NerdyTeachers [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Pico-View Issue #8 - August 2023

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 06:22:06 UTC

Pico-View webzine for August 2023 is out now!

Here's the lineup:
-Cover Art and Gallery by PJBGamer
-What is a Lerp - Fletch
-Making Music with Loops - c.diffin
-Game Jam Interviews & Lineups - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Interview: Canyon Crisis Team ft. Marina
-Featured Game Review: Occult Gunner - Achie
-PICO-1k Jam Announcement - Liquidream
-Cre8 Jam Announcement - Pico-8 Gamer
-The Death of a Frog - Marina
-New Release Recommendations
-Prototype Party - Color Combo

Once again thank you to everyone who participates, contributes, and reads the zine! I hope you all had a wonderful month of August, and here's to an even better September!

Happy Reading 🤓
https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=8

Homunculus

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 07:37:17 UTC

homunculus

by NerdyTeachers

[Click to Play]

You are a geneticist isolated from the world on an island rich with specialized genetic material, perfect for crafting the ultimate being, whether that means for good or evil is up to you.

In order to grow your homunculus and tailor its traits of virtues or vices you must complete 3 phases of the game several times.

Phase 1 - Gathering

Explore the island and gather the plants that you want. Each plant provides the genes connected to a specific virtue. Find the clipboard in Laboratory Room 1 to learn which plants hold the key to which virtues.

Phase 2 - Sequencing

Enter the first Laboratory Room and bring your plants to the computer. Select the plant with left and right arrow keys, and select the row of DNA with the up and down arrow keys.

Each row has a + or - symbol next to them. These determine whether a virtue placed in the row will increase or decrease in the homunculus. You may even see a doubled increase (++) or decrease (--) of the trait. It is a good idea to view this screen and make plans before going out to gather.

Set the plant genes to the currently selected DNA row by pressing X. The set genes from your inventory will be moved to the top of the screen and cannot be undone.

You can trash any remaining plants in your inventory by pressing Z while still in this computer.

Phase 3 - Stabilization

After setting the sequence of all 6 plant genes in Phase 2, you will be directed into Laboratory Room 2. Use the computer that now says "Ready".

Press X at the right time to stop each row of genes. If you can stop them on the light green indicators, then the stability of the DNA will increase. If you miss, then the stability will decrease, depending on how far from the targets you were.

Get a stability rating of 80% or better to have an accurate change in virtues based on how you set them in the Sequence. Unstable DNA will still be injected, and may increase OR decrease that virtue and in unpredictable amounts, regardless of the Sequence. You may sometimes decide to take your chances with mutation when you don't like the sequence variation.

Check the Condition

At any time, you can check the condition of your homunculus by clicking X while near the tank and clipboard on the wall. This shows you the current amounts of each virtue. A strong virtue will be farther to the right while a strong Vice will be farther to the left.

There is a threshold of where a virtue is considered strong or weak. Each virtue can be strongly negative, weakly negative, weakly positive or strongly positive.

When you have fully grown your homunculus, the screen will read "Wake". Review the condition clipboard one final time before waking up your creation and revealing exactly what type of being you made and if you achieved one of your missions.

View your clipboard of missions at the main menu screen. These are saved across multiple plays so you can return to try to check them all off.

The missions are the biggest puzzle of the game. Can you figure out which virtues are required to achieve each mission? Most require 2 specific and strong virtues or vices to be satisfied. Angel and Demon are the exceptions.

There is a hint to help you get started somewhere on the island if you can find it.

This game was made for the A Game by its Cover Jam 2023 and based on the My Famicase Exhibit 2023.

Code, Pixel Art, and Music by Nerdy Teachers.
The concept art Famicase "Homunculus" was designed by Agustin Crisostomo and was the inspiration for this game. (used with permission)

Additional Credits:

Minified with the help of Shrinko8.
Easing Function based on this article by Fletch.
Image Encoding with the help of this tool by Jade Lombax.

Updates (should not affect past achievements):

Fixed re-entering lab 1 computer error
Can no longer button mash on Missions Clipboard

Pico View Issue #7 July 2023

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:15:16 UTC

Month 7 of Pico View brings us a great lineup of tips, code, art, and games. If you missed what has happened recently in the community, catch up here!

Contents:
-Cover Art by SaKo
-PSA to All those Trying to Learn to Code - archonic
-How Structured Iteration Helped Me Overcome My Lack of Art Skills - Pedro Machado
-Featured Interview - Vlad ft. Marina
-New Community Stars - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Game Review: Kalikan - Achie
-Tokenomics 101 - Josiah Winslow
-Function Showcase
-Pixel Art Gallery - Mierdinsky
-Prototype Party - Vertical Jumper

Read it here: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=7

Enjoy! =D

Pico-View: June 2023

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 13:11:11 UTC

It's the last day of June 2023 and the new issue of Pico-View is here! Get ready to learn a lot, not just about PICO-8 but also about each other! 🧐 🤓

Here's the lineup:
-Cover art by Jammigans
-My PICO-8 Learning Journey - Ruvalolowa
-How to Write a Hit Song in 30 Minutes - RidgeK
-Featured Game Review 1: Porter - Achie
-Featured Game Review 2: 'Til the Gods Devour Us - Achie
-Finding Unity in the PICO-8 Community - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Interview - Jammigans ft. Marina
-Let's Jam in July! - Nerdy Teachers
-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations
-Pixel Art Gallery - Ben Canfield
-Prototype Party - Sokolike

Thanks once again to everyone, especially in our Discord Server, who participated in all the helpful ways we prepared this zine throughout the month. And special thanks to all the extra contributors who welcomed me warmly as I jumped in the DMs.
Love this community!

