Marina Makes [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Carrot Inspector

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 01:44:56 UTC

carrotinspectorv7

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

How To Play

Click on white carrots! (don't ask me to elaborate)

Behind The Scenes

I'm really enjoying PICOTRON, and here's a little interactable demo I made in abt an hour, seeing what I can do in PICOTRON! Enjoy!

Version History

V0.7 (3/26/2024)-
-Added a new scoring system
-Added hungry bunny (top-left)
-Added icon + info

Two-Two

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 19:48:06 UTC

Two-Two

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Overview

A simple two-player game made in about a day!

Controls

◀️▶️ - Change Direction
✨- To Increase Score/Speed
2️⃣2️⃣ - To Win

Behind The Scenes

Been having a creative slump lately, so made this in a day for myself, decided to release!

If you're curious here's my website:
https://sites.google.com/view/marinamakesgames/home/buttons-blogs?authuser=0

Polar Tug

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 19:15:30 UTC

Polar Tug

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

⬅️+➡️

Explaination

This is just a demo, and I'm sort of tired of sprite-stacking. These past few months have been kind of rough on me, and I honestly can't make this into the game I was planning...

Thx for clicking/playing! Love you guys!

Credits

Marina Makes - https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes

Robuilder

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 20:17:57 UTC

Robuilder

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

CONTROLS-

⬅️⬆️➡️⬇️ to move blocks

🅾️/ Z to place blocks & confirm

❎/X to rotate blocks

▶ to start the game

HOW TO PLAY-

Move the blocks around, and connect the arrows to get a better score.

HOW IT WAS MADE-

Made within 18 days for the CRE-8 jam. I will link a dev blog detailing the development when it comes out.

This will sound silly; It was a really tough development emotionally, but it's finished! Thanks a ton for playing!

SOCIALS-

MARINA MAKES - DEVELOPER
TWITTER/X
MASTODON
TIKTOK

The Death Of A Frog - Frogs vs Ghosts Postmortem

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 02:27:41 UTC

The Death Of A Frog-

Introduction-

I come into this month from what might be my greatest failure as a game developer and artist- "Frogs vs Ghosts". Based off artwork by Jake Hall and developed for the "A Game By It's Cover" jam (a game jam where you pick from hundreds of imaginary Famicom game cartridges made months earlier).

This article will cover my mistakes while sharing my lessons during the development of "Frogs vs Ghosts". It took two months to make it realize it wouldn't ship and will continue to go unshipped. It reached the finish line (without polish), but it was not a good game. The two greatest reasons for this were: OVERSCOPING and LACK OF GAME-CORE.

Overscoping-

The worst mistake was made during the most critical part of the art process, choosing which project to pursue. I went over all my options, and chose the one I wanted to make the most: "Frogs vs Ghosts". I did not consider the amount of motivation and time it would take to finish my grand turn-based brawler/collect-athon with 16 characters (this sounds silly in hindsight)... That's a lie. I assumed I could replenish my motivation, and do more work in less time. This is a textbook example of overscoping.

Motivation in games is like jet fuel. We chart our trip and hop into our plane. Only halfway to our destination do we realize that we are running low on fuel. Upon realizing the stupidity of our plan, we must now choose a closer destination or worse- Crash. The solution to this is to pick a destination we can reach from the get-go. This may seem disheartening, and it is. If we don't want to go somewhere then our motivation will already be low when we start. My solution? Pick a project you WANT TO MAKE and CAN FINISH. All potential games fall somewhere on this graph:

However, when you put your project onto this graph you will most likely lie to yourself about "can finish". One solution to this is to examine the motivation-consumption for your most similar finished project. Another is to peer review your idea and the feasibility of it.

Something else to keep in mind; most of the time we see overscoping as preventing the completion of a game, but keep in mind that overscoping can also prevent the completion of a quality game.

Lack Of Game-Core-

The second worst mistake I made during the development of "Frogs vs Ghosts", was not implementing the game-core ASAP. The game-core is the foundational gameplay a game is built on (similar to game-loop). "Frogs vs. Ghosts" did not have a game-core until the final days of development when I added in characters with their abilities. Although this could also be labeled a byproduct of poor planning, one thing is for sure: The game was unfun to play partially due to the fact I was unable to tune up the game-core.

My justification for this through-out the project was viewing the game as the intended final product instead of what it was during the moment. In the future I intend to amend this by ensuring I pick a project that is easily game-core-able. Where it only takes at most a week to finish the game-core.

If I Could Go Back-

If I could go back in time to the first day of the AGBIC jam; I would pick a few cartridges based on how much I liked them, and a few which I didn't hate and facilitate easily made games. I would then draw up more in-depth concepts for all of them and see where they go on the graph. Finally picking the idea with the highest complet-ability and highest motivat-bility, I would have my project.

Conclusion-

However, the Delorian is not coming to my rescue. The awful truth is that I wasted two months and countless hours of sleep on an awful game that was never shipped. Do not be like me, ensure that you are planning a game you can finish.

Thanks & Outtie 5000-

Thanks for reading!

If this article is received well I'll consider writing a weekly dev blog during the month of September where I will:
-Participate in THREE game jams
-Make TWO personal projects
Can I do it? Probably not, but I'm bummed and feel like trying! See you then, and have a good one.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@marinamakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079

Pico-View: May 2023

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 21:27:10 UTC

PICO-VIEW: May 2023

Hello Pico-View Reader, this May issue is the fifth in the series. This month has been jammed full of fun in the community. In this issue we are placing a focus on the multiple game jams that occured in May and the many PICO-8 games made for them!

We'll begin with our usual tasty Game Dev Articles, and then we'll take a look at each major jam that happened this month, with some jam-specific articles sprinkled in there as well. This issue is stuffed with games, so if you missed out on all the releases this month, don't worry, we've got you covered with the must-plays.

Thank you to the writers, contributors, and all supporters, that includes you reader! We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And with that, have fun adventuring through the pixels and paragraphs of this issue of the Pico-View web-zine!

Authors:

Glimm, RidgeK, Luchak, Citizen608, Marina, Achie, Andrew Reist, Fletch, Kevin Portelli, and Nerdy Teachers

Contributors:

Godmil, NoBad7049, Munchkin

-So You want to Make a Game - Glimm
-Basic Chord Progressions - RidgeK
-RP-8 Rendering (Part 2) - Luchak
-Featured Interview - Citizen608 ft. Marina

-Start of Game Jam Section
-PICO-butter and Jam: Spreading Game Dev Delight in every Byte - NerdyTeachers

-Game Jam #1
-Ludum Dare Jam 53 Intro
-LD Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-Featured Game Review: Air Delivery - Achie

-Game Jam #2
-TweetTweet Jam 8 Intro - Andrew Reist
-TT Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-The Making of TweetTweet Game: XTRIS - Fletch

-Game Jam #3
-Pursuing Pixels Jam 2 Intro - Kevin Portelli
-PPJJGG Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-Conclusion of Game Jam Section

-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations
-Prototype Party
-Closing Remarks

To read this issue of the Pico-View Web-Zine go to the nerdyteachers website here:
https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=5

Deep Sea Salvage & Co.

Thu, 18 May 2023 06:10:48 UTC

Deep Sea Salvage

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

❎ to shoot/jump
⬅️➡️ to move
⬇️ to sink faster

(reset cart to reverse music turn-off option)

Message From Deep Sea Salvage & Co.

Welcome to Deep Sea Salvage, where we specialize in recovering the highly profitable minerals that lie deep beneath the ocean's surface. Our team of highly trained divers and engineers use cutting-edge technology and tactics to locate and retrieve valuable treasures that are oftentimes hidden from view. The ocean can be a treacherous and unpredictable place, but we are not deterred by the challenges that come with it. In fact, we relish the danger and thrive in the face of adversity. Many obstacles stand in our way, from hostile sea creatures to those who seek to stop us from uncovering what lurks in the depths. Here at Deep Sea Salvage, we are committed to unearthing the mysteries that lie beneath the waves, no matter how dangerous the journey may be. Join our ranks today, as a Deep Sea family member!

Credits

Original Design & Oversight: Shoma (@DonutsHunter)
Development: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)
Main Theme: Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick" (was place-holder, but fits well)

Star-Cat

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 06:20:20 UTC

Star-Cat

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

⭐ fly into stars to collect them
⬅️➡️⬆️⬇️ to fly
❎ to confirm/interact

EPILEPSY WARNING:(uses several minute techniques that might trigger something...)

Set-up

Star-Cat has been flung into space on a mission... But.. Why did they send a fat, blue, grumpy blob into space? TO COLLECT STARS!! HE MUST CAT-LECT EM' ALL!!

(tiny-tip: at first aim for as many stars as possible instead of them all)

Behind The Scenes

This game is heavily inspired by the Famicom Home-Brew of RIKI. During the initial dev period I found their work very interesting and wanted to make something similar... AND NOW HERE WE ARE!!! Star-Cat took the longest to make out of any of my games. And, as naive as it sounds, has cemented to me that this is my life's cause. I thank you all for playing, and look forward to reading your reviews, comments, and or questions!

Credits

Design/Art/Code/Sound: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)
Music: Packbat ( @packbat) & Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)

Pico-View February

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 11:27:43 UTC

Pico-View February

Hello Pico-View Reader, this February issue is the second in the series. We thank you all for your continued support and donations... Money? Cash? NO! We thrive off of the art, reviews, and comments you all give us. Thank you to the supporters, and that includes you reader! By simply reading this zine you're helping us. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Without further ado... We hope you have fun adventuring through the pixels and paragraphs of this brand new Pico-View web-zine.

-Nerdy Teachers, Celesmeh, Fletch , Pickleschip, D3V?,and Marina

January Edition: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=51335

-A Look Into Tweet-Carts
-Lazy Devs Interview - Ft. Celesmeh
-How To Get Pico-8 On The Miyoo Mini!!!
-Pico Nico Easing Animations - Tutorial by Fletch
-One Bit- Pixel Art Style - Pickleschip
-Tabs vs Spaces Article - Nerdy Teachers
-Dinky Kong Demake - Interview W/ Trog & Heraclem
-Random Reviews
-Prototype Party - Nerdy Teachers
-Until Next Time (Closing Remarks)

A Look Into Tweet-Carts

Tweet carts are without a doubt one of the best parts of #pico8 twitter. They're so fun to look at. Even after poking at the code a bit, to us outsiders looking in, it's a sort of tiny-technological marvel!...

What!? You don't know what a tweet cart is? It's a pico-8 cart that's code fits into a tweet! That's 280 characters. Like this one:

Which was made by Sourencho in 176 characters! Don't believe it? Proof:

_set_fps(60)
::_::
u=rnd(128)
v=rnd(128)
x=(u-64)/40
y=(v-64)/50
d=x*x+y*y
z=sqrt(1-d)
a=atan2(y,z)+t()/6
b=atan2(x,z)+t()/6
c=((a*b*a))%7+8
if(d>1)c=0
circfill(u,v,1,c)
goto _

Yup, that's the entire code to the rainbow egg. Just try running it in Pico-Edu!

I'll now present you all with some tweet-cart testimonials (click on name for twitter)! These will surely inspire you to also get your hands dirty.

Jade Lombax:

I guess I've carved out a niche for myself with a certain kind of tweetcarts, basically super-condensed normal carts, but have to say I'm pretty ignorant on a lot of the generative art stuff out there. Stuff like Michal Rostocki's tweetcarts kinda blow my mind. I'll have to learn about some of those techniques sometime.

I disovered the idea a little while after picking up Pico-8, and I started making them for a couple reasons. One is that I like optimizing things and figuring out ways to do a lot with a little. Another is that it's a (rather extreme) way of keeping the scope down. I have a tendency to be kind of a perfectionist, but nobody's going to complain about missing stuff when you cram in more than expected. so I figure this might sound weird, but my first tweetcart was actually the first game I ever made (well, the first one after a couple little tests). You might have seen it, it's called Cloud Bounce.

Craig Tinney:

For a long time I really struggled with fulfilling my creative outlet since all I knew was large projects or game jams that would eat up whole days or weeks.

Those formats have to be over large periods of time and need time set aside in advance. By contrast, tweet-carts can be created in a few minutes whenever inspiration strikes. I look at them more like sketches in a notebook.

They also demand much greater focus on how simplified your code can be from an algorithmic standpoint. All content needs to be distilled down to its most basic of elements. It's a great contrast from my day job where I'm working on projects that have been alive for years and have so many different interacting parts.

My main motivation is just to make people go "Oh, sweet!" when they see a .gif, nothing more, nothing less. It's a very stress free development space and crucially, a very non-competetive one. Nobody is making a penny from tweet carts and I'd hate for that to change. It's a community of enthusiasts doing it for the love of it.

For anyone looking to get started or dive deeping into this format I'd have a few words of advice;

Don't be put off with how technically impressive some other peoples work is. There are some true wizards about who are doing some mind bending stuff, but if it looks cool and makes you happy, that's all the matters!
Steal ideas. Those magicians I mentioned earlier left all their secrets out in the open! Take them, mutate them, play with the numbers, see what you can make just by making a few small tweaks to the obvious numbers on display.
Move on. Just like a sketchbook, not everything you make will be complete or perfect. Doesn't matter, keep trying new things, take lessons forward, keep those creatives juices flowing!

Recent tweetcart by Craig:

Get Your Hands Dirty!

You too can make a tweet cart! A tutorial was made a while back... Which will teach you exactly how to make a tweet cart in nine steps! Ofc, we give kudos to her majesty Princess Choochoo for making it:

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=37886

Extra Extra!

Here's some more tweet carts and their creators...

Sourencho

Roberto Altavox

Pancelor

The Sine-Wave Lover Who's Name Shall Go Unspoken

Lazy Devs Interview - Ft. Celesmeh

Can you tell us about your experience with Pico-8 and how you got started with it?

I picked up a PocketChip in 2016. I was traveling with my wife a lot at that time and the idea of a pocketable device to sketch game ideas seemed appealing to me. They took their sweet time with the shipment so in the meantime I checked out the software. I was struck by what a fun and effective tool it was. By the time the PocketChip actually arrived I was already head over heels into it.

What inspired you to create content about Pico-8 and share it on YouTube?

I was already making gaming content on YouTube with friends on a channel called TeamworkCast. We had a great time. But it was kinda turning into a second job and I wanted to see if I could bring my interests together. I started the Breakout tutorial in TeamworkCast and it was doing well but I also felt the tutorial didn’t really gel with the other videos on that channel. Around 2018 TeamworkCast started to fall apart and I used this as an opportunity to start a new Channel that was dedicated to game development.

What do you find most challenging about working with Pico-8, and how do you overcome those challenges?

