itch.io

A strong proof of concept. I'd play a version of this with twenty levels in it.

Truly a game fit for a king

Just a multiplayer mode and a speech synth away from being the next Gauntlet.

The grossest fingers in the universe: you made them!

I wrote it myself! If you're a Pico-8 developer, feel free to open up the cart and borrow it.

Thanks again for your feedback! This game shipped rough because it was on a jam deadline and all the player feedback I got after release really helped me work out the kinks.

Thank you!

Hi, thanks so much! Yes, the extra items/characters in the first room were a glitch in a previous version of the game. If you get the new version, they should be gone.

The map doesn't cover the whole grid -- if you found the tuxedo on the far east area and then took it to the guy at the far north side of the maze, that's the intended way to reach the ending, the infinite conversation loop.

I'm working on a patch to make the Tony mechanic clearer.

I keep doing it to myself! I code golfed a bunch and hand-deleted a bunch of less interesting pixels from the dithered images make this fit:

Since I submitted (three days ago) I've fixed two crash bugs, fixed three level design soft-locks, redesigned one puzzle from scratch, and also made various minor content tweaks.

In retrospect, I only shipped at that time because I was at the nadir of a cold/flu-type thing, hadn't slept well and wasn't thinking straight.

I'm pumped for the PiCoSteveMo 2 Celebration Stream! (Which I will probably watch later on VOD)

Who told Casey!

Submitted! You can play it here on itch: https://twinbeard.itch.io/shining-2

Or on the Lexaloffle BBS: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=145599

Splore 'em if you got 'em!

Final token count: 8191, with ~875 code golfed. PX9-compressed sprite/map memory 99.8% full, compressed code memory 99.9% full.

Don't tell Casey I said this, but me, I'm okay if you submit it before the deadline as barely-a-game and then fix it later when life is less hectic

Just implemented save/restore. I wasn't sure I was going to, but the game has grown big enough that it feels like a requirement.

The game is pretty dang close to done. My todo list is all nice-to-haves, even fixing the bug when you're slipping on ice that gives you a too-high velocity and warps you to a bad room, because Tony can help you with that.

The double-edged sword of the Pico-8's constraints is that they're there to force you to keep your game's scope manageable, but you can push past them if you're willing to suffer.

When you're at max tokens, you get into this feedback loop where you write some code, try to test it, realize you're out of tokens, do an optimization, try to test it, realize you still don't have enough tokens, repeat, then once you get under the token limit you have to debug every change at once.

I code golfed probably 150 tokens (~580 total so far) in order to add axe-door particles. Probably eight individual optimizations that each need to individually be tested. It adds way more QA risk than usual to any new feature. Normally to ameliorate this sort of extra QA load you add something like a regression test system. Unfortunately that would require tokens!

Here's the payoff though: 

Here's what the map currently looks like in the Tiled editor. I'm pretty satisfied with the size/scope of this map, and the map/image data is 98.2% full -- though there's plenty of physical map space I could expand into, and I could dial back the dithering on the title/cutscene images to reduce the compressed size. It feels like a fairly complete end-to-end experience now. 

~400 tokens saved so far -- and after fleshing out the dialog trees I've hit the compressed code limit too, so I've had to cut back on comments significantly. Who needs 'em?

Title screen and introductory dialog tree. There's an ending dialog tree too, not pictured.

I've hit Pico-8's token limit so I'll stop giving you the running token count and start telling you how many tokens I've code golfed to make new code fit. So far it's about 350!

This game is going to need a content warning for alcoholism, isn't it? 7628 tokens.

That's what we crave here in PiCoSteveMo!