Happy reading!
Read Pico-View Issue #6: June 2023

Pico-View Prototype 6 - Sokolike

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 10:13:49 UTC

sokolike

by NerdyTeachers

[Click to Play]

This prototype was made for Pico-View, a monthly web-zine hosted on NerdyTeachers.com.

This month's prototype is named "Sokolike". It is a template for building your own Sokoban-like game.

If you are not familiar with Sokoban, meaning "warehouse worker" in Japanese, it is an MS DOS puzzle game from 1982 where you must push blocks around walls and other blocks to get them all to designated locations.

We have included a level building function that will read each pixel in a 16x16 sprite and use that to place appropriate tiles on the map. This means that you can draw and edit your level designs easily using the sprite sheet! There are 16 example levels and 52 total levels available to be made.

Go ahead and tweak, add, re-theme, and build whatever you want on this and let's make some great puzzles!

Don't forget to share it here on the BBS with the tag "prototype-party" so we can see what you were inspired to create. And keep your eyes out for more in the coming issues of Pico-View!

Read the full issue here:

Pico-View #6 June 2023: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=6

Pico-View Prototype 2 - Building Jumper

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 09:51:20 UTC

building_jumper

by NerdyTeachers

[Click to Play]

This prototype was made for Pico-View, a monthly web-zine hosted here on the BBS and also on NerdyTeachers.com.

You are challenged with taking on this visual effect of enlarging and shrinking your sprites as the main mechanic of your game! Practice using SSPR( ) function to have more control of your sprites this way.

You can:
1) Play this prototype as-is, and share your highscores below.
2) Take this cart, and edit it as much as you'd like to create your own spin-off!

Don't forget to share it here on the BBS with the tag "Prototype Party" so we can see what you were inspired to create. And keep your eyes out for more in the coming issues of Pico-View!

Read the full issue here:
BBS Pico-View

Nerdy Pico-View

Pico-View Prototype 1 - Nearmiss

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 10:06:23 UTC

Nearmiss Prototype

by NerdyTeachers

[Click to Play]

This prototype was made for Pico-View, a monthly web-zine hosted here on the BBS and also on NerdyTeachers.com.

You are challenged with taking on this mechanic of rewarding the player for nearly missing obstacles.

You can:
1) Play this prototype as-is, and share your highscores below.
2) Take this cart, and edit it as much as you'd like to create your own spin-off!

Don't forget to share it here on the BBS with the tag "Prototype Party" so we can see all the imaginative creations that all started from this prototype. And keep your eyes out for more in the coming issues of Pico-View!

Read the full issue here:
BBS Pico-View

Nerdy Pico-View

Video Tutorials - Feedback Wanted

Sun, 11 Nov 2018 04:52:55 UTC

Hello PICO-8 community,

I have begun making a Youtube channel and website dedicated to helping beginner programmers to not just get started but continue to explore and play with code in PICO-8. So I've come here to humbly ask for some feedback (criticism welcomed) on the videos and corresponding web pages I've made so far.

I have 5 tutorial series planned:

Bite-size Games
Game Element or Mechanic Chunks
Drawing Pixel Art
Functions Explained
Game Starter Kits

Bite-size Games

This series is intended to let learners create tiny games that can stand on their own, but lacking polish so they encourage being altered and improved upon. They are "bite-sized" because they should be able to be built in a single sitting. They will have arbitrary numbers that might refer to difficulty or just release order.

Fruit Drop

Corresponding web page: Fruit Drop Game Explained

Game Element or Mechanic Chunks

This series is intended to answer common learner questions of "How do I make _____?" (animations, menus, scoring, multiplayer, movement, shooting, collision, physics, walls, maps, scenes, scene transitions, on and on) Each video will tackle each one directly, so that it is easy to understand how to implement them into the game they are trying to make.

Sprite Animations

Corresponding web page: Animated Frog Sprite Explained

Drawing Pixel Art

This series is for learners who like to focus on using Pico-8 for creating art, and for others to improve their pixel art skills. I don't plan on narrating them, because really they are just a byproduct of the other tutorials' sprite drawing parts, and not as time-lapsed.

Beagle Dog in 3 sizes

Functions Explained

This series is basically a PICO-8 API in video. Beginners often struggle with text heavy docs, and don't often explore all the arguments a built-in function has to offer. So this introduces each function and the arguments they take with some example of them in use.

SPR( )

Corresponding web page: SPR( ) Function Explained

Game Starter Kits

This series is for packaging more than one of the Elements and/or Mechanics together to create a starting point of a certain type of game.

Platformer with Advanced Movement

The whole playlist.

Corresponding web page: Platformer Setup Explained

Feedback Wanted!

Feedback is so important to developing and improving the content. And we'd much rather focus time and energy to creating what is actually wanted, instead of only what we THINK is wanted. So please share any thoughts, ideas, likes and dislikes, suggestions and criticisms on any little detail.

Collaboration!

If you want to get involved in the making of these tutorials in any way, please do reach out! We all have skills to share and I certainly welcome yours! One of the easiest ways to collaborate is by offering one of your carts as a content piece that you think would be great in one of the series. I will break it down and explain it in video and a webpage, or you can help with that process too!

You can contact us at [email protected]

Current Question

I'm not sure which series to focus on first after I finish 1 in each, so my question is:

Which of the 5 series do you think is most beneficial or interesting to you, or people you know?

(P.S. just want to acknowledge a few Pico-8 Youtube creators out there who I have been using with my students over the years: krystman, Gruber, bridgs )