Obviously, the limitations of Pico-8 are its main draw and also its biggest challenges. It’s funny to see how I changed my opinion on what the most troublesome limitations are. Initially, I was struggling with the limited sprite space. Later, I would find the token limit challenging. I still do. But more recently it’s actually the cart size which causes me headaches. As I find workarounds to deal with one limitation I always seem to bump into another one. I hate it and I love it.

How has the Pico-8 community influenced your development and creative process?

I think the Pico-8 community is actually the platform’s biggest feature. I’ve been thinking about this. Around 2010 I was making games with Flash. This was a fantastic platform for two reasons. For one was that it was super easy to publish your games online. But also it had a vibrant community of programmers and artists. It was easy to get feedback and help. There were plenty of resources to learn from. This made Flash into this astonishingly fertile ground for creative work. I think we wouldn’t have the kind of indie golden age we are enjoying right now without Flash. I was devastated when that entire microcosm was demolished. Essentially Apple shot it down because with Flash around their App Store would have been worthless. Still feeling salty about it. All this creativity is gone so that we can have a slog of Gacha casinos. Anyways, Pico-8 reminds me a lot of what Flash felt like back in the days. This time I’m cherishing every minute of it.

Can you walk us through the process of creating a Pico-8 game, from concept to completion? How does your experience in Game Dev influenced how you create in Pico-8?

I usually start with a Mock-up. I want to nail the vibes and visuals before I get into development. I sometimes also do quick prototypes for rules and mechanics if I can. I use physical prototypes for that if I can. Once I have a rough vision I jump into programming and figure out the leftover missing pieces as I go.
The fun thing about Pico-8 is that the games are so small you get to make a lot of them. This allowed me to streamline that process and it is so much easier to make games now.

What are some of the most important lessons you've learned about game development through your experience with Pico-8?

Again, I want to circle back to the limitations. I think many developers coming into Pico-8 lament them. They think they won’t be able to make the games they want to make because of the limitations. In reality, Pico-8 masks real-world limitations that we are subject to anyway. We can't make all those games that we want to make because we don’t have the time or the skills or the manpower. Embracing Pico-8 limitations is a good exercise to embracing those other limitations and the resulting games are similar.

Can you share any tips or tricks for new Pico-8 developers, or any advice for those interested in getting started with the platform?

Let go of your dream game. Write it all down in a nice notebook. Put it on a shelf. You can come back to it eventually. You will know when you are ready. Until then, give yourself permission to work on the kind of games that arise from the here and now. They will not be anything like your dream game. But they will also be better because they will be real.

How do you see Pico-8 evolving in the future, and what new features or capabilities would you like to see added to the platform? How does Picotron address these and do you see yourself switching to picotron?

Picotron is exciting but also scary. I often think Pico-8 actually nailed the limitations. I’m worried that a lot of newcomers will abandon Pico-8 to go for the less restrictive Picotron only to get stuck because of all those other, real limitations they are not aware of. Scope creep is the Great Filter. On the other hand, it is a great relief to have this place you can take your game to if you find out too late that the thing you’re working on is a tiny bit too large for Pico-8. One thing that gives me hope is how much Picotron seems to be poised to take advantage of community-driven tool development. We Picopeeps can do astonishing things and I can’t wait what happens when this force is harnessed into making our own tools.

Can you tell us about any exciting projects or games you are currently working on with Pico-8? A small Glimpse into the future?

I am about to start the Advanced Shmup tutorial series. This will probably take most of 2023 but I’m eager to share a lot of advanced techniques. And I hope we can do another Showcase Jam afterwards!

What do you think sets Pico-8 apart from other game development platforms, and why do you think it is a great platform for learning and education?

Apart from the other things I’ve mentioned, something I appreciate about Pico-8 is that it is so hands-on. Despite all of its simplicity and artifice, it is real programming. You are actually writing real code.This sets it apart from all of the “beginner-friendly” approaches which usually hide the code as if out of embarrassment. It’s like going to a foreign country and relying on Google Translate to communicate. Sure, it’s easier at first and you can solve some problems. But this only goes so far and you get stuck being neither proficient nor independent. Pico-8 wears that coding flag proudly and that already makes it a good gateway. It can open that door into actually speaking the language.

How To Get Pico-8 On The Miyoo Mini!!!

Marina here! The miyoo mini is the tiniest, and now rarest, retro handheld. BUT, a lot of people have them! So, we took it upon ourselves to give you a guide! (Miyoo Mini+ is coming March 5th 12 AM EST to 2 AM EST)

How To Get Pico-8 On The Miyoo Mini

Step 1-
Unlearn what you have learned... Take the sd card out of your Miyoo Mini! Put it into a computer! And now you must wipe it... Done? Now the best part... Get onion OS! (https://github.com/OnionUI/Onion/releases/tag/v4.0.4)

Step 2-
Get games! Open the sd card... Go to the roms folder... Open the pico-8 folder. NOW GO TO YOUR FAVORITE PICO-8 GAME ON LEXALOFFLE... And now:
-click on the "cart" icon

-save to the "pico" folder inside of "roms"

Step 3-
Turn on your miyoo mini. You can now pick between some awesome themes, and play all of your favorite pico-8 games... To some limit. The miyoo mini uses the pico-8 emulator, FAKE-08. Which is a side-project of Jon Bell. FAKE-08 runs most games fine, but a few games still don't work, but most will. Some notable ones which do: "Mai-Chan's Sweet Buns", "Buns:Bunny Survivor", and almost every other game about buns of any kind!!

Step 4- (optional)
Get Some Pico-8 Miyoo Mini Themes! (https://t.co/lUA9Oi3IIR) Simply drop those files in the "themes" folder on your miyoo mini's sd-card! Boot up your miyoo mini and find the themes section to select your favorite theme!

A Word From Jon Bell (Fake-08 Creator)

My name is Jon Bell, I've worked as a software developer for about 13 years. I've worked with a handful of languages and technologies in my professional life, and a few years ago was introduced to PICO-8 by a coworker. I love the constraints it puts on you, and thought maybe I would be able to finish a game. Once I had a basic prototype done, I got distracted trying to see if I could get that game to run on my 3DS. I think the whole experience reinforced the idea that I like building tools. I still haven't finished that game, but that project turned in to FAKE-08 which is a PICO-8 emulator for a handful full of platforms that aren't supported by PICO-8.

Pico Nico Easing Animations - Tutorial by Fletch

Hey there! If we haven't crossed paths yet; my name is Fletch (www.twitter.com/fletchmakes) and I love PICO-8! I'm currently developing a small project entitled PICO NICO; a pomodoro timer with an idle adventure game twist! As Nico sets off on an adventure, slaying enemies and collecting money, you can set off on your own adventure - folding the laundry, writing a letter, or doing the dishes! Once you're both done with your pomo focus session, you can spend your break upgrading Nico's abilities or buying him new outfits! Here's the mockup I made for the game in Aseprite:

One important aspect of this project is the animations, particularly sliding menus and submenus on and off the screen. This can be a tricky problem to solve, not because animations are particularly hard to create, but because coding many animators can use a lot of precious tokens.

(click show for tutorial)

The Easing Manager

Thus I've created something I'm calling the "Easing Manager"; a table with a set of member variables and functions that manages all ongoing animation transitions. This manager makes use of Lua's co-routines, a powerful yet oft-overlooked language feature that can change the way you look at animating!

To start, you'll notice I've enclosed the initialization of this manager in a function that I can call in PICO-8's _init() function. This allows us to do things like easingManager.ease() anywhere we want in our code, which gives us a lot of flexibility!

-- pico nico
-- a game by fletch
easeManager = nil

function _init()
    easeManager = initEaseManager()
end

Let's break down the implementation piece by piece:

function initEaseManager()
  local easeManager = {}

  easeManager.list = {}

  easeManager.ease = function(obj, field, start, final, duration, callback)
    -- implementation
  end

  easeManager.update = function(self)
    -- implementation
  end

  return easeManager
end

We have a member variable called list which is simply a Lua table that will be indexed, not keyed, and will contain all of our active animations. When an animation is finished, we'll stop tracking it in this list.

Next, we have two functions, ease() and update(). We will call easingManager.ease() whenever we intend to start an animation. We don't worry ourselves with ending an animation because the manager will handle that for us. We will call easingManager.update() on every frame in our _update() or _update60() methods to make sure our animations are moving along!

Creating an eased animation

Now that we've got a high level overview, let's take a look at the ease():

--                          (1), (2),   (3),   (4),   (5),      (6)
easeManager.ease = function(obj, field, start, final, duration, callback)
    local c = cocreate(function() 
      for i=1,duration do
        obj[field] = easeInOutQuad(i, start, final-start, duration)
        yield()
      end
      obj[field] = final
      if (callback ~= nil) then
        callback()
      end
    end)

    add(easeManager.list, c)
end

Let's talk about our parameters. From left to right, we will pass in: 1) an object reference to the table we are animating, 2) the name of the field on that table that we desire to change over time, 3) the start value to begin easing at, 4) the desired final value, 5) how many frames to run the easing animation over, and 6) an optional callback function that will be run when the ease animation ends.

Here's our first look at co-routines, so let's take a moment to define what those are. A co-routine is simply a function that we can pause and resume whenever we want. We create a co-routine with cocreate(function). The function passed into cocreate() can call yield() at any time to pause execution and return control to the main program. Usually, you'll see yield() in some variety of looping structure. We'll discuss later in the article how you can resume co-routines.

In this function, we can see that we create a co-routine, then add it to our tracked list of co-routines easingManager.list. It's that simple! Looking at the function our co-routine will run, it will run a mysterious easeInOutQuad() function once every frame, and once it is finished, set the field to the final value of the animation and call the callback.

Easing functions are just math

The easeInOutQuad() is the true magic of this whole animation system. It is simply a mathematical formula that smoothly changes value across a duration. This easing function will slowly accelerate at the beginning then decelerate at the end. Here's a look at the implementation, but don't get too wrapped up in it:

-- t: current frame
-- b: starting value
-- c: change in value (final-start)
-- d: total frames
function easeInOutQuad(t,b,c,d)
  t /= d/2
  if (t < 1) return c/2*t*t + b
  t -= 1
  return -c/2 * (t*(t-2) - 1) + b
end

You can learn more about easing functions here: https://youtu.be/pydKWTSGMEM. There are actually many common easing functions out there; this one is just the best fit for my project.

Updating the animations every frame

Now, let's take a look at easingManager.update():

easeManager.update = function(self)
    for c in all(self.list) do
      if costatus(c) then
        coresume(c)
      else
        del(self.list, c)
      end
    end
end

At a high level, all this does is run through our list of active animations. If the animation isn't complete yet, we will allow it to run it's co-routine function until it hits another yield(). Otherwise, we'll delete it from our tracked list. Simple!

Let's quickly review the last two co-routine functions we can see here: costatus() and coresume(). costatus(coroutine) will simply return a falsey value if the routine threw an error or completed successfully, and a truthy value if the routine has more left to execute (i.e. it hit a yield() statement). coresume(coroutine) simply resumes a paused co-routine and allows it to continue execution.

Putting it all together

That's certainly a lot to digest, so let's take a step back. We now have a manager class that we can store in a single variable, that has two important methods: .update() and .ease(). We'll simply call our update method in PICO-8's _update() and be done. Now we are empowered to call ease() whenever we want to start a new animation. Let's say our logo needs to slide up and off the screen when we leave the start menu of our game. In the code, that'd look like this:

easeManager.ease(logo, "y", 0, -40, 30)

To translate to English, this statement says:
> referencing the logo table, change logo.y starting from 0, going to -40, eased over the next 30 frames.

And to see what that looks like, here's the final result!

I certainly hope this was helpful. If you're ever interested in watching PICO-8 development happen live, in an environment where it is safe to ask questions and get curious, you can catch me on Wednesdays and Fridays at https://twitch.tv/fletchmakes !

One Bit- Pixel Art Style - Pickleschip

One Bit Pixel Art Samples @chaneburgerz

Introduction

One bit pixel art is a great tool to utilize. At its core, one bit art is just playing with shapes. By making readable forms with balanced contrast, drawing becomes focused on only these two aspects, creating a unique and bold style.

Workflow

Start with a rough sketch of the shapes you want to convey.

Drawing a full silhouette or separating key features both work well. For this example, I’m creating Denji from Chainsaw Man. For each part of the body, the only thing that matters is that its shape conveys what it is. It never looks good at the start, so don’t worry!

Improve the form/layout

Here, primarily, I move the shapes around until the form no longer looks stiff. Afterwards, I start making the silhouette solid and re-draw some forms to better fit the pose I wanted.

This step is very important! A lacking design can get so much more beautiful just by moving parts around!

Reshape and add detail to each part.

When adding detail, the darks should be treated asshapes too. If the darks, or negative space, is/are readable as well, the contrast will look much better! In the first picture, I focus too much on the detail and mess up the shape of the head. I then erase it, drawing it again with the reference’s key points in mind. Restarting can be the best option if you find yourself drawn into a corner!

Now it is just repetition. I repeat the concepts of the previous steps, carving out details with readable darks, repositioning the form if needed, and also redrawing the shapes if they are lacking.

Final Art

At this point, all the forms are readable and the pose is good! There is always room for improvement but this is where I stopped in the shapes. It may look different, but this is the (mostly) same base, I just put in some basic colors.

If you want to color in your one bit pixel art, you can! This is why I always try to start pixel art with
shapes in a single color. One bit pixel art can be used on its own or colored later, which is what makes it a great tool! So the next time you make pixel art, try working with these ideas in mind, and make something beautiful!

Tabs vs Spaces Article - Nerdy Teachers

There is a never-ending debate among programmers about which type of indentation to use in their code: tabs or spaces?

As programmers, we like to argue over minute details and debate coding practices down to a single character in order to discover the very best and most efficient ways to code anything and everything.

But with indentation, we are talking about "whitespace" (the emptiness in front of and between lines of code). Most programming languages ignore whitespace, which means it has no effect on how the code is run. So the debate between spaces and tabs is usually up to each programmer's own preference of aesthetics, habit, and ease of use.

We even took to twitter to poll the "#pico8" community on which button they use for indentation. It was surprisingly VERY consistent as the votes came in over an entire week, with 2 out of 3 programmers using tabs.

Is there a reason more PICO-8 programmers choose tabs? Or should they consider switching over to use spaces? We're here to answer the debate once and for all! (Or at least, we'll try...)

First of all, you might not notice any difference with the default code editor.
Here is indentation using two spaces:

Here is indentation using tabs:

No visual difference at all. But there are a couple practical differences that you might not know about!

Multi-line indentation
If you want to indent more than one line of code that is indented with spaces, well you just have to go to the front of each line and press the spacebar many times.

But with tabs, you can simply highlight one or more lines and indent them all with one press of that fab tab button!

