Vlek [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Asteroids

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 16:54:07 UTC

It could be a little flashier, but the game is fully playable by itself at this point. Have fun playing an Atari classic.

Version 1.1:
Made asteroid collision much more exact
Added anti-aliasing (Thank you, Felice)
Made extra lives available after every 5k points instead of 10k
Made the extra lives indicator make more sense (Player has 3 extra lives plus their current one at start)

Version 1.0:
Added an invulnerability period after respawn

Version 0.9:
Added start and play again menu options
Added more sounds (game over and extra life)
Fixed controls working after death
Added scoring system that works to the tens of millions of points
Refactored some code

Version 0.5:
Added level spawning
Fixed randomizing of asteroid velocities
Added player death conditionals
Added respawning
Added a great deal more variation in velocities in general

Version 0.4:
Added randomly generated asteroids (yay!)
Added collision-based asteroid spawning
Added score increases
Added thruster and asteroid explosion sounds

Version 0.3:
Fixed the controls
Retooled how the velocity works (saved x,y velocity offsets)
Added (lame) asteroids
Added collisions
Added explosions!
Made explosions pretty

Version 0.1:
Initial preview posted

Snake

Tue, 31 May 2016 22:22:39 UTC

Snake 1.0

by Vlek

[Click to Play]

Here's my version of snake. I have it done enough to say it's a fully-fledged version. Yes, I know my graphics aren't the best, but I was more focused on creating the best version of snake I could and be as economical with the processing as possible. If you're in need of an idea as to how to create a random generator that has to take into consideration where other objects are, then you may want to take a look at how my create_food function works. It may not be the best, but it's much better than randomly choosing locations and checking whether they're acceptable.
Constructive criticism is always welcome.

INSTRUCTIONS

Just like normal snake, attempt to eat the food without running into yourself or going out of bounds.

Version 1.0
Added start/win/lose graphics and menus
Added food eating sound
Added out-of-bounds and tail-eating lose conditions
Added food
Added "choosey" random food placement algorithm
Retooled game checks to be more efficient (within ticks where possible)
Added a substantial amount of comments to code

Version 0.1
Initial game release

Memory (Sound)

Wed, 25 May 2016 01:29:30 UTC

Memory 1.0

by Vlek

[Click to Play]

This was my second project after buying Pico-8. I had a Millennium Falcon toy as a kid that had a sound-base memory connect four game on it. I used to love the crap out of it, and so I decided to give the game a try in Pico-8.

This game is dedicated to TG. They had been waiting on me for a long time to attempt this project, and it so happens to be their birthday as well (Happy birthday!). You're appreciated, and I hope this makes up for even a little of my ridiculousness when it comes to the Falcon.

=== Instructions ===

Use the arrow keys to select a square, press "Z" to play the associated sound. Attempt to match all of the squares based on the sound that's played.

Version 1.0
Graphics added
Game completed
Win condition and menu created
Sounds finalized

Version 0.1
Initial game concept release

Setup Atom for PICO-8

Tue, 24 May 2016 15:57:27 UTC

Here's a guide I've put together to document how I set up Atom to be as helpful for PICO-8 game development as I could with the help of the #pico8 channel. I'll hopefully be adding more as I fine-tune the IDE and know what works and what ultimately doesn't.

1. Hide the left "file" pannel (tree-view):
Because PICO-8 carts are only ever going to be single-file projects, it makes no sense to have it waste valuable screen space being open. You can manually close it using the "Ctrl + \" command, but, more likely than not, you're going to want a more proactive approach.

Go to File > Init script...
Copy and paste this snippet without a hash in front: atom.commands.dispatch('atom.workspace','tree-view:toggle')

2. Get PICO-8 specific language syntax highlighting
PICO-8 is a subset of the Lua language, and, as such, has specific built-in stuffs that won't highlight if you're using the basic Lua syntax highlighting. Go into settings and install the package "language-pico8" to get a more customized, helpful syntax highlighter. Be warned, I believe this has some screwy tab and auto-indent behavior, but, for the most part, it'll be very helpful to have.

3. Use optional PICO-8 style UI theme
If you get the syntax highlighting and check it out, you'll immediately notice that it doesn't look very much like the PICO-8 editor within the program because the colors will be off. If that bugs you, install the "pico8-syntax" theme in the settings menu.

4. Get your git!
If you're making games and would like to have version control (very important for any decently-sized project), consider getting "git-control". It has a GUI interface that helps one perform git commands within Atom.

Things I'm still trying to work out:
How to get atom to run the currently scoped cartridge using the pico8 executable.

Blockeater

Tue, 24 May 2016 00:33:23 UTC

Blockeater 0.7

by Vlek

[Click to Play]

This is my first cartridge, and something I thought would be easy enough as a first game. I have done what I initially set out to do with this cart and then some. There have been some great concepts suggested in the comments, and I hope someone forks this project and creates their own with some of these modifications. If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Constructive criticism is always welcome.

INSTRUCTIONS

Navigate the fast-moving red blocks and eat the ones that are smaller than you to grow while trying to not be eaten yourself.

Version 1.0:
Added some more polish
Commented more regions for those that wish to understand what's under the hood
Added a rudimentary start menu song
Resized the start menu graphic to take up more space

Version 0.5:
Fixed player being able to off-screen
Fixed right-moving blocks not gradually coming on screen
Fixed the player's ability to avoid collision at the last 1/30rd of a second
Added start menu with pixel art
Added winning condition and win menu
Added score counter to the top-left of screen

Version 0.1:
Initial game release