Pico/RetroInspired by the #LOWREZJAM entries to start a 64x64 resolution #Pico8 demake / mash-up of Zub and Nebulus. Zubulus, if you will... I won't finish it in time for the jam, but it's fun working within these constraints.
Adding a bit of scenery to my low-res #Pico8 Zub/Nebulus mashup. Next up: bang my head against trigonometry to give the tower some perspective.
Why a boomerang? Because it has to fly around the tower.
Time to polish the platforming. I need to implement coyote time to make the game more enjoyable.
The core of the gameplay is in place: climbing the tower, monsters, and defending yourself with the boomerang. I can now get a feel for where the gameplay works and where it doesnāt. What Iāve found is that the boomerang is *too* powerful. Unlike the shooting in Zub, no matter which way the player shoots, the boomerang flies around the tower and hits the monster. The player doesnāt need to aim! The monsters need more smarts to dodge player shots, and more varied behaviour.
One thing that did work out just as I hoped is having to catch the boomerang. Fumbling the catch and watching the boomerang flying downwards beyond your reach has just the right mix of comedy and pathos ā it really tickles my sense of humour.
I've not yet decided... should the boss come out of the door, and you fight around the tower? Or should the player enter the door, and the boss battle be an entirely different game mode?
If you fall too far you are stunned (and have a lightly sweary reaction, from a random selection of silly rude words).
This looks frivolous, but behind the scenes I've introduced a state machine for the player, allowing me to easily add more sophisticated behaviour and animation.
I had fond memories of playing the game Zub. But now that the core gameplay is in place, Iāve found the bits I borrowed from Zub are the least fun. I read some reviews of Zub from the ā80s. The ZX Spectrum magazines gave the game a high rating. The C64 magazines gave the game a low rating because the gameplay was āboringā. So I guess the C64 had better games on average than the Spectrum. And Iām going to add more platforming elements and gameplay variety to Zubulus.
Iāve had to give each monster an explicit state machine, like I did for the player. I never learn! State machines simplify the code so much. But I always leave it too late to write them and then have to refactor from a ratsā nest of flags and if statements. And #Pico8 has no automated refactoring tools, which makes me put it off even longer. A vicious cycle.
Up to now, colliding with a monster has knocked the player off the platform they are standing on, but collisions did nothing when the player was jumping. Iāve now made the monsters bounce the player around, whether the player is on a platform or in mid-air. And being bounced stuns the player for a moment. What a difference it makes to gameplay! I need to tune the calculations to find a good balance between chaotic bouncing and predictable platforming. GIF coming soonā¦
The other thing I had to avoid was monsters bouncing the player straight upwards. The monster would bounce the player to the top of the tower with no interaction at all. So the player gets flung sideways and either upwards or downwards depending on the relative position of the monster. Itās not mathematically correct, but feels fine in practice.
This game will have no lives or health bar or suchlike. The worst that can happen is that a monster bounces you back to the bottom of the tower of the current level and you have to climb up again.
When developing and testing, I put #Pico8 into dev-kit mode with a POKE in the game's initialisation routine. I have a function that interprets key presses every frame to invoke testing actions or toggle test modes. For example, to show or hide hitboxes, toggle invincibility, or jump the player straight to the end of the level so I can test the boss fight.
The topmost platform will lift you through the clouds to the top of the tower, to mark the transition between the normal level gameplay and the boss battle.
Writing moving platforms involved quite a bit of refactoring. To keep myself motivated, I added some "juice": screen shake when you fall too far to the ground. (I keep a list of quick, fun things to add to the game, and use them to break up longer, less enjoyable, development tasks). #Pico8 #Gamedev #pixelart
Iām procrastinating because the end of level boss battles will take a lot of work!
Jammigans
fsouchu@picoretro ahah the eyes are excellent!
some blinking might even be better
some blinking might even be better
@fsouchu Absolutely! Blinking is in my "motivational todo list" of fun little things to add.
@picoretro cool (and still positive that some light border shading would really help selling the tower is round + hide some aliasing artifacts)
@fsouchu that is also in my todo list, but will take quite a bit of research and experimentation to find the right mix of colour and dithering.
@picoretro hehe cute detail š