UNdentation
Another totally tubular tab ability that many people don't know about is you can easily back up and "undent" your indents. You do this by pressing Shift+Tab.

If you need to do that with spaced indents, then get ready to hit backspace or delete many times and make sure you line them up juuust right.

Just imagine doing this for long blocks of code. No, thank you!

Indentation Indications
Now if that's not enough to convert Spacers over to using Tabs, well Zep made using tabs even better by being able to display vertical lines along the indented code!

That code looks so nice and organized now! Clearly seeing how the ENDs line up to define the blocks of code makes it much easier to read and debug any issues you might have with properly closing functions, if statements, loops, and tables.

So how do we turn this on?
We have to thank Zep once more because in the latest update, we can now do this right inside of PICO-8, which means we can also do it in the PICO-8 Education Edition!

Simply go to the Command Line and type "CONFIG DRAW_TABS 1" to turn them on.

These "tab characters", as the name implies, only works with tabbed indents. So if you open code that has been indented with spaces, then turning DRAW_TABS on will not display these lines.

Indentation Size
If all of that is not enough, there is one more benefit tab-users can enjoy: "TAB_WIDTH"

(Tab-width: 4 spaces)

How far you indent your code is entirely a personal preference. I like to have large indents in my usual code editors, but PICO-8 has a small screen width and it can be annoying to navigate wide indented code that trails off the right side of the screen.

For this reason, some of you might have come to use single-space indents. On the surface, there's no difference between pressing the spacebar once, or pressing tab once. However, tab-users can adjust the width of their indentation very easily, making it extremely convenient for you and I to read the same exact code in each of our own prefered indentation sizes...if you use tabs.

To set the tab-width, go to the Command Line and type "CONFIG TAB_WIDTH #" to adjust the indentation to be that # of spaces wide.

As you can see, by adjusting the tab-width, it immediately changes the display of all of the code in your code editor, not just for future tabs. So even while I am writing code, I can begin with my preferred large tab-width, and as the code becomes more complicated and as nested code starts trailing off the screen, I can adjust the width of all indentations with a single command.

As a PICO-8 developer, I hope you consider how your code will be shared and read by other devs. Even if you are a solo-dev this is helpful when you share your code to ask a question, or when others read your code when they try to learn from what you made. So with that in mind, you can see that using tabs, draw_tabs, and tab_width has some great benefits; both for you writing the code, and for others reading it. Fab tab FTW!

Dinky Kong Demake - Interview W/ Troglodyte & Heracleum

Marina here! So... A few sneaky readers might have heard of your guy's in-progress "Donkey Kong" demake in the Lazy Dev's server. Would you two be willing to clue the rest of us in on your interesting little project? (pics and all ❤️)

Trog: Well, it started as a series of pixel drawings. Old arcade games are fun to imagine as Pico-8 demakes and I had done drawings of the game’s four stages. I’m very new to Pico-8 and to programming so my drawing/stage planning was hampered a bit by what little I knew I could do with code to make it work should it be made into a game. After I posted the drawings in the Pico-8 Discord, Heracleum began to see ways in which the drawings and board layouts could be altered to be even closer to the original. That back and forth dialogue led to us agreeing to collaborate on “Dinky Kong".

Oh wow. Do we have any gameplay gifs as of yet?

Heracleum:

SUPER WOW, I didn't expect it to be that finished. It's really amazing.

Heracleum: Yep game is basically ready, just most of the sfx/tunes are missing 🙂

So, now to the most important question... "Donkey Kong" '94 for the gameboy or "Donkey Kong" '81?

Heracleum: It is based on the arcade Donkey Kong '81 US set 1; the Japan set had a normal sequence of stages 1 to 4 while this US version has a different progression: Level 1 is just Barrels (1) and Rivets (4); Level 2 is 1,3,4; Level 3 has the normal sequence as in JP set 1,2,3,4; after Level 5 the sequence is 1,2,1,3,1,4 so the barrels stage will be very frequent and it is the most dangerous one at higher levels.

Heracleum: When I noticed the lovely mockups that Trog posted on pixel-art channel of PICO-8 Discord I immediately thought "let's do this!". I already appreciated Trog's demake of "Lady Bug" (https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=50201) and I had just finished another 80's classic arcade demake ("Jungle King" https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=50941 ) so the timing was perfect and we could reuse a good chunk that previous project's framework for another classic arcade.
Also it was kind of a shock to see nobody published a pico-8 version of such an iconic game as Donkey Kong (it is the one that started the infinite Mario sequels and spinoffs during these four decades).
I honestly didn't play much DK and barely reached level 3 but I always loved the style and stage layouts so the idea of remaking it was intriguing.

Trog: I have never played the Gameboy version of DK, though it’s interesting to see footage of it and see what compromises they took regarding the screen size. They definitely didn’t sacrifice the resolution of the sprites very much I suppose to maintain legibility of the characters and also because they already had to sacrifice color? They had to then heavily chop down the board size. When we miniaturized the game we wanted to keep the boards relatively intact. At that size the hero and captive conformed neatly to the standard 8x8 pixel size in Pico-8. Most of my DK play experience was playing it in the arcade when it came out. I could never get past the second elevator stage. I did also play a bit of it on Atari 2600 as well.

Understood, I vaguely remember playing DK on my NES when I was much younger. Much like every other game I've ever played I found it way too hard for me. How do you guys think difficulty will compare from DK 81' to "Dinkey Kong"?

Heracleum: I've always found frustrating losing a life when stuck on ladders or failing to climb on one so in this demake I implemented a few 'easing' mechanisms to make the controls more enjoyable.
For instance if you're next to a ladder and push "Up", the hero (or heroine) takes the few necessary steps to reach the center of the ladder an finally climbs up, same while on a ladder: if you press left/right near the top or bottom end it finishes climbing and then goes the direction you're meant to go, same thing for "Jump" while at the top of a ladder.

Heracleum: About the increasing game difficulty in general, thanks to Trog gathering a lot of info on DK around the web, we soon discovered the game wasn't the 'simple platform game' it appears and that it has several hidden behaviours that aren't easy to fully cover in a remake. All those little secrets that the DK pro gamers know well and exploit to make incredible scores.
There is one behaviour called "barrels steering" where the gamer is able to control where the barrels will go down the ladders in order to group them to have more points jumping over them... Well, sorry pro DK gamers I didn't feel like implementing these (or at least not yet?) and no, you can't farm 100pts chain-jumping next to kong in Rivets stage 😅

Heraclem: So yes a few exploits were 'fixed' and most importantly you're not killed for no reason after four seconds at level 22 (the infamous "DK Kill Screen"). Curiously enough, despite all the knowledge and little secrets I've discovered while coding the remake I still kinda suck at playing the original game... or better, I now put all the effort in trying to get more points using the pro-tricks but still can't get much further in the game.

Marina: I usually find that "Lazy development" is usually the most impressive.

Trog: I feel like it’s both easier AND harder than the original in a way. Easier because of the improved easing of the controls give you a measure of control back - you’re no longer fighting the arcade joystick, and harder due to the removal of all those documented “barrel steering” exploits. Learning about those DK tricks changes one’s play style within the original game - you begin to rely on them. With those exploits being omitted, it makes it feel both familiar and yet fresh. But the core of the game - the climbing and jumping - feels good, I think. Plus you have a degree of control over the overall difficulty in the main menu, allowing players to dial in their preferred experience.

Marina: That sounds amazing, and how many stages are there in the game?

Heracleum: For this demake we just stick to the 4 stages as in the original. But you know since I've built a visual level editor that makes creating stage layouts quite easy, we will probably release another game with the same engine featuring our own stage layouts, it'll be fun.

Trog: Yep, the classic 4 stages: Barrels, Rivets, Elevators, and uh… “Pie Factory". Or Conveyors I suppose, but everyone online seems to focus on the pie-like cement containers riding atop them.

Heracleum: I admit I've always imagined them being actual pies but cement makes totally sense now, why would jumping on a pie -even a big one- hurt me?

Trog: Piping hot pie filling?

Heracleum silently agrees

Trog: But yeah, there’s been some interesting DK boards made by others that could be fun to try in the future. The entire game harkens back to the building of the Empire State Building in New York City - from the girders to the hero’s clothes - reminiscent of construction workers at the time. So it would be fun to bring in other similar elements. I want to say they used conveyors for cement back then but I cannot find any photos of them. Old cartoons always showed characters carrying a short pole with a wooden corner on the end to hold cement or mortar or what have you. We tried to call back to its construction roots more with the alternate hero of the game, Smalline, and her pick ups - a big monkey wrench, a pail (probably full of red hot rivets), and a lunch pail. Also the font on the title screen is similar to the font used in the old black and white version of King Kong, a similar story that could have been set in the same era/location.

Marina: And how many tokens do we have left?

Heracleum: Ahah good question! We're currently at 7910/8192, 'plenty' left (282) and the game is basically finished, just a few tweaks and sfx/music to call. Until a few versions ago the Level Editor was in the same game cart but I had to remove it to make room for the cutscenes and intro (they may appear simple and light but they're absolute token-killers).

Trog: As is my coding, so I’ve tried to stay out of Heracleum’s way. Drawing a game is one thing but making one is a whole other level of difficulty.

Marina: I've never worked and or finish a game in a team, much like most of our readers, could you two clue us in on the ups and downs of working in a team on pico-8?

Trog: Like most collaborative creative efforts there’s different competing ideas and one must learn to compromise - to give a back and forth and to embrace the best ideas regardless of whether or not they were yours. The advantage is always that something is made that is different than what you each would have made separately. It becomes its own thing. The downside is trying to see those better ideas beyond pride in one’s own work, I suppose? We haven’t faced too many disagreements overall, though. I will say that I’m definitely the one riding the other’s coattails here. Heracleum has done ALL of the programming, and has had good feedback into the art as well. The game could have very well been created without my input and I’m grateful to still be included in the effort. 😊

Heracleum: Yes it worked very well, it has been easy probably because we had separate tasks: he chose the name, characters, prepared all the pixel-art and animation frames (with the competence of a developer), gathered all the precious info on the game and -as we speak- he's finishing all the music and sfx with the help of his son; I basically 'just' programmed the game and adapted some gfx. I mean what could go wrong?
While I could imagine two devs hands on the code at the same time being a little more complicated.

Marina: I'm planning to be doing something very similar (art / programmrr) with a certain vinegar flavored friend who's also on this month's line-up. I have to share some more of their art, just bc it's just so good.

Marina: So, in similar symbiotic, yet still divided game-dev partner ships, do you two have any tips?

Trog: I’ve seen that person’s pixel art before - most excellent. I especially love the little pumpkin kid one. As for tips? I dunno: Be excellent to each other? I work as a graphic designer heading a department of creative people. Have done similar jobs for at least 20 years now. I just do Pico-8 for fun and to reconnect with the dream I had of making games when I was a kid back in the arcade days. Try to encourage one another. Celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Divide the work clearly. There’s plenty to do. The good news in a collaboration or in a team is you don’t have to do it all. Coffee also helps. Donuts. Donuts are good. I’m excited this game is happening. The entire Pico-8 community has some really talented people in it and even more flocking to it every day. I’m excited to see what they all cook up!

Trog: Oh, and credit where credit is due: my son has been doing the music for this game, not his tone-deaf dad whom he thankfully takes pity on, heh. His help for this game and for the music and sfx on Ladybug and The Carpathian has been invaluable.

Marina: So it's a 3 people game then? Oh yeah, I forgot to ask for introductions if you both would.

Trog: Hi I’m Trog on the BBS or mistertroglodyte#8265 on Discord. I’m a 50-something graphic designer from the U.S. Midwest who has been dabbling with Pico-8 for the past year or so, mostly following along with the LazyDevs tutorials. I’ve made two games so far: The Carpathian (explore a haunted castle and defeat the Carpathian Count and his monsters) and Ladybug, a demake of the classic 80’s “Pac-like” arcade game. 😁

Heracleum: Hi I'm Heracleum, a 50-something Italian dude with many interests and passions, drawing/painting, music, wordplay and yes making retro games. I love doing online collabs, a decade ago it was mostly music collabs, then switched to art collabs on Discord... so why not gamedev collab now? And here I am with Trog (& son) doing a remake of Donkey Kong for Pico-8.

Marina: That's great, thanks for the interview and I'm sure we all look forward to the release of "Dinky Kong".

Random Reviews

Looprelam

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=51742
An interesting snappy little platform we in which you have 30 seconds to end the time loop before being sucked back through said time loop. All progress is knowledge, similar outer wilds, but it defers in what kind of knowledge that can be. Without as much of a story or large of a map, often the progression is a cheat code for a special move, which isn’t the best but certainty works well enough to make this a fun little adventure. -Munchkin

Age of Ants

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=51464
Age of Ants is an Age of Empires II demake featuring everyone's favorite picnic-ruiners. With up to 99 units at a time and the ability to save your game and return later, this "ant" your daddy's PICO-8 RTS. -Wolfe3D

Beckon The Hellspawn

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=51555
Beckon The Hellspawn is a rather addicting and well-made survival game. Only a few minutes after starting, the game escalates into hectic action of dodging of huge waves of enemies, collecting XP crystals, timing your attacks, or, if you picked your upgrades wisely, obliterating your enemies as your character becomes a rolling ball-of-destruction. There are 5 different weapons, and 5 different characters, some with unique twists as to how they use weapons. -Yaky-Dev

Beet 'em Up

"Beet'em Up is simple and small but has silky smooth action and just feels good.
It's basically the uproot/throw action of Super Mario 2 (US), in an endless wave mode where you go for high scores." -Frantic_Mantid

Prototype Party - Nerdy Teachers

Each month, this section of Pico-View will bring you a prototype game with a focus on a unique game mechanic. You can play it as it is and share your high scores, or you can take the challenge of making it your own! The choice is yours!

This month's prototype is named "Building Jumper". The core game mechanic is to grow and shrink the player sprite! You can see how we do this with the built-in SSPR( ) function. The effect can play on the perspective of the sprite depending on how you draw it and the other objects in the game.

Sometimes the effect can be used to create a zooming in/out effect, or a sprite that moves closer or farther away from the camera. Our prototype is just one example of the many ways you can use it in your games. Try it out right here!

https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=51772

We challenge you!

Take this prototype as a jump-off point to practice your skills, and add your own flavor to it. The only requirement is to keep the core mechanic of growing and shrinking the player sprite!

Add or change whatever you want to create your own spin off of this game. I can't wait to see what amazing games our community can create!

How to Share

You can post your spin-off on the BBS, tweet it with the hashtag "#picoview", and join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/DDqegwd8cW "Join the NerdyTeachers Lounge") community if you have questions or want to share your progress. Here is the game cart with everything you need to get started!

