I'm seeing a few similar graphic effects that seem to be of use in games. The most of which is having an outline appear around text and to shadow it.
I also saw someone working on a "FILL" routine but it kept crashing because it was recursive.
Here are truly 5-lines of code with one routine to each. Ah, I didn't say how LONG each single line of code was though, did I ? :)
While I have you on the horn, I was hoping someone could submit source for a few useful routines not just for me but likely others:
1. Draw Hollow Oval & Filled Oval
- Draw Polygon & Filled Polygon (w any # of points, not just 3 or 4)
6 comments
1.03 Updated label image.
Guide the sparks to the flag. Avoid the enemy blobs. Rotate the maze to escape.
1.02 changes
- Wallflower becomes Maze Burger for whimsy and visual clarity
- Directional indicator when adjacent maze cell can be rotated
- Persistent high score
6 comments
Now that I'm remembering code I wrote on other computer platforms (ow my head !) I am reminded of one unique feature that the Commodore Amiga 1000 had, and that was HARDWARE SPRITES.
Yessirree, I did not remember until now, just how powerful these little things were.
You had 16 of them, they used color sets 17-19, 21-23, 25-27, and 29-31. They could be any size vertical but only 16-pixels across. Not very exciting in itself, but let me explain.
In the Commodore Amiga, you could use one of these hardware sprites and it would appear on top of graphics. No, that's not correct. They would appear on TOP of graphics. That is, you did not plot them, you INVOKED these sprites, and when you did, when you changed their position, for instance, the background of what was beneath them was always remembered and untouched.
In the Commodore Amiga, you could give a hardware sprite an acceleration, that is, you could give one say AX+=.1 and AY=0 and it would creep to the right across the screen, but ALSO continue to creep even after you stopped running your code.
Curious little things. With the many ignored suggestions, I'd like to add this one, that PICO have the ability of being able to work with 16 "hardware" sprites. However, instead of being limited to 8 or 16-pixels across, you can choose the number of tiles it works with.
It also would not have a limited palette but be able to use the full 15-color set (with zero to show background through).
The advantage of this would be clear. You could invoke these sprites and not have to worry about "cleanup" behind when they moved off of an area. By giving them an acceleration, they would continue to move and not need code to continuously "push" it.
Additionally, you could not READ these sprites. That is, if you had a solid black screen and you invoked a sprite, say 8x8 that was white to appear in the top-left-hand corner, reading directly the pixels there would STILL be black, as these "hardware" sprites have their own invisible layer and would not be read by PGET().
MHWSPR(n,x,y,h,v) Make HW Sprite ID #n from tile set position x,y size across h and v down
RHWSPR(n) remove HW Sprite ID # n
HWSPR(n,x,y,a,b) move sprite #n to pixel x,y or, if zeroes, a & b are acceleration with real numbers.
s=(HWSPRCOL(n)) return 0 if no collisions or ID # if collided into other HW sprite
Collision checking is done by overlapping pixels, not area.
4 comments
So... since I'm copying a number of .p8.png files to my Picade for on-the-go play, I was going to try and edit the code in them so they contain a software exit... simply put, "start + select" will issue the shutdown console command. Is this something we can do within the game? Like simply...
if (btn(7) is true and btn(8) is true) shutdown()
...or is it messier than that?
4 comments
Lua supports multi-line string literals surrounded with double square brackets:
x = [[hi there "friend"]] |
The square bracket delimiters can include an arbitrary number of equal signs between the brackets as long as the beginning and end delimiters match. Everything between the pair is literally part of the string, including slashes and other things that might look like string delimiters:
x = [===[wat is [[going]] "on" [====[with this ]====]]===] |
This is fully supported by Lua 5.2 and so is fully supported by Pico-8, with two bugs specific to the form with the equal signs:
- The token counter doesn't support the fancier [=+[ form, so words and symbols in the string get counted as individual tokens.
- The editor's syntax coloring doesn't support it either.
There are a dozen or so carts posted to the BBS that use multiline strings, though none of them use the fancier
3 comments
i figure everyone makes squashy but ive only had pico8 for a few days and i wanted to test uploading something since i made this from my pocket chip
3 comments
UPDATE:
10-22-16 Made code a lot smaller w better coding
10-22-16 Changed random for cycle, makes tighter maze
10-22-16 No hesitation, hold (O?) to build maze
Sometimes programming languages are too complex for their own good.
Take B4GL. It's designed for building 3D games so to even get a simple rectangle or square that is measured by true-pixels on your screen is a pain to achieve without first defining your graphic plane of existence.
Even BlitzMAX must rely on you saving regions of raster information on the order of R G B A where A is alpha, in order to read it back.
Clumsy - inefficient, and then there is PICO.
Read a pixel, write a pixel. What could be easier ? :)
This is a program I've been meaning to try for a-while but didn't want to fight the architect of the other languages that don't handle individual pixels so well.
I had it in my mind. Draw a random vertical or horizontal line. Draw another. If it intersects an existing line, HOP over it. Keep repeating until no more lines can be added. Done.
I really didn't know what to expect, and now I can see it is a very definite and DIFFERENT type of maze maker.
Try and solve the maze with your fingers from the top-left-hand corner to the bottom-right-hand corner. It's not as easy as it sounds.
Enjoi !
QUESTION!
10 comments
Sos was unable to join us at the GIC/PGA this year, so we held a small jam in his honour. A simple game where you have to help Sos make salad, while preventing hot sauce from getting into the salad.
Controls are arrow keys. Prevent only sauce from falling in, if you'll prevent veggies 3 times, you will lose.
6 comments
So when TRASEVOL_DOG released his Pixel Session Vol. 1, it made me wonder what it would take to make a desktop version of a PICO-8 game.
