Update on #picofender for #pico8 on #screenshotsaturday.

Working on the high score system. Thinking about the best way to pack/unpack six high score initials into pico-8'a very limited persistent data storage.

#buildinpublic #gamedev #RetroGaming

The sounds of #picofender for #pico8:

This is a live recording of me playing the game with some of the sound effects in place. You can see more of the enemies, progress with the shield.

#screenshotsaturday #indiedev #buildinpublic #arcade #RetroGaming #ArcadeGaming #gamedev

Update on #gamedev for #picofender: A friend – top ~1000 globally on a few arcade shooters on Xbox Live – will be taking a look at #picofender to share some opinions about balance/difficulty/scoring.

I've also cleared ~400 tokens for what I hope is the last push.
#buildinpublic

Update on #gamedev for #picofender: A friend – top ~1000 globally on a few arcade shooters on Xbox Live – will be taking a look at #picofender to share some opinions about balance/difficulty/scoring.

I've also cleared ~400 tokens for what I hope is the last push.
#buildinpublic

😱

8192/8192 Getting close to feature completion for #picofender, but I've run out of tokens again!

I'm pretty sure the tokens I need are there, but will have to dig a little deeper to find them than before. Hopefully this is the last round.

#gamedev #pico8 #buildinpublic

Update on #Picofender #pico8, my demake/remix of Defender adding features of Resogun, Geometry Wars, and Nuclear Throne. You can start see some of the "remix" features: score multiplier, deadline mode, and shield.
#screenshotsaturday #RetroGaming #indiegame #buildinpublic

Happy #screenshotsaturday !!

I’m feeling a little beat up today: nit doing new work, so I wanted to repost this update on #picofender from earlier this week.

Follow me here as I finish and release this project!

#buildinpublic #gamedev #pixelart #arcade #indiegames #StayTuned

#picofender now has two parallax layers of stars that clip against the foreground as well as a functioning radar/scanner system. This is starting to have enough elements that it's fun to play! Looking forward to sharing soon.

#gamedev #retrogames #demake #remix #arcade #solo

#picofender bug tracking, extreme gore edition:

Check out how this bug completely maxes out #pico8 CPU and memory very quickly. It keeps bleeding the humans forever instead of mercifully killing them at once.

lmao.

#buildinpublic #gamedev #pixelart #retrogame #RetroGaming

After another round of token optimizations, I've saved >1,000 tokens w/o losing any functionality and now have ~1,300 tokens remaining to try and complete #picofender for #pico8 soon.

Here's some footage of me testing the newly rewritten collision system
#buildinpublic #gamedev

I'm approaching, but not yet at, the feature set I want for #picofender, but I'm also using 96% of the maximum token allocation for #pico8 right now. So, it's time to do battle with the token monster to get what I need to do the features I want and polish/balance.

#buildinpublic

Solid progress on #picofender today, though not quite enough where I'm ready to share the first alpha.
I'm starting to run into the #pico8 token limit. Not sure how much optimizing saves, but I'm at 75% and nowhere near feature complete. Will have to cut
#buildinpublic #indiedev

#picofender development is going well, except that I'm approaching the #pico8 hard limit of 8192 tokens. I've been putting this off for awhile, but now can't really implement new features (or finish original scope) without *serious* token optimization.

#buildinpublic #gamedev

More early #gamedev on #picofender for #pico8:

Earliest terrain that's in the current version. I set #procgen aside and hard coded a series of vertices with lines. I suppose I could have just used a big sprite, but this seemed more flexible.

#buildinpublic #screenshotsaturday

Early #gamedev on #picofender for #pico8:

First test with moving sprite and particle effect: notice: (1) no acceleration on the ship, only constant speed; (2) no terrain to move around in; (3) no shooting, no sound, no animation.

#buildinpublic #screenshotsaturday #RetroGaming

Early #gamedev for #picofender: earliest attempt at making terrain.

I wanted random, #procgen world. This early version used some simple rules but produced unsatisfactory results.