If you don't own PICO-8, you can still join in the fun and add to this prototype in the PICO-8 Education Edition by following this link:

https://www.tinyurl.com/2w7wr252

@NerdyTeachers

Goodbye

Hello one more time to whoever's eyes this finds. Thank you for reading the February issue of the Pico-View web-zine! We hope you enjoyed all of the articles this month, or atleast most. Speaking of here are the folks who helped pieced the zine together one article at a time...

-D3V? - Cover Art
-Fletch - Article Writing
-Pickleschip - Article Writing

-Celesmeh - Interview
-(Krystian) of Lazy Devs - Not Leaving Celesmeh's Basement During Interview
-Trog and Heraclem - Not Leaving Celesmeh's Basement During Interview
-Nerdy Teachers - Zine-Conversion, Organization, and Article Writing
-Achie - Emotional Support

-Munchkin, Wolfe3D, Yaky-Dev, Frantic_Mantid - Random Donations
-Sourencho, Jadelombax, Craig Tinney, Roberto Altavox, Pancelor, Michał Rostocki, Carson K. - 280 char Donations

Thanks for all the help and for supporting our Pico-8 "Zine"! If you would like to write an article, donate pixel art, or help with anything contact @Marina Makes or @NerdyTeachers on twitter. -Marina Makes

Pico-View January

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 11:50:34 UTC

Pico-View January

Hello Pico-View reader, this January Issue marks the beginning of the monthly "Pico-View" Web-Zine. Formerly Pico-View was a small interview series. From here on out, it will be a montly Web-Zine featuring several exclusive articles, perfect for anyone wanting a "view" into pico-8. Without further ado... We hope you have fun adventuring through the pixels and paragraphs of this brand new Pico-View web-zine.

-Achie, Nerdy Teachers, Celesmeh, AlexWolfe, SmellyFishSticks, Louie Chapman, and Marina

Contents:
-Growing and learning in Pico-8
-Little Eidolons - Achie Reviewed
-Yasuhito (Quantattack Dev) Interview (ft. Marina)
-Random Reviews
-Creating Better Sound in Pico-8 - Louie Chapman Article
-Secret of The ̶O̶o̶z̶e̶ Flip... In Pico-8 - AlexWolfe Pixel Article
-Goodbye (Epilogue)

Growing and Learning With Pico-8 - Celesmeh

Odds are if you are reading this, you know what Pico-8 is. You've seen videos, looked at the forums, Reddit, watched gifsor seen tweetcarts. Pico-8 is an amazing fantasy console that opens the world of game development and programming up to many, But what makes it such a good starting point? Why is Pico 8 generally seen as one of the best tools to enter the world of programming and the world of game development?

There are a few factors that play into this, but the truth is there are a few things that make Pico 8 an excellent entry point and educational tool. The first is simple- ease of use. Pico-8's interface may at first look intimidating, but in the end, it is deceptively simple. It has a simple and user-friendly interface that makes it easy for beginners to learn how to code. The interface is designed to help users focus on the essentials, without being overwhelmed by too many options or complexities. You have your code, sprites, map, sounds, and music.

This limited menu comes along with a limited scope. The limitations of Pico-8, such as its small screen size and limited color palette, make it easier for beginners to learn and understand the basics of coding. These limitations also encourage creativity and problem-solving skills, as users have to find creative solutions to achieve their desired outcomes within the constraints of the platform. With larger game development tools you can find a library to help you achieve something- but if you do the same in Pico-8 you have to look at the tokens the code adds, and balance your tokens over the value that feature adds.

There is one other aspect that I believe makes Pico-8 stand out among other similar game development and educational platforms: Community. Pico-8 has a strong and supportive community of users who are always willing to help each other. This makes it easier for beginners to get started, as they can turn to experienced users for guidance and advice. There are Discords dedicated to sharing and learning to allow both new and experienced users to connect and grow together.

Overall these things- along with a free and accessible educational version online, allow Pico-8 to thrive and grow as an educational, fun, and expandable environment for creation. It's a tool designed to simply meet the user where they are- are you a beginner with small questions on how to move a sprite? or are you looking at complex vectors for simulated 3d graphics at a small scale? All of these things allow Pico-8 to be an incredible first step into programming and game dev.

Twitter: @Celesmeh

Little Eidolons - Achie Reviewed

New year, new zine and a lot of games released in this first month! We got new developers opening their wings, established ones showing why they are big names in the community, so let's take a look at one of these hot games released by a somewhat fresh name in the PICO-8 game developer scene.

Dea on Discord, SmartAlloc on the Lexaloffle BBS, was working on a game called Little Eidolons, which catched my eye really early on. "An open-world rpg where you can catch, train, and battle with over 100 varieties of monsters!" Sound familiar? If you grew up around my age, this description is very close to the now classic game called Pokemon! Fear not, thankfully this game has its own spin on the genre to elevate itself out of a simple Pokemon Clone.

Controls are easy, classical grid based movement outside the battle with ⬅️⬇️⬆️➡️ and you enter battle with walking into, or getting walked into by wild Eidolons/Trainers (and other things ...). Surprise, this is where one of the major differences arise from other catching games. Battle is based on the so-called "Tactical movement". If you are not familiar with it, the battlefield is divided into squares, such as the overworld and you will be able to move unit by unit, distances based on unit speed! You move all of your units, then the enemies move and turns are passed back and forth until the wizard on one side is eliminated or in a wild battle all wild enemies are defeated. Be careful how you approach battle as your encounters will pull every enemy on screen into battle as well! So some wild Eidolons may straddle into your duel with another trainer.

But before we get into combat, let's talk about the Eidolons themself! Nature, Wind, Lightning and Water are the types they all can take form, and with around 40 of them in the game, that's 120 different combinations! There is a type advantage: a heavy handed +20% power and accuracy! But what are power and accuracy you ask? Each of them has 4 different stats, namely Attack, Defense, Accuracy and Evasion. Attack and Defense boost/reduce damage by 10% for each point, while accuracy and evasion are rolled to hit or to dodge attacks! What attacks? Each Eidolon has two moves: an Attack and Aid. In battle you can target enemies, which will result in your Eidolon using its Attack move and targeting an ally using the Aid move. Attacks have accuracies and damage values and mostly debuffs, while Aids are (to my experience) always successful and are always helpful effects, heals, evasions buffs or sometimes leeching life off from target, because some Eidolons are greedy little ones. You select you active Eidolon with 🅾️ which also handles the Attack and Aid selection. In combat ❎ will bring up a full screen break down of the selected Eidolons stats and moves!

So for example my Anklebiter has an Attack that has 80% accuracy and 40% power, with the effect to reduce it's Defense by 4. A heavy and accurate attack which sacrifices armor for power's sake. So how does combat work? First the game checks for a successful attack by an equation of: Move Accuracy + User Accuracy - Target Evasion. If the attack is successful damage is calculated. You can think of the HP as a flat 10 points and think of Power and Attack values as 1-s. So Anklebiter will deal 40% (move base) + 50% (it's attack) which is a total of 90%, divide that by 10 and you get a whopping 9 points of damage! This is reduced by the armor values of the enemy, so for ex. an Eidolon with Defense 2 will take "only" 7 damage from an attack.

With combat mostly explained, let's look into the party set. Your party always contains your wizard guy (with its neutral typing) and up to 4 Eidolons. You can mix and match the Eidolons and their type, so if you feel brave you can rock an Anklebiter comp with different elementaly types. You catch wild Eidolon automatically if you defeat them in combat and you can swap them anytime outside of combat, which is a feature I really appreciate. You can also heal your team to full on the many pentagrams on the game's map, which also respawn random Eidolons in your area.

One important thing to note is there are random gems/moves scattered around the map on which you can land to gain their benefits, let those be stat increases or new moves to teach!

There are many different biomes and mighty beasts for you to battle through and catch! The sprite work is amazing, I'm a lover of the 2-frame animations and this game rocks that style quite well. Each enemy is unique enough so you can differentiate between them with a blink of an eye. The UI is clean with an amazing trick that is not mentioned anywhere. If you hover over an enemy with one of your Eidolons selected you will see a little window on the top explaining the type advantage, your accuracy towards that unit with your attack and the damage it will cause. It's an amazing feature that works in the other way so you can look through and decide which of your units can tank the enemy the best. Icons are clean and well defined, so you can't get confused. The environment is well created with a simple yet charming look to it. Look at that little snowman!

Music and sound effects were handled by Gruber and Oto, so you can be sure that they slap hard. The battle music is amazing, the main background that is simple yet fills the game quite well and the sound effects are crips and punchy to help sell those big hits!

The game is surely a gem in the PICO-8 cart world, I advise playing it to anyone who likes the Pokemon like genre with a nice little tactical twist added to it. I haven't got that far (although I found one of the Legendary beasts) but I can assure you that there is an amazing adventure waiting for you if you dare to venture into the world of Little Eidolons!

Twitter: @Achie7240

Yasuhito (Quantattack) Dev Interview (ft. Marina)

Marina: So... Yasuhito... who are you and what have you done?

Yasuhito: I am a Japanese researcher, mainly working on quantum computers. I am also interested in promoting quantum technology, and as part of that, I created QuantAttack, a quantum-rich action puzzle game on Pico-8.

Marina: I actually had no idea it was about Quantum Computers until you told me a few weeks ago. I just thought it was a very unique Tetris clone. It really has that "pop and crackle" juice pico-developers strive to master... It makes me suspicious! Do you have any experience at all in making games? If so then please do share your experiences.

Yasuhito: If it looks like a game, then it is a success! QuantAttack is a kind of so-called "educational game," but I think that in most cases, such games are too educational and not enjoyable enough to be considered true games. For example, there is the term "gamification," but forcing something that is not originally a game, such as quantum mechanics, to be a game does not make it enjoyable.

Yasuhito: Therefore, in the design of QuantAttack, I focused on reducing the quantum, or educational, elements as much as possible. I kept the basic rules close to those of Tetris and Tetris Attack (Panel de Pon), but incorporated quantum computer elements only in the rules for clearing blocks.

Yasuhito: I had an MSX 8-bit computer when I was about ten years old, but I had no experience in game creation; I didn't even know about Pico-8 until last summer, and to top it off, I don't usually play games at all. So for this project, I started by observing other well-known games. Specifically, I found videos of well-known puzzle games on YouTube and observed the effects at 0.25x speed. My son and daughter may have seen me as a "totally useless adult who just watches game videos all day long," but I considered that experience essential research. Also, on the technical side, I found the YouTube channel of Masahiro Sakurai, famous for his Smash Bros creation.

Marina: So pretty much like Splinter from TMNT 1990? Woah, I'm amazed. Now that you mention it I don't research like that as often as i should. I might start doing it more, and the folks at home should too! So, the question everyone's wondering... What's the difference between a Quantum Computer and a normal Binary Computer?

Yasuhito: I am not that great lol. You can analyze well-made games by watching many videos, but I had a hard time programming in Pico-8 at first. Video games are real-time systems, and it was my first time programming with the frame rate in mind. What made it even more difficult was the Lua specification. The only literals that could be used as data structures are tables, and the functions for manipulating tables are very limited, so the code tended to be redundant at first. _ENV and metaprogramming with setmetatable() is also confusing... EricB wrote about the difficulties of Lua programming in the README of Into Ruins, and I totally agree with him.

Yasuhito: To be precise, a quantum computer is like a GPU assisting a CPU. By "assisting," I mean that a quantum computer can speed up certain computations that are too complicated for CPUs to perform. Prime factorization is one of the most famous calculations that quantum computers can accelerate. If prime factorization could be made faster, breaking encryptions such as RSA would be possible. As a matter of military interest, large countries such as the United States and China are working on quantum computers nationally. However, little is known about how many computations can be made faster with quantum technologies.

Yasuhito: Also, since quantum computers are only accelerators, not all conventional CPUs will be replaced by QPUs shortly. Furthermore, it is said that practical quantum computers will not be realized for at least 10 to 20 years. Thus, there is no T-1000 coming from the future tomorrow or AI going haywire and exploding every Tesla car on the road. What is personally interesting to me is that quantum computer code can be represented graphically. If you read a paper on quantum computers, you will see many blocks that look like a QuantAttack screen! Each block is a quantum gate, which is a primitive quantum instruction. To understand each instruction precisely, you need to know linear algebra, which is a big difference from conventional computers. But if you learn the rules of how to erase blocks little by little, you may become a quantum programmer.

Marina: Do we have a visual of the real life Quant-Attack screen?

Yasuhito: Yes, of course. I have taken some figures from a recent IBM article (Single-shot error mitigation by coherent Pauli checks, https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.03937). They also appear in QuantAttack, and I imagine you have seen the H-blocks and the circular block with a leg in this first figure. (Note that the orientation of the blocks is different from QuantAttack. Normally, quantum programs are written horizontally, whereas, in QuantAttack, they are vertical.)

Yasuhito: This is a slightly larger quantum program taken from the same article. The large blocks labeled L, U, and R are like a black box that can be built by combining smaller primary blocks. The huge garbage block that drops in QuantAttack is inspired by this black box block.

Marina: Oh wow. You may have made the funnest educational game ever.

Yasuhito: I am glad to hear you say so! But this game may seem a bit difficult at first. There are hidden tricks that players can use to improve quickly. May I introduce them?

Marina: Please do.

Yasuhito: The only rule you need to remember, at a minimum, is that if two blocks of the same color are piled up, they disappear (or change into another block). If you can do this quickly, you can score a considerable amount of points. The key point is the special connected block shown below. This block (CNOT), which also appears in the tutorial mode, disappears when stacked in pairs, just like the H block and others. However, the main difference between CNOTs and other blocks is that they have the effect of “stopping the world” when cleared. So if you have too many blocks piled up, you can get out of a pinch by erasing CNOTs.

Yasuhito: In addition, CNOT has the following special patterns; when three CNOTs are stacked in different directions, a SWAP block, represented by X-X, appears.

Yasuhito: If you “sandwich” the SWAP block with two blocks to make them clear, you can stop time in the same way as with CNOT. And since the SWAP block does not disappear (except in special patterns), you can stop time as often as you like if you create the patterns quickly.

Yasuhito: The last technique is a bit tricky, but that's about it!

Marina: Woah, I felt the game had a lot of depth to it, my favorite thing is that you can learn all of this in-game through expirementation.

Yasuhito: There are a crazy number of other patterns hidden in this game, so try to discover them. It was hard to implement them all btw 😅

Marina: I bet, and here I thought it was the cool graphics that took so long. Sheesh. I'm excited to play it again after the interview. So, what can we expect next from you in regards to pico-8?

Yasuhito: Next, I will release an SNES-style action puzzle game! QA was a bit nerdy game with a dark atmosphere, but the next game will be more generic and cute.

Marina: Ah, I'm really looking forward to it, thank you again for your time, and the incredible insights, and I hope to see you on again!

