The current version has been created in a few days of crunch time for the wonderful cre8 jam. But the game is not close to done! There is a number of features that I still intend to add to an updated version of this game:
- harder and more varied puzzles, e.g. by adding in dynamic obstacles, such as doors with switches or keys
- fine tuning the distribution of instruction tokens - currently there is no scarcity for tokens which should be the main source of difficulty in the game
- mechanism for trading in some number of low tier tokens for better ones to make autonomous farming of scraps on the surface useful
- high-scores for each puzzle (program length, executed steps and time)
- a level editor (as a separate cart) to make creation and testing of new caves easier
On the technical side, I will have to refactor a lot of the game to make it more token efficient. Currently the game just barely fits into the pico8 restrictions.
Known bugs:
- in the code editor, the header is not always selectable
- in the code editor, short programs are not visible if previously a longer program was edited
- the INTERACT instruction causes a robot to re-enter a cave after a crew member has been saved
- rover direction is misaligned with the sprite for a few edge cases
Do you have ideas for new features? Did you find a bug? I am super curious to know!