szczm_ [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

BALLOON

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 23:21:39 UTC

Try to keep your balloon grounded and don't pop so you don't stop. Definitely not a Flappy Bird clone.

This is a game made for the 243th One Hour Game Jam, the theme of which was "Cactus". I made it in 3 hours. I lagged a little.

Also on itch.io.

MOUSE MAZE

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 20:21:55 UTC

MOUSE MAZE

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

MOUSE MAZE

You're the last mouse on Mouse Earth (which is just sewers, but with a nice name), and Mouse Earth (still just sewers) is about to get flooded by water! Will you escape the maze in time and protect the legacy of Mouse Earth? (sewers)

Features:

cute mouse!
procedurally generated levels! yes, exactly like that No Man's Sky game!
cute graphics!
maze-oriented gameplay! yes, exactly like that DOOM game!
spooky music~
innovative!
disruptive!
FUN.

This is a small game that originally started as a submission for the 239th One Hour Game Jam, the theme of which was "Mouse Only", which is of course open to interpretation. I made the basic maze in 2 hours and then decided to take additional time (~8 hours) and make it a sweet little game. I really like the end result and I hope you do too, you lovely human you.

Unless you're a robot.

You lovely robot you.

Also on itch.io.

FLOATING ISLANDS

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 21:17:56 UTC

FLOATING ISLANDS

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

Try to get as high as possible and don't fall off of the floating islands! Totally not a clone of Icy Tower!

This is a game made for the 236th One Hour Game Jam, the theme of which was "Floating Islands".

Also on itch.io.

Multicart communication problem

Sun, 11 Aug 2019 19:25:18 UTC

With the launch of PICOWARE, I got many reports from player saying they got a "communication error" when trying to play the minigames. This error was a fail-safe mechanism intended to avoid a situation, wherein someone tries to start a minigame cart in any other way than from the main cart.

The implementation is: on main cart load, zero out the "difficulty" save data. On subcart load, set the difficulty — it's guaranteed to be in range 1..15. In subcart, check if saved difficulty is 0 — if yes, stop the cart and display a message about a communication error.

Subcarts decide what mode/difficulty/minigame will be used based on the data received from the main cart, and so this is to enforce starting from the main cart. Furthermore, after a whole playthrough, subcarts are supposed to return to the main cart and inform it of the score. Can't imagine a situation when the player starts a minigame in a "single minigame" mode, then the subcart starts the whole story mode, and after finishing returns to the story cart which informs the player that they beat the whole stage.

As players started flooding in, I got reports saying they get the "communication error" during normal play. Different browsers, different operating systems, web and standalone, online and offline, and very unreliable. Further investigation showed that indeed — very rarely, with no noticable pattern — the save data in the subcart is zeroed out.

Nothing seems to have any effect on this bug: changed dset/dget to poke4/peek4, tried setting the data a few seconds before the load, still the bug hasn't disappeared. Tried reproducing this with a set of test carts using code below:

a.p8.png:

function _init()
 cartdata("foo_bar")

 -- set to a random number
 for i=1,10 do dset(0, rnd(-1)) end

 dset(0, 1337)
 load("b.p8.png", "breadcrumb")
end

b.p8.png:

function _init()
 cartdata("foo_bar")

 -- should fail if dget(0) ~= 0
 if dget(0) == 1337 then
  extcmd("go_back")
  return
 end

 cls() print(dget(0), 1, 1, 7)
 flip() repeat until false
end

I've had this running non-stop for 10 minutes, and… nothing. This just works. I'm lost. This probably is influenced also by something else — PICOWARE cart is so dense (it seems to have broken the cart image somehow), maybe that could be a factor.

Here is a GIF of me reproducing the bug (PICO-8 standalone, offline cart):

And the steps to reproduce:

Load PICOWARE (e.g. load #picoware)
Start story cart (any mode, any cart)
If cart was loaded and started correctly, go back using the breadcrumb menuitem and try again until bug occurs

Also, one thing I noticed personally — this never happened the other way around, that is when returning from a subcart. Although communication data in the subcart is set instantly right before returning, there never appears any problem with the main cart receiving this data — which, if happened, would appear as the main cart showing the title screen first instead of the cart view/score screen (cartdata is used for this too).

This seems like a very peculiar bug, nonetheless one that affected many PICOWARE players, and I'm lost trying to figure out the root of this.

EDIT: Additional updates in comments below.

PICOWARE

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:49:05 UTC

PICOWARE

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

PICOWARE!

Do you love WarioWare? And do you love PICO-8? What we if we combine them into one game that you can play in your browser, right now?

Say hello to PICOWARE!

Over 50+ developers made 68 microgames during the 24 hour PICOWARE gamejam starting on July 27th 2019, with the intention of combining them together into one bigger game, called PICOWARE!

It's there! Up above! This is the game! The game all the cool kids play! Don't you want to join them? Do you want to stick out? Of course not!

SHARE PICOWARE!