Yasuhito: You're very welcome! I’m glad I could help!

@yasuhito
@Marina Makes

Random Reviews

Shazabi

Shazabi is a round-based dungeon-puzzle game in which you need to rescue kidnapped characters by finding keys, fight animals, pull levers and go deeper into the catacombs...-L0ng-Mount

Shazabi is a silly little RPG, in which you constantly progress, saving your... interesting friends. -Ink Riderrr

Soko-Bird

I have to say it's a must play puzzle game in pico8. It's challenging yet rewarding when completing each puzzle. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when completing the puzzles. It's epic to say the least. -Deep INT. Ferno

Sokobird is perhaps the best pico-8 puzzle game up to it's point! A must-have on any retro hand-held with 32 levels guaranteed to stump you atleast 32 times. -Mondo Boi

Ursa Maior

A silly rhyming game about a hungry bear, I didn't expect much from it, but... To my surprise I found it to be a very fun experience. -Reedboot

Ink Spill

This game is definitely the most unique puzzle game I've ever played. With several game-modes which remain relatively the same, in difficulty and style. Even so, it's a very fun puzzle game that satisfied me for a good while. While not as expansive as previous mentioned puzzle-titles, it's still a must-play for pico-players, and a bold statement to pico-devs... "Ink outside the box! -Reed-Boot

Reviews provided in part by random donors in exchange for article leaks... Contact " @MarinaMakes" on twitter or "Marina Makes#0142" on discord to donate for later reward...

The Necromancers Echo Map™ : Creating Better Sound in Pico-8 -Louie Chapman

Introduction

Often neglected , sound design is one of my favourite parts of game development . Suddenly the shooting has weight , the jumping feels snappy , and clicking U/I well… clicks ! While Pico-8s 4 sound channels might seem daunting at first , my goal here is to convince you to love sound design just a little bit more , and maybe force you to program a “mute” button just a little earlier than you would have otherwise .

Sound and gameplay have been intrinsically connected since the dawn of time ( ~roughly the 70s ). Sound designers have been cleverly applying a wide range of techniques from full orchestras to squishing fruit with their feet , and for the sake of brevity I’m going to crush the entire art form into a single graph with a silly title . Here I present my subconscious best friend , the ‘Necromancers Echo Map™’ . A mental chart that I apply for designing the soundscapes of all the games I produce . I’m sure you might be wondering “why is it called that”? , and that is a fantastic question .

The purpose of this chart is to allow subtle effects a place to breathe and fill the silence , as well as allowing more punchy effects to have the impact they deserve- if everything is loud then nothing is!

Brief Explanation

Passive effects are sounds that aren’t created directly by the player , UI sounds , background music and weather are all examples of passive effects . Surprisingly , active sounds are the opposite of this- including anything from attack sounds , to footsteps .
Sharp sounds command attention , and are best suited for things that the player needs to be aware of immediately ; think players' damage , gunshots , or boss spawns . In contrast to this , soft sounds give the ear breathing room , and fill out the sound space . Background music , UI “swooshes” , and ambient effects are all examples of soft sounds .

How can I use this ?

The simplest way to apply the Echo Map™ to your projects is to think of each sound effect as taking up a region on the graph , and aim to have as little overlap as possible . As well as that , try to save loud sharp sounds for important events- not only because it gives them more weight , but also because it's the quickest way to get someone to mute your game and swiftly call the ear dentist . On the other hand , don’t neglect to add passive and soft effects ! They make such a huge difference to ambience and can be an effective way to convey tone.

Generally speaking , the easiest way to have balanced audio is to start at the bottom left of the chart and move up to the top right . Doing this avoids a lot of soft active sound effects , which can lead to unresponsive feeling gameplay ; and it also avoids a lot of sharp passive sound effects , which can be overwhelming or distract the player .

What else ?

This will work in most cases for most games , but is fairly uninspired- and we can do better ! One of my favourite things about game development is that there reeeally isn’t any rules- and you can just do whatever you want . So let's explore the other two corners of the Echo Map™ ! Sharp / Passive sounds can be used for setting an intense mood , such as jump scares , musical crescendo , or weather effects- and is generally followed by a much less intense section to allow the player to breathe . Conversely , Soft / Active sounds are excellent for making UI feel responsive . When developing games , I like to make every possible user input respond with a sound effect , even if it doesn’t do anything . Acknowledging the player intent can be done with a simple click , and making a subtle negative sounding noise can guide the player towards the right direction .

At the end of the day , some of the most interesting art comes from moving beyond the mould- whether genre expectations , maths equations , or hardware limitations . So with rules to be broken , and GDC talks to be spoken , I encourage you to care more about the sounds in your game . They can have such a profound impact on the way that it plays ( or even completely alter balance ) . I hope at the very least I’ve given you something new to think about when it comes to the fascinating world of sound design .

Thank you for reading ! I’m Louie Chapman , or @0xFFB3
on twitter - I hope you have a lovely day/night/dusk/dawn <3

Secret of The ̶O̶o̶z̶e̶ Flip... In Pico-8 - AlexWolfe Pixel Article

Alex Wolfe is a visual effects artist and teacher in Los Angeles, USA. He has worked on movies and tv shows such as Star Wars Episode VII, Aquaman, and Loki. He is a PICO-8 hobbyist of 2 years and is working on a TMNT PICO-8 game that you can try HERE.

Here are a few ways to make efficient use of sprite sheets that I have learned along my path in game design.

I sometimes see developers post sprite sheets that look like this:

This can be a huge waste of space! Remember, you can flip any sprite this way in your code using TRUE or FALSE in the flip_x arguments in spr or sspr.

Note: Sometimes you do have to have flipped versions of your sprites, commonly because you are using them as map tiles, and you can’t flip the map as easily. So think carefully about which sprites are going to be on your map, and look for opportunities to use flip_x and flip_y, and save sprite space where you can.

And sure, using the flip_x argument like that is great for creating left and right shots of characters out of one sprite, but did you know you can also use it for game animation?

You can test for flip animations by highlighting them in the sprite editor and pressing F to slip horizontally or V for vertically.

You can also apply this trick to objects that you want to spin or shake very fast.

Using flip can breathe tons of life into simple animation without needing much additional code.

Here’s something I was working on today. Take a close look and analyze my sprites. How many uses of flip do you see? (hint: some of them aren’t actually flipping, just moving from side to side)

Remember to always make efficient use of your sprite space as you build, and always consider ways to save space and reuse existing assets in new ways. As you find ways to improve your layout, you will be able to put more artwork and more animation up on screen in your games.

Twitter: @SpokeTheSandy

Prototype party - NerdyTeachers

This month's prototype is named "Nearmiss" because the core game mechanic is to ALMOST collide with obstacles. Try it out right here!

Nearmiss Prototype

by NerdyTeachers

[Click to Play]

We challenge you!

Take this prototype as a jump-off point to practice your skills, and add your own flavor to it. The only requirement is to keep the core mechanic of rewarding the player for nearly missing obstacles. Do as little or as much as you can!

Add a theme, background, effects, music, and anything else you want to create your own spin off of this game. I can't wait to see what amazing games our community can create! Don't forget to join the Prototype Party by sharing your spin-off with everyone!

You can post it on the BBS, tweet it with the hashtag "#picoview", and join our Discord community if you have questions or want to share your progress. Here is the game cart with everything you need to get started!

If you don't own PICO-8, you can still join in the fun and add to this prototype in the PICO-8 Education Edition by following this link: Near Miss - Edu Edition

Twitter: @NerdyTeachers

Goodbye

Hello once again to whoever's eyes this finds. Thank you for reading the brand new pico-view web-zine. We apologize for all of the tmnt love. With the upcoming game we're excited, to say the least. Finally, a thank you to everyone who helped with the making of this web-zine. Which includes...

-SmellyFishStiks - Cover Art
-LouieChapman - Article Writing
-Achie - Article Writing
-Celesmeh - Article Writing
-Alexwolfe - Article Writing
-Pickleschip - Article Writing
-Yasuhito - Not Leaving My Basement During Interview
-Nerdy Teachers - Zine-Conversion, Organization, and Article Writing
-Diante The Developer, Andi, and Greentea - Support/Donations

Thank you to everyone for all of the help, and for reading this beautiful new Pico-8 "Zine"! If you would like to write an article, donate pixel art, or help with anything contact @Marina Makes or @NerdyTeachers on twitter. -Marina

Go-Go Garden

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 05:59:06 UTC

Go Go Garden

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

🖱️ to move
❎ to click

Explaination

"Go-Go Garden" is a game with only a few minutes of cute and charming gameplay each day. From day to day you can:

-Water your plants to ensure they grow the next day!
-Play with your plants (just tap them and you'll understand)...
-Buy and sell plants to save up for your perfect garden!

If you miss a day then don't worry! I'll make sure your plants don't die for you.

Behind The Scenes

The original 8 plants and game were made in three days, to see what I could do in just three days. I've wanted to make a virtual pet game for about a month now, but I was pushed over the edge by this art by @R3DZ3R_Florie on twitter:

Credits

Design/Art/Code/Sound/Music: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)
Inspiration: R3DZ3R @R3DZ3R_Florie

Random Talk, Interview With Ericb - Pico-View #4

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 01:48:46 UTC

Random Talk, Interview With Ericb - Pico-View #4

EricB:
EB = EricB

Marina:@MarinaMakes
M = Marina

Their games:
Into Ruins (click link)

Interview:

M: So, @ericb who are you and why are you on Pico-View?

EB: So Hi, I'm Eric Billingsley. I'm an indie developer based in Canada, and I've worked on games like Tunic and Cuphead, and also my own games like Spring Falls. I started playing around with PICO-8 a few months ago and making Into Ruins, a roguelike. Which is mostly what we are going to talk about I think?

M: Wait, really? You worked on Tunic and Cuphead? Like 100% of my research for this was playing into-ruins.

EB: haha yeah! I was lead programmer for the last 2 years before Cuphead came out, and I did level art and some bug fixing & programming for Tunic. After that came out is when I started experimenting with PICO-8 because I had meant to try it out for a while

M: Nice. Like wow. I def didn't just go brag to all of my friends about who I'm talking to.

EB: haha I'm flattered
I started making games as a kid in the 90s with Klik & Play -- that was really cool because you could put things together really quickly without coding, and it also had some tools built in. In some ways PICO-8 has felt like coming back to that sort of rapid development, except more technical which is fun

M: I started with 2010's Klik: Scratch. But anyways, rogue-likes? When'd you discover them?

EB: hmm that's a good question..
I think I got into roguelikes first through rogueLITES? rogue-like-likes? Specifically the original pixel art version of Spelunky

M: My friend @otto_piramuth and I are huge Spelunky Classic fans.

EB: it's so good!

M: IKR!!

EB: from there I got into the traditional roguelike genre and tried out a bunch of them. I think nethack was the first I tried but I bounced off it pretty fast haha. I've played Rogue and DCSS as well but never really stuck with anything until I found Brogue I've played a lot of Brogue

M: I noticed that name in comments a lot. Wanna clue me in as a rogue-like newb?

EB: yeah, so that was the main inspiration for this game
It's closer to the original Rogue than a lot of roguelikes, each dungeon level is just one screen
has a lot of cool level generation with natural caves, and some pretty complex puzzles that unlock treasure rooms.

EB: there's just so many interactions between item, the environment, and the abilities that enemies have that the game feels really dynamic and unpredictable, and the big thing that was unique to Brogue when it came out was the way character progression works.

EB: You start off with just a dagger and leather armor, and then you find stuff as you go and can power them up with Scrolls of Enchantment as you progress, so a lot of these things that I like about the game I tried to incorporate into Into Ruins (eg. Scrolls of Enchantment became Orbs of Power) Some things like the puzzles would have been way too hard to cram into a pico-8 cart though.

M: I'm amazed rn by how much is in the cart.
I really like the hex-grid movement.
Have you ever played "Guncho"?

EB: I played it yeah, it's really good!

M: It has hex-grid movement, and I found it really makes it stand out.

EB: At first I had a different and very confusing way of moving around, and folks in the discord convinced me to change it haha. I really like hexes, I seem to be incapable of making games without hexagons
Brogue had a normal square grid so that's definitely a place where this game is different. But I think hex grids work really well for organic-looking things like caves, and because you don't have diagonals, things like interactions between the characters, fire spreading etc. looks more natural too
fitting square rooms into a hex grid was a bit of a confusing mess but it worked out in the end I think!

M: Here's a gif I took of a level I found looked really natural from the hexes.

EB: yeah I think it works well! If you're curious about how the levels are generated, there's a writeup in the BBS post for the game. I think it would be too complicated to go into detail here

M: I'll link it, and I already read it like twice. Really interesting stuff.

EB: but one thing I didn't talk about is the rendering, which... is really messy. But it's all done with sprites and it does work

M: I never even realized how good the rendering looked until now, and also, how'd you get the idea to swap stairs for the more idea of natural holes in the ground?

EB: I think having that idea for the holes being the way you progress is what first made me excited to work on this So, coming back to Brogue again it also stairs like a normal roguelike. But it also has these big chasms on some levels, as well as pit traps and other things you can fall in which bring you to the level below. In that game you don't normally jump down the holes unless you're desperate, but I thought it would be cool to make that sort of the central mechanic for progressing from level to level.

EB: It opens things up because if there's a hole nearby you can use it to quickly escape enemies, and you sometimes have to weigh whether it's worth it to skip fully exploring a level or just jump down
The way this ties into the Orbs of Gravity is important as well. If you have the Slofall effect from those orbs going, you can jump down safely, otherwise you take damage
(In brogue you would always take fall damage from jumping, which is why it's more of a move of desperation)
I think of the Orbs of Gravity as being a sort of replacement for the food timer a lot of roguelikes have to keep you moving through the game
though I also tried to design the game so waiting around doesn't accomplish anything. So there's no regenerating health, and the staffs can't be recharged by just waiting around either
that's one thing I wasn't as fond of in Brogue, having to weigh whether you have enough food to sit around and wait for your health to regenerate or not
in some ways this makes the game more punishing though. The fall damage you sometimes have to take definitely turns some people off the game
but I think it at least makes it interesting and different
aesthetically, I also like how having these big holes everywhere just makes it feel like the dungeon is old and falling apart.

M: Wow. I should mention as a person who usually doesn't play purist-roguelikes, your's kept me interested for a lot longer than most.

EB: that's nice to hear!

M: I was talking to a friend the other day about roguelikes, and how maximilism loops back into minimalism. How if you can pick up and throw a rock you can pick up and throw a goblin, food, armor. Or anything. So you no longer have to remember what thing does what, but instead you have to think what thing to do what with/to. If that makes sense.

