4*Pico-8
I record every game I play and I post them weekly. Here are links to one, two, and three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three.
Pico-8 is a fantasy console, meaning… actually, just check out this from the readme:
PICO-8 is a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs. When you turn it on, the machine greets you with a shell for typing in Lua programs and provides simple built-in tools for creating sprites, maps and sound.
The harsh limitations of PICO-8 are carefully chosen to be fun to work with, encourage small but expressive designs and hopefully to give PICO-8 cartridges their own particular look and feel.
You can play all of the cartridges in browser for free. However, one can purchase the license for the neat little application that holds everything in one place, including the ever-expanding list of cartridges and out-of-the-box controller support. Of course, one can also create their own cartridges as well as the wonderful ability to edit/remix existing ones.
I feel that whenever I’m ready to try learning how to code, I’ll probably go with this. I’ve tried before and I became too impatient to do it lol
I didn’t really make much time for games this past week, so I ended up just playing a few games for the FC (fantasy console).
~voidfloating~ by tom brinton
I just added this game to my “I have a few minutes to kill before needing to leave but I need to make sure the sessions are short enough so I don’t become sucked in and end up missing the bus” list.
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It’s simple, and just like real life, you’ve got to keep yourself from perishing by resisting the pull of death, aided by yummy treats to delay the inevitable doom that awaits all.
Brutal Pico Race by yourykiki
I don’t know much about game development and the specific limitations of Pico-8, but I can tell you that this game feels incredibly technical. Due to the FC’s memory limitations, most games on this FC don’t appear to have as much going on as this one—3D gameplay, particle effects, everything that’s represented in the HUD, multiple tracks and difficulties, splitscreen, etc. I have no idea how difficult it was to create, but to me it feels monumental. Check here for the technical stuff.
Fortunately, it also manages to be entertaining. Choosing the right time to charge and release your boost is crucial to winning—you simply cannot be victorious without it. I experienced my first first-place after several rounds of learning the techniques, and that’s nice to have a learning curve for such a tiny game! Now I’ll need to bump the difficulty past Easy.
Infinitroid by Gawain (DarkGriffin)
A neat little procgen came for #LOWREZJAM2018. I absolutely love the limits of Pico-8, and constraining the game even further for the jam (to 64x64 pixels) makes this even cuter. I don’t know why, but going so tiny makes me enjoy something more.
When it comes to Metroid, I’ve only played Fusion when it came out, so I’m not an expert by any means, nor do I recognize anything but the lil’ Samus. However, that didn’t really matter being that it stood on its own.
I’m a sucker for tiny Pico-8 platformers, so this was an easy like from me. The only downside I’d point out is that the corridors felt too long -or- it would have benefitted from more enemy types: it felt a bit repetitive blasting away the same bad boys over again, which could be allvieated with a smaller amount of encounters or adding more of them in altogether. Yet, I didn’t feel compelled to end early, because it felt great to play. I ended up completing this at 110% in 33:40:12.
Marballs 2 by lucatron
This is one of the “featured” cartridges and it did not disappoint. I mean, Marble Madness is one of my favourite games of all time (abstract, atmospheric, geometric) and this is somewhat similar. This time you’re able to make your marble jump, collect ping-pong balls, and other new actions that add more possibility to basic movement. It also includes a level editor. (Note: I HIGHLY recommend using a gamepad)
Tangentially: I really wish there were more Marble Madness levels out there, and I mean nothing at all changed mechanically from the original. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been done. I wish I had the patience to learn whatever’s necessary to make that happen, but I don’t.
Also continued playing but already wrote about: Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Desert Golfing.