Fancy a fancy link? Here!
is.gd/picoware

Use Twitter? Here's the official tweet-tweet!
twitter.com/TonicMaciej/status/1159708844437725185

Use PICO-8? I— I hope you do. Just say the magic word:
load #picoware

Want to play offline? Download all the carts below:

then load the main cart as you normally would:
load picoware-20.p8.png

MAKE PICOWARE

Here are all creators of the PICOWARE minigames, in no particular order:

Pico-Race, made by @random_disconnect
Sleepers Sheepers, made by Jpecina and TyPhyter
Barbershop Sim, made by @demonicx + @setff
Wake-up Call, made by GreenCheekGames
Pick a Good One!, made by @Leo9
Get Through the Day, made by LuBu
Stay Dry, made by Javier Rizzo
Slam Dunk, made by @v360dev
Pet the Puppos, made by dekent.itch.io
Shine the Spotlight, made by JWinslow23
Catch All the Stars, made by @picoter8
Save Helpi from Bosso, made by @thattomhall
Beam Up Jelpi, made by joll05
Abduct the Cows, made by @mauszozo
Avoid the Flying Jelpis, made by @picoter8
Shoot the Spaceship, made by Javier Rizzo
Survive the Zombie Jelpis, made by @picoter8
Existence, made by @RhizomaticWarmachine
Spaceship Landing, made by Jesus Gonzalez
Alien Rescue, made by @sam_c_lee
They Live, made by @RhizomaticWarmachine
Jumpship!, made by @bellicapax
Super Jelpi, made by Eos Wander
Crush in a Jam, made by knh190
Wigglebee, made by @katbuilt and @acreature
Oh Nose! More Bees!, made by @Jusiv_
Obligatory Bee Game, made by @RhizomaticWarmachine
Beware of Flower Pots, made by Insane Scatterbrain
Humble Bumble, made by MasterNyborg and Buzby
Sheer the Sheep, made by @ctinney94
Save Sugar Cube!, made by cpiod
Dizzy Fly, made by My Roe Ate
Combo Bounce, made by @DoubleATam
Home for a Hermit Crab, made by @josephmarksjr
Help Jelpi Vent!, made by Jamie
Climb the Tree, made by JustFire45
Ruin the Party, made by @peepeenanah
Sushi Scramble, made by @Robotinker
Drop the Mint, made by Dooma4
Perfect Beer, made by Dooma4
Get the Balloon!, made by Stephmo
Spotlight Landing, made by @svntax
Target Practice, made by @FuwanekoGames
Pop the Balloon, made by fwip
Paper Airplane, made by @RhizomaticWarmachine
Frequency Check, made by dberzins
Bubble Fishy, made by qst0
Scratch the Advertising!, made by OniriCorpe
Publish or Perish, made by Kirais
Sort Out the Beans, made by @yeff
Find the Backwards Word, made by @nephilim
Lantern Lights, made by capucat
Get the Shape!, made by @reecegames1
Fill the Buckets, made by fwip
Jelpi Counter, made by @sam_c_lee
Ninja Sort, made by Cupcake<3 (Paul Wandley)
Jelpuzzle, made by @vrnspr
Pour the Tea into the Cup, made by JWinslow23
Walk on Ice, made by knh190
Jelpi Lander, made by Jamie
Slide to the Goal Tile, made by Numzyx
Fuzero, made by @planeteightgames
Supportive Chatroom, made by @noscoperadio
Jelpocracy, made by GooGroker
Tetrominoes in the Night, made by @alce_x and Lin Han
Get the Cherry, made by Akumarai
Catch the Bar!, made by cpiod
Don't Drown, made by @pixelsixnet

…and the people without whom making the final game wouldn't be possible:

cpiod
knh190 @knh1901
ReeceGames @reecegames1
Gruber @gruber_music
Tom Hall @thattomhall
Maciej Szczerba (that's me) @TonicMaciej

FIX PICOWARE

Notice any bugs? Your Jelpi's not working! Help us make PICOWARE the best it can be and post feedback using any method you want!

PICOWARE.

GROWTH

Sat, 13 Jul 2019 21:41:11 UTC

GROWTH

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

A flower blooms slowly towards the sky.

This is a game made for the 220th One Hour Game Jam, the theme of which was "Growth".

Also on itch.io.

Cart art by the amazing Wallkick!

City Limits

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 10:19:24 UTC

City Limits

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

Drive recklessly and try not to crash in this Reckless Driving Simulator 2019 Extreme Deluxe Edition called City Limits! (DLC not included)

This is a game made for the 219th One Hour Game Jam, the theme of which was "Limit".

Also available on itch.io.

LIINES

Tue, 21 May 2019 14:43:16 UTC

LIINES

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

LIINES, a short demo released at Moonshine Dragons 2019 demoparty in Opole, Poland for the wild competition.

Not tested exhaustively in browsers, and it can go out of sync. If you experience any bugs, let me know!

For best experience, download cart, or binaries (Windows, Mac, Linux) here.

Befunge-93 Interpreter

Fri, 10 May 2019 16:10:27 UTC

Befunge-93 Interpreter

by szczm_

[Click to Play]

This is a Befunge-93 interpreter that I made in a few days. Tested on all examples from Rosetta Code that fit. You can finally code in an esoteric language inside a fantasy console!