EB: yeah, I was sort of forced by PICO-8 to have a pretty small number of enemies/items in the game compared to most roguelikes. But having the interactions between them is what makes it interesting

M: IKR! The thing I admire is how you made the most out of what little you had.

EB: And I was taking an already pretty modern/minimalist roguelike in Brogue and stripping it down more. So it was a struggle to get enough unique behaviours/abilities/environment interactions in that it can come together and produce that kind of emergent gameplay stuff like the cursed Vampire Cloak... people love and also hate that item.

M: In the end you made a really fun rogue-like, atleast I had a lot of fun playing it.

EB: I'm glad you enjoyed it!

M: And may I ask one final question? A question all game developers must ponder, atleast once, to be among the greats.

EB: shoot!

M: Have you seen the Cuphead cartoon?

EB: haha I watched a couple episodes. It feels very surreal how big the whole franchise has gotten

M: I can't imagine how trippy that is for a game you worked on got a whole tv show.

EB: The animation is really good and cute! Yeah it's super weird haha

M: Wow. It's been an honor talking to you man.

EB: it's been great talking to you too!

M: I'll cya and have a good one.

EB: Byeeeeee

Eric B:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SparseGameDev
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=68442
Itch: https://sparsegamedev.itch.io/

"Into Ruins" Proc-Gen Explained: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=49928 (scroll down)

Marina:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079

Celesmuh (made this articles top-most gif):
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CelesMeh

Pomodoro Timer

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:29:14 UTC

Pomodoro (pico-edition)

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Explanation

I made this cartridge as a productivity tool that anyone could use. To use it, press ❎ or 🅾️, to start the program. You can also use them to start/pause the timer. When the timer says "WORK", do nothing except focus on work. When the timer says "BREAK", do whatever you want besides work.

I'd recommend starting off by finding a work/break ratio that's right for you. If a pomodoro feels exhausting or overwhelming then lower the work timer option a little (it'll remain after you close the page). Once you have the ropes, what if you don't feel productive enough? In that case you can try increasing the work timer slowly over time.

Finally, I confirm that this tool isn't to make you work more, it's so you get more done in less time. So that you have more fruitful work-sessions, rather than longer ones.

((WARNING: WHEN USING THE PICO-8 WEBSITE THIS TAB WILL FREEZE IF IT IS NOT BEING USED))

Controls

❎- resume/pause
⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️ - fix timer settings

Credits

Development: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)
Quality Assurance: Celesmuh (@CelesMuh)

Demon Smash

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 22:13:31 UTC

demonsmashv2

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

❎ to smash
⬅️➡️⬆️⬇️ to move

Set-up

An ancient evil threatens the island nation of Japan. The League of Ninjas has pin-pointed the orgin. A small set of Southern islands, but how do you seal a great evil from crawling out beneath the earth? YOU NAIL THE EARTH DOWN!!!

Smash all of the stakes down through four rounds to seal the evil away, and achieve victory over said evil. BUT, be careful. Demons will try to prevent you from getting to this most holy goal.

Behind The Scenes

Right after finishing my last game for the AGBIC jam, I started planning my next game: Project Enji. A survivor where you use a hammer instead of projectiles. On November 15th I started actual work. Now after a month I have something tangible. As for the future, I plan to spend January leveling up my game dev skills. But, I guess you'll have to wait until the 31st to see that.

Credits

Design/Art/Code/Sound: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)
Music: Notehead (@noteheadmusic)
Manual: Celesmeh (@Celesnneh)

"I Do This For Fun", Interview With PaulHamx - Pico-View #3

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 10:47:23 UTC

"I Do This For Fun", Interview With PaulHamx - Pico-View #3

PaulHamx:
H = Hamx

Marina:@MarinaMakes
M = Marina

Their games:
Zoo Keeper (click link)

Pico-Droid (click link)

Interview:

M: So, @PaulHamx who are you and what have you done?

H: Haha, that's pretty broad!

Okay, I'm Paul Hammond and, before Pico-8, I've gone through a few other fads of remaking games over the years, starting on the C64.

For some reason, remaking really appeals to me. A lot of my enjoyment of gaming comes down more to seeing how a game's mechanics work more than actually playing it.
I've been a software developer in some shape or form for most of my working life and I find it really relaxing just to program for fun in the evenings, even though I'm doing it all day. Pico-8 in particular is a great escape from being in Visual Studio all day. I guess some of its probably nostalgia but I think it goes deeper than that.

In the past 3 or so years, I've made quite a few games, all in Pico-8 and all can be played from Pico-8 Splore or from my itch.io page.

M: 21 games actually.

H: 21! wow, I have been busy! And, especially late last year and most of this year, I've had a fair bit of down time.

M: YEAH. It's really amazing, but I'll get back to that late. And that's fair when you've made 21 games.

H: By down time, I mean time when I haven't been able to do my hobby stuff!

M: We all send loove and prayers. I actually first discovered you when you were making a port of "Berzerk", and really loved the minimalist aspect of it. It wasn't until later on that found your other games.

H: Thanks. As soon as I heard speako8, I knew I had to try berzerk. I remember seeing in an arcade in Brighton (or somewhere like that) years ago and being absolutely rubbish at it and kind of intimidated by the speech!

M: That sounds so cool, I've only actually been to one arcade, and it was pretty small. I do remember it had a table that doubled as a HUGE nes controller. On which you could only play Super Mario 3, but with the nes is there anything better?

H: Yeah, can't remember the last time I visited one with old-school games in although when I first moved to New Zealand, one of the local fish and chip shops had what looked like an original Galaga machine! Long gone now though.

M: Oh yeah, here, most arcade that pop up usually cater to 80s kids, but I live in a relatively secluded area where video games are considered evillll.

H: Never had an arcade where I lived as a kid either. Had to rely on the fair coming to town once or twice a year. Probably the reason I love old games so much: I was a deprived child 😆

M: I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I grew up in the 2000s with a hand-me-down game boy color. But, it was already so old when I got it that most of the cartridges I had just outright wouldn't work. Pacman and Super Mario Bros, did though. For atleast a few years. Super Mario Bros never quit working until the game boy itself bricked.

H: I missed out on the initial hand-held stuff (too old and too young if that makes sense) and only really got back into that sort of gaming when the original DS game out.

M: I loved the DS... When I got it in 2015. Anyways, I am sure that the most graphically impressive of your games is "Pico-droid", would you like to talk about that game, and what inspired you to do a remake of it?

H: Sure. Having a C64 as a kid, I loved Andrew Braybrook's Paradroid but was always jealous of my mate who had a Spectrum and could play Quazatron. Decided to do a mash-up of the two. I'd never done anything isometric before (I shy away from anything that might involve more than very basic maths) so that was an appealing challenge. It was a real struggle to fit it in to a single Pico-8 cartridge but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The grapple game almost killed me though. I don't know how many times I had to rewrite it!

M: And, my personal favorite of your games is, "Zoo Keeper", I keep playing it on my miyoo mini whenever I go out. It's really AMAZING. I love how much content it has, and to master it is the best part.

What's your favorite mechanic of that game, and what inspired you to remake it?

H: Firstly, thank you. Secondly, I'd never even heard of Zoo Keeper until about a year ago. I was remaking Robotron and a guy call Shane R Monroe offered to test it and suggested my next project should be Zoo Keeper. Robotron dragged on for a while and I'd almost forgotten about Zoo Keeper but then noticed it in an old tweet. The fact you run around the outside of a square kind of reminded me of Tempest of Gyrus but with completely different mechanics. Spent a fair time thinking about how I could achieve that and in the end it was pretty simple and once I'd got that bit working (including filling in the bricks) I was hooked. My main struggle is always the graphics and I spent loads of time looking at the original and an Atari 2600 version trying to get something that looked half-decent in Pico-8's super low resolution. I almost left out the platform levels because I don't think they add a great deal to the game. Glad I didn't though since they add a bit or variety and give the player a bit of a break.

M: Also... you've been spotted with an infamous, up and rising pico-8 composer. Do you recognize this image?

Note-Head (Pico-8 Composer)

H: Infamous? Uh, oh, what have I missed? They wrote some music to go with a GIF I posted of Beamrider and I thought it was fantastic and asked for permission to use it. I usually do my own music. I'm not great at it but its a part that I really enjoy and the main area I can add my own touch.

M: Ah they're amazing. IN FACT... I thought they were so amazing that... They're working on my current game's music. So, thank you for indirectly introducing me to their work.

H:I've seen the GIFs of your game. Love the style. I envy people that can come up with original ideas AND amazing graphics (those chasing creatures are very cute).

M: Oh thanks! I plan to have quite a few more of them in the final version. Anyways, on to more pressing matters... TWENTY ONE GAMES?! HOW'D YOU DO IT?! WHEN IN YOUR DAY DID YOU DO IT?! WHAT'D YOU LEARNED?! DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW?!

H: I really don't know! That is over the course of 3.5 years though, starting with Boulder Run which was probably far too ambitious to be my first attempt at Pico-8!

I think the trick is that I'm never starting from scratch, I always take a recent project as a starting point. Also, because of Pico-8's limitations, I don't get hung up on writing particularly reusable code. It's a breath of fresh air from my day job!

I generally only do a couple of hours a couple of evenings a week, sometimes more, sometimes nothing for weeks. Also, I try to mix in smaller projects once in a while. After spending months on Bubble Bobble, the next project I did was a version of Gridrunner that only took about 2 days!

M: Speaking of using starting points...
https://twitter.com/paulhamx/status/1585523702979973120?cxt=HHwWgMCqsYna9IAsAAAA

H: Yeah, I cleaned out my Loderunner code and hashed out a few sprites the day before I went on a 3 week trip back to the UK. I do have the odd false-start. With this one, I liked the idea at first but couldn't think how to expand on the original and got bored. I have quite a few unfinished (and barely started) projects.

M: I really appreciate your drive to innovate on everything you work on. You really make a lot of games stronger and better than the originals, aswell as opening them up to a whole new audience.

H: Thanks. I used to just go for accuracy but that ends up being really time consuming and invariably pisses people off when they expect something to play EXACTLY like the original.

From my POV, Tutankham was probably the first game I intentionally tried to vary from the original. I really liked the idea but just didn't like the way the original played. That's made me change my attitude to remaking. I no longer feel I need to stick too close to the original. It's kind of liberating.

M: To quote you, "I do this for fun, I do this for me."

H: Haha, that was probably the first time I got even mildly peeved on twitter. I was having a bad day!

M: HA, I removed all the bad parts from the qoute. You didn't have to give yourself up. T-T
In your defense, people forget that there are "pixel-perfect" online versions for all of the games which you've made better. Everyone gets angry sometimes.
https://twitter.com/paulhamx/status/1583173563812495360

H: Realised I might have come across a bit precious but some people's expectations of what a free game should be are pretty puzzling! Yup, if you want to play the original, use an emulator!

M: This is no interview for old men.

H: Haha. The problem is, most of them are probably younger than me!

M: You're probably right now that I think about it... And finally, to wrap up said amazing interview, what do you plan to do next with pico-8?

H: Just playing around at the moment, waiting for some inspiration. Also waiting on Picotron, the successor to Pico-8. I'm always looking for inspiration and really enjoy doing stuff like Zoo Keeper and Tutankham of which there seem to have been very few (if any) remakes done in recent years.

M: Thanks for the interview and I meant what I said about your innovation. I look up to you for inspiration, and hope to one day be half as good as you are at making innovative games. Thanks one more time for the interview and the good time.

H: Thank you so much. Just do game stuff for FUN and see where it goes. I'll look out for your progress on Twitter.

PaulHamx:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulhamx
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=33292&mode=carts
Itch: https://pahammond.itch.io/

Marina:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079

Interview With Unikotoast Creator of "Buns: Bunny Survivor"-Pico-View #2

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 02:34:57 UTC

Interview With Unikotoast Creator of "Buns: Bunny Survivor"-Pico-View #2

Uniko:@unikotast
U = Uniko

Marina:@MarinaMakes
M = Marina

Their games:
Buns: Bunny Survivor (click link)

Witchcraft Tower Defense (click link)

M: So, in your own words, who are you and what pico-projects have you made?

U: I'm a begginer indie game dev, I've started playing around with Pico-8 around 7 months ago. I really liked Vampire Survivors and wanted to make something similar but I did not want to invest a lot of time into learning game engines so Pico-8 was perfect. I never ever did anything gamedev related but I have a decent experience in software engineering. I only made 2 games https://unikotoast.itch.io

M: So, what feature/part of "Vampire Survivors" drew you the most to want to make your own survivor game using Pico-8?

U:Multiple abilities!

M: There's this io game I played some time ago, https://diep.io. In it you play a tank and you upgrade six abilities (shot speed, damage, movement speed, ect ect). On their own they were cool, but when you upgrade two or more abilities in tandem your tank mentally and magically becomes a machine gun, a sniper, a shotgun, or anything else you could possibly dream of.

And similarly http://diep.io has permadeath. Which creates something very similar to "Bun's", where you spawn in, and you start to have a very clear mental path you'll take in order to get your preferred build. But what I find separates these survivor games, like "Vampire Survivors" and "Buns", most of the abilities aren't just "atk+" or "speed+", you have abilities that allow you to fire dash, freeze dash, pick up more gems, ect.

U: Yea-

M: AND ON TOP OF THIS you only get a few upgrade options every time you level up. This creates situations where none of the upgrades will benefit your build, so you have to think, "hmmm, which one of these seemingly arbitrary upgrades will help me most/ harm me least?". I really enjoy these in-game decisions. And then "Buns" comes a long and gives us this concept in an extremely streamlined and juicy package. Here, for example is a magnet, which looks and feels amazing to pick up:

U: The most impressive thing about Vampire Survivors is that the concept of top down arena shooter is nothing new (see Crimsonland) but this game revived this genre in a very neat way and now there are dozens of games like this on Steam: 20 minutes till dawn, Brotato and many others.

M: One thing I didn't realize in the game, and had to read the description to know, this is your first game. Which is crazy, so I realized you must of had a few pretty descent playtesters behind the scenes, is that correct? And if so how often and when did you start playtesting?

U: I had none dedicated playtesters, all feedback I got from lexaloffle bbs and Pico-8 discord. Balancing damage and hp numbers is really tricky and takes a lot of time, that's true, I'm still not satisfied with Buns, it could be way better.

M: I don't think anyone is ever satisfied with their work when complete, but how long did it take you to make "Buns"?

U: It took 2 months in my free time, I think it took around 100-300 hours including learning Pico-8

M: That's kind of amazing, what's your favorite mechanic/feature/ect,ect you were able to squeeze into your project during that time?

U:Particles and explosion effects are very fun to play with

M:Trust me, they never get old, If Zep were to come down from the heavens and adjust the tokens/characters/ect for you to add one more feature, what would that feature be?

