I'm trying to put together a simple game in which the player must avoid obstacles. I'm trying to put together a table that holds all the obstacles, with their x/y positions, as tables within tables, so that the table structure looks like this:
ActorsTable *Wall1 1.Wall1's X 2.Wall1's Y *Wall2 1.Wall2's X 2.Wall2's Y |
However, when I want to get--for instance--ActorsTable.Wall1.X, I get an error:
"ATTEMPT TO INDEX FIELD '?' (A NIL VALUE)". |
I know that this means something's not initialized. But what exactly hasn't been initialized?
For reference, the code so far. I'm working on making a series of walls for the player to fly past. Error occurs at line 86.
http://pastebin.com/4k7DBv2X

I'm just trying out PICO-8 on Linux (Ubuntu 64-bit) and it is lovely, but I noticed it uses 99% of my CPU even when idling at the command prompt. Perhaps it needs a vsync option?
EDIT: Hmm I just upgraded to Ubuntu 15.04 (I was on 14.10) and now it's not using all the CPU anymore. Maybe it was just a video driver issue and PICO-8 is actually using vsync already? So I guess this is not a bug. Although it does say 111 FPS, and I would expect 60 if it was using vsync.

The PICO-8 homepage seems to imply there's a version available for the raspberry Pi, but I'm not seeing it anywhere. Is it just not released yet during alpha, or am I missing something? At first I thought it would be included with the Linux download, but it's compiled to the 80386 architecture and so of course will not work on ARM.
Spent my evening making a simple thing that pokes colors from a few preset palettes to the display memory. Added a modulus feature that makes the scrambling form into a few cool patterns.
Up/Down controls the modulus, Left/Right controls the magnitude (700 max w/ modulus, 1500 without) and Button_A changes the palette.
It may be my controllers, but I have two of the same RetroLink (NES style) controllers plugged in. Pressing right on the first controller triggers down for the second player, pressing down on the first controller triggers left for the second player, and pressing left on the first controller triggers key 2 (Q) for the second player.
I set up the sdl controller text file using http://www.generalarcade.com/gamepadtool/ and the output gave me the following text: bd1200000000000015d0000000000000,RetroLink NES,a:b1,b:b0,back:b8,start:b9,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,platform:Mac OS X,
I tested these results using the API demo cartridge.
Thanks.
Matt

After looking in the forums a little, I've found out how to get Pico-8--but it's not really clear, so I figured I'd put it down in a forum post for anyone looking through Google.
TO ACQUIRE A PICO-8 FANTASY GAMING CONSOLE:
Step 1: Go buy Voxatron.
Step 2: Give it a minute or so. You'll need to let the payments process and such.
Step 3: You will be able to request a download link for the PICO-8 FANTASY GAMING CONSOLE from your MY GAMES tab.
Step 4: Download and start making games!
Original post, for posterity:
The graphics section of pico8.txt contains the following function definition
map mx my sx sy [w h [layer]] draw section of map (in cels) at screen position sx, sy (pixels) if layer is specified, only cels with the same flag number set are drawn // Bitfield. So 0x5 means draw sprites with bit 0 and bit 2 set. // defaults to all sprites exception: sprite 0 is always taken to mean empty. |
this is actually the definition for mapdraw. Calling map() opens the map tab of the editor.

Two player game. Players try to draw a line into the other by holding the button down to draw. Pick up ink bottle power-ups to increase your draw speed, ink reserve, and refresh speed.
Player 1 keys: Cursors + Z / N
Player 2 keys: SDFE + tab / shift
Game entered into Ludum Dare 32: An Unconventional Weapon. http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?uid=15743
my submission for Ludum Dare 32. left and right arrow keys only
curse the earth with the power of prayer
if you could, please play and rate the game.
thanks zep for the amazing tool!





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