Mini Survivors for PICO-8
Jul. 31st, 2024 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingBefore Summer of 2024 kicked off, my wife and I had loose plans for a road trip with our kids. As I thought about how my children would handle road trips, I considered how I would often play my GameBoy on long trips as a kid, and thought my kids could use a similar system. I've got a couple of GBA SPs and we have some 3DSes but I was really thinking of my own fond memories of the Final Fantasy Legend (SaGa) series and such and then I remembered seeing a friend last year with a few of those cool, emulation-based handheld systems. Especially since one of my kids loves retro games, and since two of them have Summer birthdays, I got some advice from various parties and ended up getting 2 Miyoo Mini Plus systems for two of my kids.
Additionally, my kids and I had been on a little bit of a Celeste kick at the start of summer, too. Around this time, we watched last year's Celeste TAS from GDQ, and on July 2nd of 2024 we watched carrarium playing Monika's D-Sides as part of SGDQ. This got a few of us playing it again for a while.
Because of the availability of stylish, handheld PICO-8 players and with Celeste top-of-mind, I found myself looking into PICO-8. I asked my middle kid about it, because (a) he loves Celeste the most and (b) he's shown a proclivity for coding at school this year. He only knew a little bit about it. We watched a couple of introductory YouTube videos (like some of SpaceCat's wonderful tutorials) and I decided we were going to make a game. My kids and I actually planned a "Summer project" to develop a game in 2023 but pretty much nothing came of it; I thought the scale of PICO-8 would lend itself well to actually getting something done.
This project started in early July and effectively wrapped yesterday, so it's a one-month game including learning the environment for PICO-8 development. The programming language is Lua, which I don't love but I've got a bit of experience with including the scripts I wrote for Final Fantasy II and Chrono Trigger. Although it's vacation time for me, my family and I have lots of other Summer goings-on (parties, swimming, illness, trips...) such that the actual time to focus on this project wasn't enormous. The project also didn't really have direction at first: I drew a dude and made him move around the screen with arrow keys. From there I decided it might be a Vampire Survivors-like.
I discussed this a bit previously, but I became a bit obsessed with Vampire Survivors since trying it for the first time with friends in November 2023. I've basically 100%ed the game twice, plus playing each DLC to death as they have come out, and I've dabbled with other games in the genre, too. (The other game with a similar style that I've enjoyed the most - and also 100%ed - is 20 Minutes Till Dawn.)
With PICO-8's limitations and somewhat of a set of goals in mind, we started the project. I had a to-do list in mind but we didn't have any real project management approach here, I just generally reached for the next-most-attainable aspect and the kids threw out ideas and played the game intermittently.
The progression of work was sort of like:
The biggest struggle and the biggest timesink was probably "shots" - making a weapon generate a shot that is aimed at an enemy. Honestly, the aiming still kind of sucks, which is most noticeable with the bow. This is the main reason I called yesterday's release "0.9" instead of "1.0".
Well, here's the game! Mini Survivors!
It seems that it won't embed effectively on Dreamwidth so you'll have to click that link, but you can play it right in your browser so give it a click.
It's a pretty satisfying little gameplay loop in the survival style. It starts out pretty slow. There is a desert and a snow area although their actual impact is limited.
The weapons are not particularly balanced. It seems like Bob the Boulder is far and away the best, especially early on, because of the way piercing is coded.
In the late game, you find yourself in a deluge of enemies and the best way to survive is bouncing quickly between pickups: bombs and shield crystals can make-or-break the game... quickly. If you're into the meta, you might enjoy the use of the term "shield chaining" which CannonTrys coined.
I started this post by talking about prospective Summer road trips. Those are canned for a few reason including some exciting dance opportunities for some of us... but we've got some Miyoo Minis and a nice game to show for it regardless. I recently ended up buying a third Miyoo Mini Plus for myself, too! And I don't think this will be my last PICO-8 game.