U: In Buns I would add a pet cat that attacks enemies and follows you, an ability that I had to cut down to get more tokens.

M: Have you met my friend Achie who made "Lina And The Witches Of The Moon"? There's a cat like that in his game, but it's available from the start without any work and I feel like it clutters up the screen. It's literally the only thing I dislike about that game.

U: I played Achie's Lina and it's very cute game I liekd it!

M: Anyways, I heard after making "Buns" you made a tower defense game, could you tell me what that's all about?

U: My second game is Witchcraft Tower Defence, it has a unique mechanic for a TD where each tower you create is random and to upgrade you have to merge 2 same towers

M: Did "Buns" influence the creation of Witchcraft TD any, and if you would've made Witchcraft TD first would it have been any different? ps (Pico-Playtime on Youtube played both of your games, which is really cool.)

U: I always wanted to make a TD, I reused a lot of code from Buns. I don't know what will be different if Buns was second :D Pico-Playtime is awesome yes, he also made music for Buns

M: Wait, really? I remember him talking in his video about how it would be nice with music, since it had none then. That's trippy though, wow.

U: Yeah, he suggested to make music and I added it

M: And finally, what do you have planned next as far as pico-8 or any game dev endevours?

U: For now I'm on a little hiatus and slowly learning Godot

M: Nice, well I'm sure we'll all be happy to see what you make next. Good luck and happy game deving.

"Making pixels and buns" -Uniko

Uniko:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/unikotoast
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=66592
Itch: https://unikotoast.itch.io/

Marina:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079

Interview With Noh Creator of "Wizard Hop" and "Shotgun Night"-Pico-View #1

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:34:51 UTC

Interview With Noh Creator of "Wizard Hop" and "Shotgun Night"-Pico-View #1

Noh:@Nohh
Noh = Noh

Marina:@MarinaMakes
Mar = Marina

Their games:

Shotgun Night (click link)

Wizard Hop (click link)

Pipe (click link)

Interview:

Mar: So, who are you and why are you on pico-view? Or, what you made? I'll tell you why you're here later.

Noh: I am Noh, a pico-8 gamedev for almost a year, and I've made games such as Wizard Hop, Diesort and Shotgun Night

Mar: Nice. I haven't played Diesort, but I played every other one of your games. What's Diesort about?

Noh: No one has 😢 😂 Diesort is like a warioware style dice sorting game i made for GMTK-jam 2022
https://noh-kinda-poh.itch.io/diesort

Mar: I like how juicy it is. I noticed all of your games have had a lot of juice, except your first game "Bullet Tower"

Noh: Yeah, i really like to focus on juice/game feel on my games. Bullet tower was my first proper pico-8 game so that was more testing the waters.

Mar: lol, yeah, it's cool, every game besides "Bullet Tower" is really good and juicy. What's your favorite?

Noh: I haven't really been making (pico-8) games for that long, so i feel like every game I make is mostly better than the last. My fav has to be either Wizard Hop or Shotgun Night.

Mar: I actually put all of your games, apart from Diesort, bc mouse, onto my Miyoo Mini. And I started from your first and went all the way to your latest, Shotgun Knight. My favorite is "Pipe", but I might be bias bc of how awesome the red looks on the Miyoo:

Mar: I mean when the title screen looks that juicy, you know you're in for a ride, I'm gonna have to take advantage of that Miyoo red someday.

Noh: I though i had this super cool game idea, by controlling the pipes, and having the bird move on his own. But it think it turned out like a more annoying flappy bird for many

Mar: And Wizard Hop seemed really juicy too, but I didn't understand the stat system very well at first. About five minutes after picking it up I got it and it was a blast.

Noh: I could have explained the mechanics better in game. A lot of ppl had a hard time in the beginning, but I've heard it gets a bit addicting when you learn the ropes. Ok "addicting" is maybe a strong word, but you know what i mean😅

Mar: No worries I've also fallen victim to the "addicting" Double entendre. I'd say that there's two kinds of addictive gameplay:
-Actually addictive gameplay where it effects your real life. (slot machines and gambling)
-Fun gameplay where you feel as though you could fill any of your free time playing it. (Zookeeper and Pipe)
Atleast that's my meaning of it.

Noh: I considered getting a miyoo, but the wood grain 351V was to goofy to not get😂

Mar: LMFAO Don't you just love that rustic look on your handhelds? Is it plastic painted or real wood?

Noh: No its plastic

Mar: Ah that's a no-go, I like my game boys all-natural. How'd you like the Anber?

Noh: The 351V has a very good size, only problem is that it isnt as pocketable

Mar: lmfao, you have to lug around your hand-held? Skill issue much? The miyoo mini could fit in my mouth if I wanted it to.

Noh: Have you checked-

Mar: But the plastic on the case has this awful taste. No, of course not. I'm offended that you even suggest that I have.

Noh: Im not sure.. I mean what if your pockets are full or something. Its not like you can hold it when tarveling around

Mar: What're in your pockets? Unless your packing a crt television in both pockets the Miyoo will fit.

(left Miyoo/right Anbernic)

Mar: Wait, does the Anbernic run pico-8 natively?

Noh: Yeah

Mar: Okay, you win this one.
I have to use Fake-08 over here.

Noh: So you don't have direct access to splore

Mar: AND "Last Night" "Fortune Fishing", and another third game I can't remember doesn't work with it. AND NO PERSISTENT HIGHSCORES But next month they're adding save states, so you just gotta take what you can get. BUT, before we start a handheld war, what about your game Wizard Hop.

Noh: So it was originally made for "Pursuing Pixels Game Gam James Jam". Im sorry: "Pursuing Pixels James Jam Game Gam". The theme was permanence(which i think i did a terrible job following but ill come back to that)

Noh: My original plan was having the wizard dude in an arena where he would have to place platforms and walls to help dodge and fight monsters, but when you placed the platforms/walls, they would be there for the rest of your game, so they might mess you up later if you aren't careful with the placements. That somehow turned into what it is now. The new idea is that when you get hit, you get permanent debuffes, and when you kill an enemy, or hit the orbs, you get permanent buffes

Mar: I relate deeply to that statement.

Noh: I wanna hear your experience. Just curios.

Mar: Oh, Grill Boy. Let me pull up a gif... Here's the initial concept art on the left, and to the right is the final game:

Mar: How it ended up. Originally you'd have to flip meat. Well, you still do flip meat. But, you'd have to adjust the knobs in order to cook the meat perfectly. Except one of the knobs is broken. And it would've had the same flipping mechanic that it does now. Now, it's just a tetris-sort of game, where you sit down and have to react fast. It's nice on the Miyoo. Mostly bc the buttons are easy to press. "Pipe" was also easy to play too.

Noh: I feel like there is this pico-8 type of game feel, which i have never been able to make

Mar: Really? I feel the same way. But your game "Wizard Hop" looks and feels like a really main-stream pico-8 game man.

Noh: Thanks. There are some stuff i don't like about it, but overall im happy with how it turned out.

Mar: I mean no one is 100% happy with the game they make. I mean the dev knows it best. Anyways, what problems do you have with it?

Noh: Its hard to understand/get into for new players and i don't know if the buff/debuff mechanic is that good.

Mar: I'll agree on the first one. I played it on the miyoo for like three minutes. But, when I came back to it I got the hang of it and it was kind of fun. One thing I don't particularly enjoy is that to jump high you have to press for so long, so it's hard to just click it. Or idk I'm just an arcade gaem enthusiast, I don't know jigglysquat man. But, anyways you made a post-jam update?

Noh: Reason why i released the post-jam update after the jam is because i ran out of space, i had a lot of cool ideas for it

Mar: Ran out of space? Like out of tokens?

Noh: Tokens yeah.

Mar: Jeez I didn't expect that, but I've never made a platformer.

Noh: Thats the first time i had to think of token management

Mar: I'm still lucky lucky three games in, but I try to make my code minimal as possible, as I'm forgetful and dum.

Noh: Its also just that I have a habit of making 🍝(spaghetti) code

Mar: I prefer pasta salad code. A few days ago this article came out where I talked about how I made "Fortune Fishing" and I demonstrate my process of: I make 50% of the game in the first two days, and the next month is spent forcing myself to do the other half.

Noh: Here's the code for wizard hop:

Mar:

Noh: You see that long strip of white to the right? thats the code where i manually wrote how every platform type looks.. like instead of using the map like any rational person

Mar: I'm actually thinking about using a similar system for my next game. Or now was.

Noh: i think you can use the map for stuff like that

Mar: I mean yeah, but I like my sprite sheet, and hate editing the map. So there's a conflict of interest there between rational me and ooga booga me.

Noh: What is your fav genre?

Mar: ...That's kind of a big question. My favorite genre is arcade. I like "Zoo Keeper" "Pac-man" and "Bubble Bobble" And this is like a new obsession. So it could change in a week.

Noh: I also really like the replayability of those games

Mar: IKR The only thing I dislike is that experienced players have to play through the same old levels.
Something I think spelunky solved.

Noh: Spelunky is peak for real.

Mar: OH, and one more thing, tell us about the thing I got you on here for, "Shotgun Night"

Noh: It was made for mini jam i think 117, ghosts. The theme turned out to be «shotgun» . Which some may argue does not fit with ghosts, but i disagree The only thing scarier than ghosts are ghosts with shotguns.

(the mini-jam is a semi-weekly jam where there's a theme: "Ghost" and a challenge: "Shotgun". You have to follow both)

Mar: Can't argue with that. PS- I was going to participate in that one, but in the end chose not to.

Noh: I was really inspired by the visuals of downwell for the game

Mar: OMG I love that game. Well, i haven't played it, but I've watched hours of gameplay. I really love the minimalist pallet of three colors. It's easy to read visually.

Noh: Fun fact ive 100% it😎

Mar: Wait, really?

Noh: It was painful but it was nececary

Mar: I tried playing Shotgun Night on release and on the Miyoo yesterday.
I'm not gamer enough to beat it.

Noh: It is pretty hard

Mar: Nah, nah, I'm just an awful gamer. That's partially why I recommended the kill-freeze. To help my fellow skill issued gamers.

Noh: I tried freeze frame, but it didnt really fit it. I have it in the 2 player versus mode though, when you steal the lead from the other player. Yeah i added it in the post jam update.

Mar: Oh good, I was worried for a sec, Idk how someone could make a game and add a two player mode in a weekend. I've always wanted to make a game multiplayer.

Noh: Its the same campain, but you compete for most kills. Its pretty fun screwing the other player over by launching yourself on them.

Mar: As it always is. Welp, I think that's it for this "interview". It was nice talking about game dev with you!

Noh: It was fun! Thanks for having me. Just before i go..
(anbernic is better than miyoo)

Mar: Get the fuck off my interview. pumps shotgun

Noh: Bye👋😂

(next pico-8 view will come out in a week)

Noh:
Twitter: (couldn't find) (No twitter?)
Lexaloffle: (couldn't find) (No lexaloffle?)
Itch: (couldn't find) (No itch?)

Marina:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079

Fortune Fishing: A Post-Mortem

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 23:56:11 UTC

Fortune Fishing: A Pike-Moray-tem

Due to the fact that I kept an intensive record while working on my latest game, "Fortune Fishing", I've decided to create this post-mortem. I am not proud of "Fortune Fishing", at least not especially so. I am only posting this so that perhaps we can all gain some knowledge from my experience working on "Fortune Fishing".

And maybe we all can learn a little bit more about this river that is game-dev.

Waist Deep In Grill-Boy

When I came to the realization that I wanted to make "Fortune Fishing" for the 2022 AGBIC jam. I was still Waist Deep In "Grill-Boy", the project I was working on at the time. I was in the stage of game development I like to call "The Slodge". Where it feels like you're wading through toxic sludge in order to drag this game through the finish line. I was desperate for an escape.

"Fortune Fishing" offered a very convenient one of these, like a river that had washed away the sludge. I planned to work only on Thursdays on "Fortune Fishing", and I announced this in the A Game By It's Cover discord. This was so that I wouldn't get too tired of "Grill-Boy".

The next day my plan turned into everyday, but only after I finished that day's tasks for "Grill Boy". I shared this system I had to a game dev community ran by a game design professor, who I am honored to call my Senpai.

What I didn't expect was for Senpai to part the heavens, to tell me, "Don't be working on two games simultaniously. Classic mistake that will always go wrong." I instantly put "Fortune Fishing" back onto the shelf, continuing work on "Grill-Boy".

What I didn't realize at the time was that, while Fortune Fishing was indeed washing away the sludge, it in fact was doing that job too well. Looking back now I realize that if I had spent even one more day on that track then I would have quit work on "Grill-Boy". And yes I did hate it at the time, but now it is my favorite of the games I've created.

(Senpai later explained; "Making games is hard and requires continuous attention to maintain the creative momentum. You spend some time away from it and it will grow stale. Going back to it will be harder. So when you jump between two games not only do you have to make two games instead of just one, you will also have a harder time than just making two games in a row.")

Misconceptions and What I Had To Cut Loose

Half a week later, on October 26th I finished "Grill-Boy", and had to force myself to take a two day break. My wall-paper was "Fortune Fishing", I was constantly thinking about "Fortune Fishing", and I studied slot machines during my break to make "Fortune Fishing" all it could be. And finally the time to start work had come.

I really like the idea of slot machines. The fact they're like machines which people develop relationships with. With little easter-eggs which frequent players know well. It reminded me of an ancient legend, of an Ar-cad. Ancient temples where people of old would put coins into large game-boys and play them. The only difference between the ancient temples and these modern slot machine houses is... The abuse of the consumer. Slot machines abuse the magical player/machine relationship and sometimes cause real world consequences to those who play them, so one of my early goals for '"Fortune Fishing" was to put the power back into the hands of the player.

Besides hopes and dreams, I had one other thing. A demo I had made during the development on "Grill-Boy" (I'll stop talking about it soon) It featured a 16bit sailing cat with a fully animated boat:

I was really happy this demo I'd made, and everyone else was too when I showed them gifs. BUT when I started planning for realsies, I realized that: If the player was 16pixels big. Then the player was only 1/8 the size of the screen. Which meant my idea of jumping fish wouldn't and couldn't pan out, so I came to terms with the fact that I had to scale down some.

It is to be noted that most slot machines wouldn't be fun if money and gambling were not involved. Slot machines sometimes have real world effects on players, a real life jumanji if you would. Thus is why my infatuation with slot machines ended at that key person/machine relationship.

The Initial Rush

The start of every project is like a sprint of joy. You have all of these ideas, and are able to implement them easily. Work comes easy and fast. You want to talk about your project at any time you can. It feels like driving a race car, except you're driving a Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut (a speed car powered by a 1280 bhp (1600 bhp on E85), twin turbo charged V8 engine, featuring the world’s lightest V8 crankshaft that weighs just 12.5 kg) and everyone else is riding bikes.

