My pico-8 fantasy console journey (or something inspiring like that)

In this exposed peak of the internet I will document my pico-8 "fantasy console" learning process by sharing my cartridges, resources and other thoughts. You know, in hopes I will keep on doing so after the first couple of times.

Knowledge sources

• start with the pico-8 wiki

• zines (which I'll follow) and other media for beginners

• awesome pico-8

How to setup your development environment

• Change the pico-8 default configuration

• just work with ATOM. here is a nice guide, and the atom extension

• An interesting way to setup your multi-tool development environment

• How to setup Sublime - I did get rid of the font

Useful tools found along the way

• picotool

Useful Commands

• info brings out the true number of tokens including, well, includes

Useful Code Snippits

random -1 or 1: flr(rnd(1) - 1)

how to concat strings: print("lives: "..player.lives.." percentage: ", 1,2,3)

Reminders (on session-start)

• Sprite's "0" pixel transform is at their top-left since pico 8 coordinates is going from top to bottom and left to right. their 'right' side is that pixel + 7 + (8 * sprite width - 1). same for top and bottom.

TODOs

[] base helper-methods file (for example - rndb)

[] how to auto-center a line of text? (according to the number of chars in that text)

Projects

8oni8 (title pending)

[] continue movement momentum (even when safe?) [] disallow going back

[] closed area enemies [] open area enemies

[X] enemies move [] score system

[] start, stop for few secs when hit,

Conway's Game of Life (thingy)

Quite on a whim I've decided to implement Conway's Game of Life in Pico. Is it nice-looking? Is it really a game? Can it BE a game? maybe. This is a framework to build from, anyway.

WIP title - colourful life ?

[] Make a version with overlapping circfill instead of squares

[] Make a 280-characters version as a tweetcart

Moonlander

[X] animation for explosion + particles [X] 'generic' animation system [X] add generic 'timing' system to control animation framerate

[X] 'generic' particles system in pico-8 [X] add in location, remove / reset, activate, deactivate [] add burst variant [] add burst direction? [] add offset

[] engine fire

[] make stars twinkle (change color) and don't change them between tries

[] fuel system [] fuel pickups

[] wind? [] wind system [] wind indicator

[] flying obstacles

[] screen shake on explode

[] fade in / out

[] replay + scoring

[] menu

[] difficulty choosing on start (no conditions -> fuel -> wind -> obstacles)

[] plot? landing supplies for a planet? what is the theme

[] original lander spritesheet