It's pretty fun to make simple stuff on Pico-8. But it's difficult to try to making complicated stuff on Pico-8
I'm a very amateur programmer since I'm only a teen. I know practice is good for this kind of thing and I shouldn't rush into it.
But I can't find many of the things I see on other Pico-8 games on the wiki, how to use them, or when I will need them.
So can some of you professionals give me some tips and things that I can do in my code that may help when I try making my games
that would be great if you could tell me some stuff
Pico-8 is what is finally making me able to code things other than the Scratch and Hopscotch stuff because it gets all the weird things you have to do out of the way and has a simple interface
5 comments
This is just a simple little visual toy I made, not an actual game.
I decided to try making a Tweetcart the other day, and realized that the method I was using generated a lot of different animated patterns when you changed just one value in it (180 patterns, to be exact). So, I built a menu around it to manually change that value and wound up with this.
And yes, I did go through all 180 possibilities to find the ones I though looked good. I had a long car ride and time to kill, ok?
Anyways, just thought I'd put this here in case people were interested. Feel free to post your favorites!
[i]NOTE: You can find the original Tweetcart (or at least a gif of it and a code screenshot) on my Twitter: @Jusiv_
It's the same effect as Pattern #5 in this version.
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I've found luacheck useful when writing lua. It is very much like JSHint for JavaScript and other static analysis tools in general. Luacheck finds usage of undefined global variables, unused variables and values, accessing uninitialized variables, unreachable code, etc.
Here is a Gist of my pico-8 .luacheckrc, I keep it in the parent directory of my pico-8 files. I also use p8tool so I can work on lua files directly.
std = {
-- these globals can be set and accessed.
globals = { "_init", "_draw", "_update", "_update60" },
-- these globals can only be accessed.
read_globals = {
--[[
copy(
`-- from ${location.href} ${(new Date()).toISOString()}\n` +
[].slice.call($('#WikiaMainContent').find('ul>li>a,.mw-headline'))
.map(a => a.tagName == 'A' ?
`'${a.innerText.replace(/\(.*/g,'')}', -- ${a.innerText.trim()}` :
`\n-- ${a.innerText.trim()}`).join('\n'))
]]
-- from http://pico-8.wikia.com/wiki/APIReference 2017-08-12T17:14:36.282Z
-- The game loop
'flip', -- flip()
-- Graphics
'camera', -- camera([x,] [y])
'circ', -- circ(x, y, r, [col])
'circfill', -- circfill(x, y, r, [col])
'clip', -- clip([x,] [y,] [w,] [h])
'cls', -- cls()
'color', -- color(col)
'cursor', -- cursor(x, y)
'fget', -- fget(n, [f])
'fset', -- fset(n, [f,] [v])
'line', -- line(x0, y0, x1, y1, [col])
'pal', -- pal([c0,] [c1,] [p])
'palt', -- palt([c,] [t])
'pget', -- pget(x, y)
'print', -- print(str, [x,] [y,] [col])
'pset', -- pset(x, y, [c])
'rect', -- rect(x0, y0, x1, y1, [col])
'rectfill', -- rectfill(x0, y0, x1, y1, [col])
'sget', -- sget(x, y)
'spr', -- spr(n, x, y, [w,] [h,] [flip_x,] [flip_y])
'sset', -- sset(x, y, [c])
'sspr', -- sspr(sx, sy, sw, sh, dx, dy, [dw,] [dh,] [flip_x,] [flip_y])
-- Tables
'add', -- add(t, v)
'all', -- all(t)
'del', -- del(t, v)
'foreach', -- foreach(t, f)
'pairs', -- pairs(t)
-- Input
'btn', -- btn([i,] [p])
'btnp', -- btnp([i,] [p])
-- Sound
'music', -- music([n,] [fade_len,] [channel_mask])
'sfx', -- sfx(n, [channel,] [offset])
-- Map
'map', -- map(cel_x, cel_y, sx, sy, cel_w, cel_h, [layer])
'mget', -- mget(x, y)
'mset', -- mset(x, y, v)
-- Memory
'cstore', -- cstore(dest_addr, source_addr, len, [filename])
'memcpy', -- memcpy(dest_addr, source_addr, len)
'memset', -- memset(dest_addr, val, len)
'peek', -- peek(addr)
'poke', -- poke(addr, val)
'reload', -- reload(dest_addr, source_addr, len, [filename])
-- Math
'abs', -- abs(x)
'atan2', -- atan2(dx, dy)
'band', -- band(x, y)
'bnot', -- bnot(x)
'bor', -- bor(x, y)
'bxor', -- bxor(x, y, )
'cos', -- cos(x)
'flr', -- flr(x)
'max', -- max(x, y)
'mid', -- mid(x, y, z)
'min', -- min(x, y)
'rnd', -- rnd(x)
'shl', -- shl(x, y)
'shr', -- shr(x, y)
'sin', -- sin(x)
'sqrt', -- sqrt(x)
'srand', -- srand(x)
-- Cartridge data
'cartdata', -- cartdata(id)
'dget', -- dget(index)
'dset', -- dset(index, value)
-- Coroutines
'cocreate', -- cocreate(func)
'coresume', -- coresume(cor)
'costatus', -- costatus(cor)
'yield', -- yield()
-- Values and objects
'setmetatable', -- setmetatable(tbl, metatbl)
'type', -- type(v)
'sub', -- sub(str, from, [to])
-- Time
'time', -- time()
-- System
'menuitem', -- menuitem(index, [label, callback])
-- Debugging
'assert', -- assert(expr)
'printh', -- printh(str, [filename], [overwrite])
'stat', -- stat(n)
'stop', -- stop()
'trace', -- trace()
}
}
|
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Star-flowers bloom once in a hundred years, but only if their roots are rich with rain and electricity.