Excuse me, what is Befunge?

Befunge is a stack-based, esoteric programming language, in which the code is represented on a two-dimensional grid. The control flow of the program is directed using instructions such as v, >, ^ and < (respectively: down, right, up, left). If a border is reached, the program wraps around (both directions). Single character instructions can pop values of the stack, or place them on top of the stack, and act based on the retrieved values. Read more on Wikipedia.

…what instructions?

Here's the list of all instructions explained, also on Wikipedia. There are not many of them, and most are self-explanatory (arrow instructions, arithmetic operators, numbers). Just like with any other language, the more fun you have with it, the more you'll learn!

…and why should I care?

In my opinion, Befunge really tests (and improves) your logical thinking and flow control skills. This is also a language like no other, in which you can actually visualize the control flow on a grid. Lastly, this is a stack based language, so it teaches you how to operate under a set of limitations (of course, you can just store and read values using g and p instructions, but that's cheating (not really)).

Also, you don't have to care if you don't want to! Democracy!

Okay, maybe some examples?

Sure:

Hello World!

"!dlrow olleh",,,,,,,,,,,,@

First, " enables string mode; all characters until next " will be pushed into the stack as ASCII values. Then, the string hello world! is pushed onto the stack (values go bottom to top on the stack). Then , prints a single character, so all characters are printed. Finally, @ ends the program.

Multiply n numbers together

1&>\&*\1-:v
  ^       _\.@

Push 1, then prompt user for n (&, stack: 1 [n]). Swap two top values (\, stack: [n] 1). Prompt user for a number a (stack: [n] 1 [a]), then multiply (*, stack: [n] 1*[a]). Swap values again (stack: 1*[a] [n]), subtract 1 (stack: 1*[a] [n]-1), and if the new value is 0, go right (_), swap values (stack: 0 1*[a]), print number (.) and end the program (@). Otherwise, repeat.

99 Bottles of Beer

92+9*07pv,_       $:|
>       >:^:<       >   70g!#@_^
^:+670+1g70"bottles of beer on"<
>"selttob"07g1+067+",llaw eht "^
^" of beer"+76"take one down a"<
>"lttob"07g0"dnuora ti ssap dn"^
^"es of beer on the wall!"+76  <
            vp70.:-1<

Sadly, I made this one myself. I'll let you figure this one out. Most important aspects of this code:

07p stores the top value in cell (0,7), 07g retrieves it
+67 is 6+7=13 == "\r", carriage return, which is a newline in PICO-8
a 0 is always appended after bottle count, that is to be able to discern if a character or a number should be printed
going past grid borders wraps around

Features:

Visualization! See the instruction pointer move and wiggle as the code is being executed!
Load/save support! And it autosaves when you run! And it apparently also works in the browser!
Hints! Find out what a certain instruction does by hovering over it with the cursor!
It just works! I'm surprised that it really works, and it works good!
You can't copy/paste code in or out! This is a nightmare!
Procedural sound! Instructions make little bleeps when they are being executed, and so do your keys! Doesn't seem to work in the browser! Family fun!

If you want to share your code, you can either share a screenshot, or you can copy the save file, which should be in your usual PICO-8 cart location under the name _picofunge_save.p8. Interwebz!

How to use:

All the usual ASCII characters from your keyboard work, so just poke the interpreter in any way you want!

Use arrow keys to navigate the grid. Use Backspace to erase an instruction and go back one cell, or Space to go forward.

Use Tab to quickly run code. You can also use the Tab button as an alternative for Enter in situations where you would normally use the latter, since Enter opens the pause menu.

Use Enter to enter the pause menu, in which you'll find the following options:

RUN/STOP CODE
SAVE
CLEAR GRID
ENABLE/DISABLE AUTOSAVE
ENABLE/DISABLE SOUND

To reload code, restart the cart. There is no LOAD button, since there are only 5 menu items available to me :(

Limitations/known bugs/quirks:

Backspace button doesn't work in the browser (tested in Firefox)
If the p instruction is used to put a nonprintable (value outside of ASCII) character in the grid, the character is displayed in a distinct way as a "glitch", it is considered data, and is not saved
The P key opens up the main menu, which can be sometimes annoying, but is not otherwise a problem
The grid is smaller than usual Befunge (it's size is 32 columns and 8 rows)
There is currently no support for big numbers, numbers inside the interpreter are normal PICO-8 numbers (so usual things like integer overflow can happen)
Small ASCII character codes assumed for letters, since PICO-8 only supports one case.

Bug reports

If you encounter any bugs or weird behaviour, please let me know either in this thread or on Twitter @szczm_. Bonus points for including a screenshot!

Source code, or "how can I make this about me"

If you have any ideas on how you could use this project, the source code is extensively documented — each function and class is explained and I tried to comment every important bit that needed explanation or description. This cart is released under a CC4-BY-NC-SA licence on this website thanks to an upload option, and this is also released on GitHub under the MIT licence. Basically, do anything you want with it, if you want to, and I'll be happy if you let me know!

Last question — why?

Please don't ask.