in Dragon Slayer, and the save icon in this game.
The initial enemies can easily kill the player, and the first course of action would be to start collecting various colored coins and bring them back to the purple magic circle. You will learn new magic spells as you kill enemies, and once you have killed 99 enemies (there's a counter on top-right) you can take care of the save icon and finish the game. Each time you kill an enemy, the game will spawn a new one, and they'll be stronger than before.
The rough estimate to defeat the boss is +5000 ATK and DEF, or there might be an easier way.
9 comments
About
This is a re-interpretation of Bokosuka Wars by ASCII. You control up to 9 characters simultaneously, and combat will occur as they run into enemies.
Unlike in Bokosuka Wars, the enemies only move when the player moves, making this a turn-based game. Like in Bokosuka, the enemies may run into your direction and block your way, but they won't initiate a combat until you decide to engage them by running into them.
The characters have life bars. Defeating enemies will increase their max HP and ATK, and defeating five enemies will promote them, giving them a boost in growth -- but there's a limit to how strong a character can get. The characters heal slowly as they move as well.
5 comments
220331
Minor bugfixes
- Pressing O to skip the last cutscene didn't reset the game
- One of the levels had an unintended moving platform
About
Dambi was running low of the essential winter supplies, and she decides to raid the nearby snowmen's den. After all, they're natural competition for the same ecological niche.
This is a sequel to Dambi Gest Ready for Winter, and as such it looks quite similar with the recycled assets all over the place. Gameplay-wise, it's quite different as the enemies now actively chase Dambi. These snowmen are the first enemies in my games that can go around obstacles and chase the player -- not in the most efficient manner, but still.
2 comments
Quickfix
- Minor fix with the bomb spawn location. Sometimes they spawned slightly off the grid because I forgot to readjust their pos.
- Fixed typo.
About
This is an amalgamation of Binary Land by Hudson and Bomberman, also by Hudson. I guess I really like Hudson more than I realized.
The player controls the two bomberbots simultaneously. The primary character (the one marked with "!") will respond to your directional input, whereas the secondary will move in the horizontally mirrored fashion like in Binary Land . But unlike in the original game, you can press O to change your primary at any time.
9 comments
About
An ex-magical girl's familiar cat leaves home, and she sets off to find her cat.
It's my first attempt to use 16x16 sprites, and I definitely feel that a scrolling game with 16x16 on PICO-8 was probably not the smartest design, I had very little room left for the levels, of which there are only two.
But as a prototype, I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make various mechanics work -- parallax, bouncing boulders, moving platforms, jumping down from a platform and a life bar. ...and as a result I think it's got a bit more spaghetti than even my usual, but the next time I use them I'll be able to handle them better. Maybe. Hopefully.
6 comments
Note: I am aware that the title could sound pretty bad in English. The Latin title means "bomb with praise", which is a pun on the expression "summa cum laude". I made the title in Latin as I used it as an Ersatz of the fictional Matogan language, and this didn't come to my mind until it was pointed out. It's not something I mind too much, but please keep the comments civil.
Update 200317
Performance update. Instead of creating all crates and enemies per level at once, the game will create them as they come into screen and this reduced the slowdown at the beginning of a level.
Update 200221
4 comments
Update 220214
The arcade in the mall was screaming for a minigame but it took me a while to think of one. The minigame can be played once per game and it doesn't affect the ending. Nari (the white witch) will alternate between moving randomly and actively chasing Dona in the shortest distance. It's technically beatable but just barely.
Edit: Can't believe I forgot this, Nari was always facing down in the previous version. Now she faces the direction she moves.
About
Dona the Witch needs to return a library book and that's the entire goal of the game, which can be accomplished in half a minute. But the underground mall has a lot of distractions should you decide to explore, and Dona has a tendency not to think before spending, or think too hard and rationalize the impulse buys.
6 comments
Update 220306
- New: Combos. Successive killing enemies without taking damage ticks the combo count on the top right, and every 50 combo increases the score multiplier by 1. e.g. at 0 combo, the score multiplier is 1, but at 120 combo the multiplier is 3. Since all non-boss enemies have default score of 1, this effectively becomes the score per enemy.
- New: High scores. The previous versions didn't need it because of the limited number of enemies with no multiplier, which set a ceiling for how high the score can get and pretty much every successful run would give score in the ballpark range between 1200-1300. Since that's not the case anymore, a high-score system is added. The score will be red when you're over the current high-score, and you'll see the current high score for each character on the title screen.
5 comments
1.11 (22/01/28)
There were occasions where the enemies appeared to move at inconsistent speed, as if they rush at the player as soon as they can. This was really bad since the game kind of depends on the player being able to predict the enemy moves. My suspicion was rounding, so instead of setting their speed at 0.25, every enemy now has a timer that they can move one pixel only every four frames, which should be morally equivalent to speed 0.25. At least as far as my brain can tell at 2AM, the problem seems to be resolved, or much mitigated at least.
1.1 (22/01/25)
Tweaked the control a little to make turning the corners smoother. Mina will steer herself around the corner when she's partially blocked by a wall.
1 comment
Update 03/08
Fix: Another bugfix, hopefully for the last. Dambi wasn't showing running and sliding animation and just sliding in the idle animation since 02/27 update, this is now fixed.
Update 02/27
6 comments
Update 020322
- Previously, extra lives were given at 200/400/600/800/1000 points. Now the first extra life is given at 300, and then every 400 points with no upper limit. The player can keep up to 8 lives.
- Cutscene intervals are extended, appearing at every 1000 pts.
- High score cap is removed.
- And while at it, a little more embellishment on the title screen.
I wanted to go to bed, but somehow my brain thought of this change, and I couldn't fall asleep without letting this out of my system by implementing it.
Update 022020
- Slight revision to the text to tie in with its plot sequel Bomba Cum Laude.
9 comments
Update 220224
- Minor bugfix on two items
- Added 1 pixel movement buffer. It didn't feel too stiff on analogue stick, but I noticed the cornering was stiff on d-pad.
Update 220109
7 comments