So I went out of my way to document how I did it with electron!
Comments and feedback welcome!
http://missingsentinelsoftware.com/blog/deploying-pico-8-cartridges-electron
1 comment
UPDATES:
10-22-16 ... Took out freeze player for standard messages
SIGH This took a lot longer than it needed to. Kept running out of memory all kinds of directions. And - I guess this was a definitely learning experience.
The main thing is, THE GAME IS DONE !
Try it out (preferably with the EXE PICO or Google Chrome as Firefox can stagger).
Instructions ? I don't want to give out too much as curiosity is always rewarded in this game. :)
Use the arrow keys to navigate. Use the lightning to give clues as to where obstacles are. Hit (Z) (O?) to use up a valuable match. You start with 3, you might find more. You have a shield generator at 9.
Your mission, just as you were told, find out what happened to the relatives in Old Man Mildew's manor and report back.
Some things won't activate until you've done the right thing first. While the game is entirely turn-based, you have a relentless clock, and once it hits midnight, you'll have to deal with Mildew's angry and impatient spirit.
High Score and names are kept and recorded for 10-entries, even after rebooting.
As with all games you've played, PLEASE let me know if you find any bugs or outright crashes. I think it's pretty solid at this point. The code ? A little over 5,000 symbols of a possible 8192.
The characters, not so bad, 27870 out of 65536.
But really PICO is a bit of a cheat since right around this area, despite having space, it won't save to PNG with much more code. I would think since it's a fantasy system that only when you EXCEED your symbols or characters maximum space - THEN it can start complaining about not being able to save as a PNG.
Now, is the game too easy, too hard ? Is the clock too slow, too fast ? Let me know what you think !
Last minute changes:
- Sped up clock
- Integered clock (for scoring)
- Removed debug score line
15 comments
Hi there!!
I just released Pixel Session Vol.1!
If you follow me on Twitter and go on Twitter at all, you probably heard of it but otherwise...
Pixel Session Vol.1 is a collection of 5 extra-polished eye-candy arcadey jam-style games, exploring experimental and minimalist gameplay and graphics!
They're also 5 Pico-8 games and I am selling them!
I think this is the first time someone attempts to sell Pico-8 games and I can assure you this is pretty scary for me too. But the way I see it, Pico-8 is a game engine like any othe... wait no, Pico-8 is a game engine LIKE NO OTHER and I think it really deserves to have premium products. I also hope this will encourage people to make Pico-8 games of higher quality and also put them for sale.
24 comments
I'll keep this short, since I'm talking more about a potential game than an actual one at this point in my learning, but my end-goal here is to create a platformer that will run in the same vein as some of my favorite games of all time—Bionic Commando. Bionic Commando, but with hulking, mobile, desert tank towers. In my head, I'm thinking these Towers each be a level, as well as it's own boss. So maybe I'm also drawing some inspiration from "Shadow of the Colossus".
That said, the ability to jump is in this very very very early prototype version as a placeholder. It's much less complicated than figuring out how to program a grappling-hook, and I wanted to test my very basic, first attempt at 2d physics and basic ground-collision detection.
I work on this a bit every day, and so far I've made at least notable progress each time. It might take entirely too long, but I am bound and determined to finish at least this one game.
And—please, please, please—if you have any suggestions, tips, tricks, or advice of any sort, I would LOVE to hear from you.
~To-Do~
• Learn a whole bunch of things. Like, virtually everything.
~More Optimistic To-Do~
• Figure out how to get the outline beneath hero's feet to go behind ground sprites when she's standing.
• Increase map size by 3x/4x and learn to program the "camera" to follow the hero around.
• Replace simulated screen-wrapping with hard edges so the hero can't walk off the map.
• Add/animate grapple hook, map to button (not trying to add the actual mechanic yet—baby steps).
• Add/animate a sliding kick/dodge, map to button (once again, just animating—mechanics later).
~New in v003~
• Improved the ground collision detection so that the hero doesn't pop-up through the floor
• Re-colored everything to fit a Gameboy-esque, 4-color palette. For coolness.
• Added some useless sprites to decorate the tank-thing up a little bit.
• Added a sliding-stop effect when direction buttons are released
• Added jumping and falling animations
5 comments
In more of a attempt to learn Pico 8 simply from the manual I have created a enemy that cases the player.
There is nothing very exciting to this as it is a test of the logic. Essentially the enemy looks to see where the player x and y is. it then minuses or adds 1 to its own location depending on if it is > or < the target location on the x and y.
3 comments
Work in progress of an 8bit remake of the binding of isaac, a game I hold dear to my heart. This is the first time I've developed any kind of game, so it's a rough first release.
-- Started to work on randomly generated floor tiles via the map() command. Rough look into what it may end up being like. Not even close to making a mini-map yet, or creating doors. I also started writing Diptera Sonata, the main in-game song. Download the cart and you can listen. Left the older version up for comparison v.03 and v.04
--TODO
- Create logic to make a bomb explode
- Learn how to create a randomly generated floor (map)
- Make better music
- Maybe add more enemies + sfx
- Add a "game over" screen properly
- Depending on scope, maybe add actual items, a key part to the Binding of Isaac
- Deal with tear dmg modifier, how to modify it, and update the sprite+dmg accordingly
--COMPLETED
- Fiddle with firing mechanism to make it less buggy and not use btnp() - 10/20/2016
- Implemented both P1 and P2 controllers to actually play like Isaac does. This allows me to add in more controls, though this may get finicky with actual use. However this was a big milestone for myself. I understand this won't play well on handhelds, but this was meant for PC only. - 10/23/2016
- Added menu item to swap controls for people who play the with the keys swapped. - 10/23/2016
12 comments
