Picodex Dual is surely one of the MOST data-packed PICO-8 games. I released it almost exactly 4 months ago, so I just updated the label image! I couldn't fit a little Johto Pokedex device in the game, but at least it can be in the cover art!

#picodex #picodex-dual #pokemon #aseprite #pico8 #pixelart

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pokemon Gold/Silver, I'm releasing my 32kb gen2 battle-sim game TOMORROW at 20:00 UTC!

Just wrapped up the monochrome sprites this morning!

#picodexdual #picodex #pokemon #pico8 #gamedev #gold #silver #crystal #pixelart

I've implemented 175/250 moves and 200/250 sprites for Picodex Dual. Besides that, everything else is done.

And random battle gifs.

#picodex #picodexdual #pokemon #pico8

i'm still working on my 32kb gen2 battle sim, "picodex: dual version". and i finally finished the ui for the entire game! lemme know how you think it looks.

other progress: data packing is 100% done! sprites are maybe ~70% done. the battle system has been researched/planned, but only just started implementing it.

i've been working on this project for ~8 months, i only have free time early mornings or late nights when my toddler/job aren't distracting me. so progress is slow.. but i'm now on the tail-end of development and very excited to actually be implementing the complex battle system of gen2 pokemon. seriously, this is the most fun part.

#picodex #pokemon #pico8 #picodexdual #missingno #hotdog

About a month ago I made a monochrome pixel editor on my #playdate, so that it's convenient for me to make #pokemon sprites for #picodex in #pico8. (Hashtags done!)

The left side is the editor. Middle is preview, and right is a reference picture from Pokemon Crystal.

Originally the program took up the whole screen, but my toddler dropped my playdate on the ground and the top half of the screen started flickering, so I modified the editor to only use the bottom half :D.

Suprisingly, making sprites with this editor is much easier than making them with pico-8. Because there are only two colors, "a" toggles the current pixel. "b"+dpad moves all pixels. And "b"+crank switches to a different Pokemon.

After a month of spriting with the playdate, I'm about 40% done. 100 down and 150 left.

Picodex Dual is my attempt to fit the entire gen 2 pokemon battle system into a single 32 kb pico-8 cartridge.

My gen 1 battle sim was already nearly 32 kb, so adding all the extra content requires tradeoffs:
- Sprites are all 1 bit. Very compact and no need for token-expensive decompression.
- Trainer/item/pokemon/move are condensed to 6 or 7 characters, saves on code compression tokens and works with UI design.
- Pokemon cries just use the same data as the pokemon stats & move data I have packed into the cartridge, but with a filter applied.
- The entire UI should be virtually sprite-less, because there is no cartridge space after storing all the pokemon data.

I hope that explains better what I'm trying to achieve.

I've been experimenting with the UI even more and I discarded my previous designs. Here is what it will really look like. It reverts to a similar style the original picodex had because I like the color palette. This is a simple grid-based UI that I can reuse the code for throughout the entire game. Which is important because the battle sim part will take lots of tokens.

#picodex #picodexdual #pico8 #pokemon