During this time I was adding in enemies quickly, finding and solving code and design problems with extreme efficiency. On October 27th I wrote: "I felt a real shot of adrenaline when the Grouper was mixed in with the Karps. I know that it is fun to avoid fish." I was still coming up with unique ideas dynamically, like power ups and UI decisions.

After a few days of steady development I was ready to play-test. On the 29th I wrote, "After the playtest tonight I'd like to experiment with some ideas like rival moles, harpoons, or mole shops. Of course I mean after I finish fixing things from the knowledge I gain from the playtest. I've been thinking today, about how maybe this game should be shaped more like a rogue-like in progression. Where you have to be clever, on the go, as each wave is random. I really think the idea of rival moles could go somewhere, AND the original cart artist intended for the "moles" to be vampires who you'd have to compete against. I originally disposed of the idea bc it didn't seem to fit in with my vision, and I didn't like the idea of mystical creatures.
But maybe, I'll let the moles be vampires, I don't know."

In actuality none of those features would ever be added, but the fact I was thinking of them so rapidly shows how The Initial Rush effects us. I'd say that before the playtest 50% of this game was done. After only a few days I was half-way done and didn't even realize it, but little did I know the river would soon dry.

I say again, every project has an initial rush. One thing I've thought about during the development of "Fortune Fishing" is, should you try to stuff that rush as much as possible or try to slowly cultivate your motivation. I'm too scared of wasting time to experiment, but maybe you won't be.

The Decline and Reflections

The playtest went well, with several accounts I got some really good feedback, while fixing some bugs encountered during the playtests I wrote down: "What makes games fun: changes in speed, Risk / Reward" I don't think there is a simple formula to fun, but the fact I was trying to define what makes a game fun is a nod to the fact I was beginning to worry about "Fortune Fishing" not being so.

I compiled all of the feedback, and wrote down all of the possible solutions. On November 3rd I wrote, "I hate that I cannot quit, and I hate that I can't push forward." I find myself constantly in these battles with rapids where I occasionally fall out. The secret is to get back in your boat and keep going.

(original tweet cart by https://twitter.com/lucatron_)

I had quit game dev for all of two days prior to November 3rd. Of course the next day I wrote: "Progress is steady once again. Working on the power up "shops" Which I've decided will be water spouts."

Pushing forward seems like a small token act, but if you don't push forward then you will sink. And in my experience you can never really drown. Even though you can let the rapids take you and wash you ashore, and even if you may stay ashore for several years. Still eventually it seems, you will eventually paddle back out onto this river again.

Grill Boy's Ghost

On November 9th I opened up to myself about something that had bothered me for a long time: "I feel desperate to add in these power ups. I've never mentioned it until now, but the fact I didn't add in power ups to "Grill Boy" haunts me. The only problem I find is that the power ups don't really change the gameplay all that much."

The power ups still don't change the gameplay in "Fortune Fishing" very much, but I had to do what I had to do in order to finish it. Similarly I had to do this with "Grill-Boy", but I left these power-ups out as I couldn't think of a way to incorporate them in a meaningful way. I used to feel great shame over "Grill-Boy". In fact when I started work on it I was under the somewhat mystical belief that ideas choose the people they believe can finish them best. By the time I finished, I was far from that belief.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing this. Why I'm putting myself through game development. It's not for fame or riches like it was when I was a younger teenager. I distinctly remember at age ten wanting to be the next Shigeru Miyamoto, and being willing to do anything the achieve my goal, but now why? It makes my life much harder and brings me little joy besides endings and beginnings. Why do I keep going? As I stated earlier, even if I got off the river. I would one day become fascinated with it again. So what would be the point of stopping?

I now know that we choose ideas, and we have to develop those ideas as we push forward. We have to choose which fork in the river to go down so that our games end up the best they can possibly be. Sometimes we do have to hack parts of our games off, in order to be able to paddle them to the finish line, but it's made worth it by the beauty of the ocean.

The Current and Procedural Generation

Pushing forward was working. And now I was at the point where I would add in procedural generation. The way "Fortune Fishing" handles procedural generation is cheating, similarly to how Spelunky dev Derek Yu "cheated" his way out of true procedural generation by designing rooms that would be placed on a 4x4 grid.

(Derek Yu of Spelunky)

This system would work even better for me,so I similarly designed a couple dozen levels which would be randomly generated, with a few exceptions: Level one would always only contain a single Koi. Levels 4,8,and 12 would have bonus waves. And the levels would increase in difficulty as they continue on. These hidden difficulty knobs turn up every round.

This system isn't much on the back end, but it works well up front. Which is all that matters.

The designing of any procedural process should always start with "what do I want this to do?" I wanted:
-Player experiences one on one with every enemy before advanced levels with them.
-Levels are picked based on difficulty:
1- a 1-3 fish of the same type
2- two types of fish, but no more than two each.
3- three types of fish, but no more than two each.
Now, the real question is: what do I do about the level generation? Should I use premade waves, or randomly generate them?"

I eventually choose to use premade waves, as it would be more code efficient, and I had already created what seemed to be every possible fish combination myself in each difficulty.

If you couldn't tell my brain was willing to work once again. Not as fast as during initial rush, but still it was willing. I attribute this partially to me wanting to be done, but I also genuinely enjoyed playing "Fortune Fishing" at this time. I really liked the arcade aspects of it, and how a few of the playtesters really did seem to have fun with it. The Current was picking up.

"Cheating" in game design should be praised and expected at this point, anything that can be simplified without the project suffering should be done if needed. The truth is there is no such thing as cheating in game development.

The Last 10%

"I feel like this project will be done soon. It's been 22 days since I started. Compared to 14 days each on "Grill-Boy" and "Shoot Em' Doot Em" respectively. I've never really realized I was in the home stretch while developing a game. I always just run out of my to-do list after battling all of the demons which plague game-dev. But now, I know that this is The Last 10%." -Nov 11

The final days of Fortune Fishing were bathed in ideas for the game and other things, similar to the beginning. I had ideas for everything you could imagine to put into an arcade game, I hardly got any of these ideas in, but I was making tangible progress. Eventually during an all-nighter I came across a problem...

"The power up which makes the hook go farther causes the big fish to sometimes have physics errors. It's causing me actual mental anguish. I am going to remove the power up, as I've taken steps to do everything else."

"Another problem with this weight power up, is only people who use modern western fishing techniques will understand what they could even be. And on top of that the resolution is so low even they can't tell. This may be a blessing in disguise." -Nov 12

I hate removing things from my games, but this was one I didn't mind because of all the trouble it brought me. After this I pulled one more all-nighter. It was during a snack break, that I realized I was finished. I had a lot of ideas left out, but I knew they didn't fit neatly into the game. No matter where I stuffed them at, but in exchange for that, I was finished.

And finally here's the playable game:
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=120529#p

The biggest problem I found in "Fortune Fishing" was the difficulty. I think it's important to always learn from every project. So for my next project, I will be sure to play-test for difficulty.

Why Fortune Fishing Post-Mortem?

Why did I write this article... Thing? Partially to document my work on "Fortune Fishing", but also to share the insights of which "Fortune Fishing" gave me.

"Fortune Fishing" taught me about all the parts of the river. The currents, the rapids, and even the mudflats, and more importantly how to get through all of them. Keep going forward. But, why go forward? Because, if you keep going forward on the river eventually you will see a great blue mass of water which flows to every country, edge, and corner of the earth. This ocean is the feeling of finishing a game, and having another piece in your gamedev catologue.

What next?

All of this brings us to right now. Currently I'm entangled in a few projects like:

-Project Pico-View (I interview pico8ers):
(coming soon)

-Printo and other simple functions for pico8ers:
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=50219

And finally...

-Testing out ideas for a new game. I have a deep seated superstition that sharing a game idea to early will sabotage production, so you'll all just have to wait.

Thanks for reading! -Marina XOXO

Printo (improved outline printing)

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 04:05:06 UTC

Printo

Printo is a homebrew function I've made over the course of a few projects. It has four different outline options:

-nil = simple outline
-0 = no outline (best to be used for centering)
-1 = lazyline (inspired by lazy dev text outlines)
-2 = crazyline (creates an ultra-thicc outline)

It also has the ability to center text, including ascii characters, unlike most centering scripts. Simply type c into the x value when calling Printo.

I've fully intended for printo to be copy-pasted willy-nilly, feel free to use it in any project.

Code:

 printo(text,x,y,color,outline_color,outline_type)

 --like this:
 printo("printo",c,62,7,1,nil)

And then copy this code into your functions tab, or at the bottom of your draw tab.

--printo
function printo(tt,px,py,cr,oc,ty)
 tt=tostr(tt)
 tl=#tt

 for i=1,#tt do
  if ord(tt,i)>128 then
   tl+=1
  end
 end

 if px==c then
  px=64-tl*2
 end

 --type nill (outline)
 if ty==nil then
  for x=-1,1 do
      for y=-1,1 do
       print(tt,px+x,py+y,max(oc,0))
      end
     end

    --type zero (noline)
    elseif ty==0 then

    --type one (lazyline)
    elseif ty==1 then
     for x=-1,1 do
      for y=-1,2 do
       print(tt,px+x,py+y,max(oc,0))
      end
     end

    --type two (sharpline)
    elseif ty==2 then
     for i=-1,1 do
      print(tt,px,py+i,max(oc,0))
      print(tt,px+i,py,max(oc,0))
     end

    --type three (crazyline)
    elseif ty==3 then
     for x=-1,1 do
      for y=-1,1 do
       print(tt,px+x,py+y,max(oc,0))
      end
     end
     for i=-2,2 do
      print(tt,px,py+i,max(oc,0))
      print(tt,px+i,py,max(oc,0))
     end
    end
 print(tt,px,py,cr)
end

PS - If token count becomes a problem you can delete the outlines you don't use. With two outline options it's 210 tokens, with one it's 114 tokens. Most projects will only need one outline option, but this tool was made with everything in mind.

-Marina XOXO

	[8x8]

Super Grill Boy

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 07:16:36 UTC

Super Grill Boy

by Marina Makes

[Click to Play]

Controls

❎ to flip
⬅️➡️⬆️⬇️ to move spatula

Rules

The meat needs to be grilled! But who will grill it? YOU! But, can you handle the heat of all 10 levels?!

The burgers have two sides, when one side is cooked, it turns from white to red, flip the burgers until they have a big wide smile, but be careful the heat gets turned up little by little every level. Will you be able to make it to the Grill Boy hall of fame?

Behind The Scenes

(THIS IS NOT AN AGBIC ENTRY)

A few weeks ago I had just released, "Shoot Em' Doot Em", and was thinking about a project to do next. I sat outside facing the setting sun. And remembered something...

A piece of famicase art that Kurt Texter made for the famicase exhibition.

On a whim, and not knowing there would be a "A Game By It's Cover" Jam this year, (a jam in which participants choose a famicase entry to turn into a game). I started work on project "Meat."

After two weeks, a few all-nighters, and some other pitfalls, I present to you: "SUPER GRILL BOY" I'll be honest, it's much simpler than my original vision, but I'm atleast glad I was able to finish it.

Credits

Design/Art/Code/Sound/Music: Marina Makes (@MarinaMakes)

Marina Makes [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Carrot Inspector

How To Play

Behind The Scenes

Version History

Two-Two

Overview

Controls

Behind The Scenes

Polar Tug

Controls

Explaination

Credits

Robuilder

CONTROLS-

HOW TO PLAY-

HOW IT WAS MADE-

SOCIALS-

The Death Of A Frog - Frogs vs Ghosts Postmortem

The Death Of A Frog-

Introduction-

Overscoping-

Lack Of Game-Core-

If I Could Go Back-

Conclusion-

Thanks & Outtie 5000-

Pico-View: May 2023

PICO-VIEW: May 2023

Authors:

Contributors:

Contents:

-So You want to Make a Game - Glimm -Basic Chord Progressions - RidgeK -RP-8 Rendering (Part 2) - Luchak -Featured Interview - Citizen608 ft. Marina

-Start of Game Jam Section -PICO-butter and Jam: Spreading Game Dev Delight in every Byte - NerdyTeachers

-Game Jam #1 -Ludum Dare Jam 53 Intro -LD Jam Featured PICO-8 Games -Featured Game Review: Air Delivery - Achie

-Game Jam #2 -TweetTweet Jam 8 Intro - Andrew Reist -TT Jam Featured PICO-8 Games -The Making of TweetTweet Game: XTRIS - Fletch

-Game Jam #3 -Pursuing Pixels Jam 2 Intro - Kevin Portelli -PPJJGG Jam Featured PICO-8 Games -Conclusion of Game Jam Section

-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations -Prototype Party -Closing Remarks

Deep Sea Salvage & Co.

Controls

Message From Deep Sea Salvage & Co.

Credits

Star-Cat

Controls

Set-up

Behind The Scenes

Credits

Pico-View February

Pico-View February

Contents:

A Look Into Tweet-Carts

Jade Lombax:

Craig Tinney:

Get Your Hands Dirty!

Extra Extra!

Lazy Devs Interview - Ft. Celesmeh

How To Get Pico-8 On The Miyoo Mini!!!

How To Get Pico-8 On The Miyoo Mini

A Word From Jon Bell (Fake-08 Creator)

Pico Nico Easing Animations - Tutorial by Fletch

The Easing Manager

Creating an eased animation

Easing functions are just math

Updating the animations every frame

Putting it all together

One Bit- Pixel Art Style - Pickleschip

Introduction

Workflow

Final Art

Tabs vs Spaces Article - Nerdy Teachers

Dinky Kong Demake - Interview W/ Troglodyte & Heracleum

Random Reviews

Looprelam

Age of Ants

Beckon The Hellspawn

Beet 'em Up

Prototype Party - Nerdy Teachers

We challenge you!

How to Share

Goodbye

Pico-View January

-So You want to Make a Game - Glimm
-Basic Chord Progressions - RidgeK
-RP-8 Rendering (Part 2) - Luchak
-Featured Interview - Citizen608 ft. Marina

-Start of Game Jam Section
-PICO-butter and Jam: Spreading Game Dev Delight in every Byte - NerdyTeachers

-Game Jam #1
-Ludum Dare Jam 53 Intro
-LD Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-Featured Game Review: Air Delivery - Achie

-Game Jam #2
-TweetTweet Jam 8 Intro - Andrew Reist
-TT Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-The Making of TweetTweet Game: XTRIS - Fletch

-Game Jam #3
-Pursuing Pixels Jam 2 Intro - Kevin Portelli
-PPJJGG Jam Featured PICO-8 Games
-Conclusion of Game Jam Section

-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations
-Prototype Party
-Closing Remarks