megabyte112 [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Lander

Sun, 01 May 2022 22:23:50 UTC

Lander v1.1

by megabyte112

[Click to Play]

Lander

I wanted to try out physics in PICO-8, so I made this!

A short minigame about landing a spacecraft on a planet.

Use left and right to move sideways, and circle to use your main engine.

There is also a brief tutorial to let you get used to the controls.

I'll release this on itch.io soon!

Changelog

V1.0 - Initial release
V1.1 - Made landing transition smoother, score no longer counts on collision

Illegal File/Folder Names in Windows

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 15:51:54 UTC

Firstly,

PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS!!!

You may end up with files or folders that you cannot remove.

(I don't wanna be responsible for damages!)
Edit: It turns out there is a way to remove them, see below.

Illegal Names?

Not many people know this, but there are some folder or file names that Windows won't allow you to use. These include 'con', 'aux', 'nul', 'lpt0', and others. Seriously, if you're using Windows right now, make a new folder, and name it "con", it will tell you "The specified device name is invalid". (This is safe to try since the folder never actually gets renamed)

Through curiosity I discovered that PICO-8 completely ignores this rule and allows you to create folders or files with these names using the 'mkdir' and 'save' commands.

What's the problem?

Naming a folder 'con' seemed to have no issues other than refusing to be opened by the 'folder' command, however once I named a folder 'nul', it became impossible to remove. Windows prevents you from renaming or deleting it, so I now have a folder that I can move around, but not remove, rename, or open.

*This is what it shows when trying to rename the 'nul' folder. The folder isn't 'too big', Windows just isn't designed to handle this situation.

EDIT: Thanks to @2bitchuck, you can remove these folders by opening Command Prompt and typing rmdir \\.\C:\path_to_folder /s, replacing "path_to_folder" with the full path of the folder.

The solution?

The only solution I can think of is that PICO-8 checks whether it is running on Windows, and prevents the user from creating illegal folder names.

Snak

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 00:15:53 UTC

Snak v1.7

by megabyte112

[Click to Play]

CONTAINS FLASHING IMAGES!!!

Snak

I spent way too much time making this.
It's a clone of snake, and I'm sure you already know the rules.
However, the background reacts in time with the music, and the snake also moves in time with the music.

There are 4 playable "stages", each with a different song and color scheme. After completing all 4, you have the option to restart in endless mode. You reach the next stage after the snake (known as "Snek") consumes 50 food (known as "Snak"). If Snek collides with the wall or their body, they revert to the beginning of the current stage.

There's some hidden quality of life improvements too, like queueing button presses if you press too quickly, preventing misclicks when sliding adjacent to a wall, and giving a short grace period before a game over.

Let me know what you think, there's always room for improvement! I'm somewhat new to PICO-8 and Lua so my code may be a little rusty.

Changelogs

V1.1: I have updated the cart to version 1.1, which fixes some graphical bugs, and allows saving and loading.
V1.2: Fixed a possible softlock: I only had this issue when playing on the BBS post and not anywhere else, so I hope this is fixed now (Edit: it didn't). Also added a small version indicator in the bottom left.
V1.3: Simplified title screen, added keyboard control glyphs for those who are unfamiliar with PICO-8's controls, title screen now shows the stage that the game was saved at, fixed an issue where length after stage transition wouldn't be right, maybe hopefully fixed softlock on Lexaloffle BBS (Edit: it worked!!)
V1.4: Fixed length after stage transition (again -_- )
V1.5: Redesigned the title screen, fixed bug where the Snak had a small chance to spawn at Snek's head, added new logo
V1.6: SPRINTING! Most of the feedback from this game was that it was painfully slow, so you can now fill up your stamina by eating Snak, and sprint using the circle button. Also added sound effect for changing stages, since it didn't get added in the last one. Save files from before V1.6 will not work on this version.
V1.7: Added a mini tutorial section at the beginning, slightly changed sprinting animation color, added debug mode toggle if using a keyboard (press END to enable and HOME to disable).

Snak is also available on itch.io here: https://megabyte112.itch.io/snak
Snak's code and extracted assets are also available on GitHub: https://github.com/megabyte112/Snak

Conway's Game of Life

Sat, 26 Feb 2022 21:03:50 UTC

Conway's Game of Life

by megabyte112

[Click to Play]

My first ever PICO-8 creation, spent about 2 days on it.
Conway's Game of Life, made in PICO-8.

Place/Destroy with O
Pause/Play with X
While paused you can draw your own patterns and watch how they evolve.

Also on GitHub https://github.com/megabyte112/life-8