Since, I learned of Perlin noise. Maybe useful?
#buildinpublic #retrogames #screenshotsaturday

I've been asked why build for #pico8? #picofender isn't a commercial project: It'll be on @itchio as a pay what you want, but, this is kind of like of a business card for me. When it's done, people can get an idea of what I do in seconds without me saying a word. #buildinpublic

Early #picofender development: Early on, I tried to build features as separate program that I could build and test independently. This next "version" is the laser shot.
Keys here were the oscillating color, segmentation, and SOUND. What do you think? #gamedev #buildinpublic

In my work on #gamedev for #picofender I've looked at a different ports of Defender and the decisions designers made with limited resources on different platforms.

This YouTube video covers 20+ versions of #Defender: many quite distinct. youtube.com/watch?v=Y1b98T…

#buildinpublic

Compare Defender 2000 for Atari Jaguar vs #picofender vs. the MSDOS(PC) port. I think my approach of optimizing for play space vs than making the "best" looking sprites is the optimal use of limited resources, but designers of other games have reasoned differently
#buildinpublic

Defender 2000 for Atari Jaguar used more pixels to make a "better" looking ship sprite, but it really changes the gameplay by taking up so much more space onscreen. Compare Defender 2000 vs. OG Arcade Defender vs. my #picofender mockup

#buildinpublic #retrogames #pixelart

Rather than adhere to the pixel art of the OG Defender, I chose a "super-deformed" or "cute" style for #picofender that required fewer pixels instead of using more detailed sprites that would take up more screen real-estate.

#buildinpublic #retrogames #videogames

While #picofender is inspired by Defender, I want to "demake" formula in different ways.

Compare WIlliams' Defender (1981), which has a resolution of 320x256 with the #picofender mockup, which runs on #pico8 at 128x128.

#buildinpublic #retrogames

While #picofender is inspired by Defender, I want to "demake" formula in different ways.

Compare WIlliams' Defender (1981), which has a resolution of 320x256 with the #picofender mockup, which runs on #pico8 at 128x128.

#buildinpublic #retrogames

This is the earliest "interactive" version of #picofender which is really just a line moving back and forth. The purpose of this for me was just to test my familiarity with the #pico8 camera() function; keeping track of an object as it moves on/off screen.
#buildinpublic #gamedev

This mockup of #picofender is almost a year old and took me maybe an hour or two to put together. I actually thought finishing a working Defender-like would only take me a few hours more. Boy did I underestimate the challenge in this (at least for me).
#buildinpublic #retrogames

This inanimate and unresponsive mockup of #picofender is just 300 lines of code. All this does is draw the two sprites for the ship and the picoalien, a UI, some random pixels for stars, and a hard-coded sequence of lines for the ground.

#buildinpublic #retrogames #videogames

I can't #gamedev #picofender for #pico8 fast enough to show new features every day, so I'd like to share some early dev history.
This is the earliest mockup. It looks similar to the current build, but there is no movement, no interaction, no animation, no sound.
#buildinpublic

Instead of just "humans,"I decided to add some diversity. Meet Alex, Jamie, Terry, Khalil, and Gramma:

We humans celebrate diversity, but we are nothing but identical food pellets to the evil Picoaliens.

Lay waste to the alien scum with #picofender for #pico8!

#buildinpublic

I showed off #picofender for #pico8 to my 13 year old nephew. He was nice, but I could tell he was unimpressed 😂 He just sees retro-styled game as "old-fashioned," and doesn't notice the subtle things that make my demake/remix of Defender a mix of old and new.

#buildinpublic

More features coming in on #picofender for #pico8 I've added a pretty need lighting-bomb effect you can see here along with a few other subtle improvements since the last gameplay I've shown. Can you tell?

I can't wait to share this: hopefully soon.

#buildinpublic #RetroGaming

First update on #picofender for #pico8 in awhile. This is my first stab at a title screen. Spent quite a bit of time doing the PICOFENDER logo by hand, pixel by pixel in Photoshop. Also testing persistent cart data here. Definitely new stuff for me!

#buildinpublic #videogames