I couldn't find a good reference for Boo-style "freeze when you look at it" enemies in a top-down game, so I had to work it out from first principles. The solution I came to that felt good was:

• Divide the screen in half through the avatar. Anything on the front side of the line is considered visible.
• Use 8-way facing instead of 4-way. So it's a horizontal/vertical split if facing horizontally/vertically, diagonal split if facing diagonally.
• Shift the dividing point to the tile *behind* the avatar. This gives the avatar slightly more than 180 degree FOV.
• Delay a bit before the unseen guy unfreezes. I'm using about 8 frames of delay here.

Automatic push-blocks and axes to break down doors.

Hedge animals follow you when you're not looking.

6799 tokens.

Very ambitious! I'm excited to see what comes of this

Chug one brand of whiskey to rewind yourself and a different brand of whiskey to rewind the grid. 5443 tokens.

Collecting items and an interface to select them. 5131 tokens.

I've noticed that I'm avoiding level design, which tells me I'm nervous about being able do it or possibly just unsure how to start. For Gordy and the Monster Moon I found a good balance of adding a feature and then building out a region of the map that used that feature, but for The Shining 2 I'm just doing feature feature feature.

For example, this ghost follows your tracks in the snow in order to give you a big hug and it won't let go until your shift at the hotel is over.

I'm gonna try doing a rough sketch of the whole map soon. Maybe iteration will be easier than blank slate creation.

(4869 tokens.)

Found a bug in the particle system

Thanks! I modeled my sprite layout after the one in Final Fantasy Adventure where everyone has exactly four walking sprites: facing forwards, facing backwards (which are flipped horizontally to animate the walk) and a two frame walking animation facing to the side (which is flipped horizontally to walk the other way). Very economical, and it also made a great fun constraint for actually drawing the walk cycle.

These two new interactions ended up a fair bit fiddlier to implement than I was hoping for -- no surprise that my first pass at the free movement/grid movement blend has awkward bits, I suppose.

Token count: 4343

Spent way too much time debugging my content pipeline, but here is a proof of concept putting together all the components I talked about in the previous post: compressed map and sprite sheet, Sokoban-style block pushing in a Zelda-like open world, and the conversation system. Current token count: 3482.

I'm working on a sequel to The Shining where you get stuck in the haunted hedge maze on the way to your job at the Overlook hotel. Can you commute to work?!

I've been laying some foundation before the start of the jam: I've got a content pipeline set up where I use PX9 to compress the map and the sprite sheet (and whatever other images I end up needing). I've also borrowed the block pushing system from the Zelda+Sokoban fusion idea I've been poking at, and the conversation system from Bouncy's Winter Solstice Ride. This put me at 3248 tokens before November even starts. But it's okay because I haven't started on the game itself yet!! Right?!

It's hard to imagine being more pumped

Thanks, I really enjoyed watching you play!

Thanks!

Yes, on startup I loop over the map and convert certain tiles to game objects, set the edge tiles for ice and mud based on surrounding tiles, and throw in random decorations like grass and mushrooms. I think this sort of initialization on startup is pretty common, especially converting tiles to game objects.

If you look at my other Pico-8 projects on itch.io, you'll see a few other ways to handle the map:

• Basil's Adventure just converts tiles to game objects.
• Maximum Overdrive 2 is a roguelike -- it ignores the Pico-8 map and just generates map data in a Lua array.
• Gordy and the Monster Moon uses map memory as raw bytes -- I use external tooling to edit the map and store it, compressed, in the place the map usually goes. Then on startup I decompress the map into an array and go from there. This allows the map to be much bigger than the built-in one.

I've seen some projects do fancy things to make a bigger map entirely within the Pico-8 ecosystem, like this: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=46225

Hope that helps!

Glad you liked it!

Glad you enjoyed it! 😁

I believe the solution to this is to, instead of double clicking on the app, try right clicking and selecting "open" to run it.

Yeah, that's the intended experience, but I figured I could throw a bone to the people who enjoy reading instructions

I don't know if it's kosher to update your game the day after the jam ends but I just this much-needed instruction screen for those of you who think playing a game is more fun than learning it

Very impressive Pico-8 lawnmower noise