You are a cute cloud, in charge of a field of star-flowers.
Wield your ancient powers over wind and water to nurture your star-flower garden, and pump the field's battery full of electricity! Watch out for missiles and chompers along the way!
Good luck!
3 comments
Hi! I just started using PICO-8 and I'm having a little trouble with my collision code.
It works fine when colliding against walls, but colliding against corners (the red tiles) breaks it.
Here is the collision part of the code:
function placeMeeting(x, y, f)
local tilesize = 8
local tilex = flr(x/8)
local tiley = flr(y/8)
local s = mget(tilex, tiley)
return (fget(s, f))
end
|
And this is the movement part:
if (btn(0)) then
if (not placeMeeting(p.x-1, p.y, solidtile)) then
p.x -= p.speed
end
p.mirror = true
elseif (btn(1)) then
if (not placeMeeting(p.x+p.bbox_w+1, p.y, solidtile)) then
p.x += p.speed
end
p.mirror = false
end
if (btn(2)) then
if (not placeMeeting(p.x, p.y-1, solidtile)) then
p.y -= p.speed
end
elseif (btn(3)) then
if (not placeMeeting(p.x, p.y+p.bbox_h+1, solidtile)) then
p.y += p.speed
end
end
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2 comments
I have pico 8 on my home pc, my work pc, and my raspberry pi, but they each have their own favorites list. Is there a way to put this favorites list in the root path? I have all my carts and such in a dropbox share that all three machines use, but not the favourites.txt.
Also is there a way to sort favourites.txt (other than just editing the file and sorting by the column of the title of the game)?
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Is there any way to make a pattern stop short of 32 notes? (like famitracker has a Bxx effect for jumping to another pattern/frame) I have some music with a repeating section but it won't fit in 32 notes. if I could make it stop at say note 24 (or whatever it ends up being) I could repeat this section in a pattern and not have to waste an extra sfx.
4 comments
The mobile player on the forum is pretty nice, but it's missing one important feature : It doesn't disable the long-press context menu.
If you hold the d-pad or a button down (as you do) it pops up a context menu, making the games frustrating.
Until this is fixed, I recommend using this bookmarklet to fix it.
javascript:(function()%7Bwindow.oncontextmenu%20%3D%20function(event)%20%7Bevent.preventDefault()%3Bevent.stopPropagation()%3Breturn%20false%3B%7D%7D)() |
The forum strips out JavaScript links, so I can't link to the bookmarket, but make a new bookmark, and copy/paste that code into the URL field. Tapping on it will disable the context menu, making Pico8 a joy to play on mobile firefox.
2 comments
I'm noob with PICO-8 and wanna play "Mary had a little lamb" using only beeps from code. Not using sfx editor, not using music.
however, i dont hear any beeps. Whats wrong?
print("Press arrow keys ",12,64,0)
ID=0
if btnp(0) then sfx(id,"E-4")
elseif btnp(1) then sfx(id,"E-6")
elseif btnp(2) then sfx(id,"E-7")
elseif btnp(3) then sfx(id,"E-5")
end
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3 comments
First game I made in pico 8 for ld39. Released under General public license v.3
Feedback, tips and tricks are definitely welcomed!
PS The ai is definitely not stupid and can't be effectively abused until there are too many of them. Who is more powerful now huh?
2 comments
I was playing around with loops and learning exactly how iterators work and stumbled across this...
When we write the following:
for k,v in pairs(t) do ... end |
In regular lua it is identical in function to writing this:
for k,v in next,t do ... end |
Because that's what pairs(t) returns: the builtin next() function, which iterates over the hash table that underlies lua tables, and t.
In PICO-8, we don't have direct access to next(), but we can get it:
next=pairs(any table, doesn't matter) |
Once done, we've spent 5 tokens getting it. However, the "in next,t" form of the loop is one token shorter (and two characters). So if you convert more than 5 loops, you're saving.
I know it's minor, but I know some of you end up scrimping and saving for single tokens, so I thought I'd pass it on. Um. Enjoy? ;)
@zep: any chance we could just get next() available directly?
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Tried to incorporate everything from the 16-gif tutorial + dug into some music stuff
Time to add intro and proper game over screen
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This is the same as the player below, except it's illustrating a way to link multiple animations using cutaways. Normally you would need to account for each shape in a previous frame in the new frame as they are intended to 'animate'. That can be used for interesting effects, like the cat gif below that has words transition from Japanese to Meownese. But using this structure allows you to more traditionally link completely unrelated scenes so they will be played in a sequence, before returning to the main program state.
11 comments
Looking for thoughts, suggestions on tightening up the gameplay and feel.
Rules:
Match 3 or more tiles in any direction on the bottom game board
3: 50 points
4: 250 points
5: 1000 points
Score multiplier for quick matching.
You can hold 5 tiles at once.
Extra drop at 1000 points
Additional colors introduced every 1000 points
Controls:
Down arrow to speed up drops
X to drop a tile
if you lose you can reset the cart
Todo:
Need a better game over sound.
Need to fix some bugs with the matching algorithm
(Try this pattern:
__X _X_ XX_ |
)
3 comments