Additionally, my kids and I had been on a little bit of a Celeste kick at the start of summer, too. Around this time, we watched last year's Celeste TAS from GDQ, and on July 2nd of 2024 we watched carrarium playing Monika's D-Sides as part of SGDQ. This got a few of us playing it again for a while.
Because of the availability of stylish, handheld PICO-8 players and with Celeste top-of-mind, I found myself looking into PICO-8. I asked my middle kid about it, because (a) he loves Celeste the most and (b) he's shown a proclivity for coding at school this year. He only knew a little bit about it. We watched a couple of introductory YouTube videos (like some of SpaceCat's wonderful tutorials) and I decided we were going to make a game. My kids and I actually planned a "Summer project" to develop a game in 2023 but pretty much nothing came of it; I thought the scale of PICO-8 would lend itself well to actually getting something done.
This project started in early July and effectively wrapped yesterday, so it's a one-month game including learning the environment for PICO-8 development. The programming language is Lua, which I don't love but I've got a bit of experience with including the scripts I wrote for Final Fantasy II and Chrono Trigger. Although it's vacation time for me, my family and I have lots of other Summer goings-on (parties, swimming, illness, trips...) such that the actual time to focus on this project wasn't enormous. The project also didn't really have direction at first: I drew a dude and made him move around the screen with arrow keys. From there I decided it might be a Vampire Survivors-like.
I discussed this a bit previously, but I became a bit obsessed with Vampire Survivors since trying it for the first time with friends in November 2023. I've basically 100%ed the game twice, plus playing each DLC to death as they have come out, and I've dabbled with other games in the genre, too. (The other game with a similar style that I've enjoyed the most - and also 100%ed - is 20 Minutes Till Dawn.)
With PICO-8's limitations and somewhat of a set of goals in mind, we started the project. I had a to-do list in mind but we didn't have any real project management approach here, I just generally reached for the next-most-attainable aspect and the kids threw out ideas and played the game intermittently.
- My oldest son, Wyldstar, contributed a small amount of sprites, several sound effects and a bit of music, as well as a lot of playtesting (where, naturally, he has a knack for breaking things).
- My middle son, FlamingXP, probably provided the most ideas and besides myself contributed the most sprites.
- My youngest son, CannonTrys, actually surprised me by gravitating to the code the most. I am not sure whether he really contributed much that made the product, but he spent a lot of time with me while I was coding and I sort of "rubber ducked" with him. He also playtested a lot and did one or two graphics.
- basic camera and movement
- enemy movement and collision
- displaying the time and the player's health
- weapons, including "shots"
- sound work
- particle effects - which, I've noticed in a lot of PICO-8 games like Birds With Guns, really help make a game in this style feel alive and exciting
- menu / weapon selection
- nicer title screen
- pickups
- level-ups
The biggest struggle and the biggest timesink was probably "shots" - making a weapon generate a shot that is aimed at an enemy. Honestly, the aiming still kind of sucks, which is most noticeable with the bow. This is the main reason I called yesterday's release "0.9" instead of "1.0".
Well, here's the game! Mini Survivors!
It seems that it won't embed effectively on Dreamwidth so you'll have to click that link, but you can play it right in your browser so give it a click.
It's a pretty satisfying little gameplay loop in the survival style. It starts out pretty slow. There is a desert and a snow area although their actual impact is limited.
The weapons are not particularly balanced. It seems like Bob the Boulder is far and away the best, especially early on, because of the way piercing is coded.
In the late game, you find yourself in a deluge of enemies and the best way to survive is bouncing quickly between pickups: bombs and shield crystals can make-or-break the game... quickly. If you're into the meta, you might enjoy the use of the term "shield chaining" which CannonTrys coined.
I started this post by talking about prospective Summer road trips. Those are canned for a few reason including some exciting dance opportunities for some of us... but we've got some Miyoo Minis and a nice game to show for it regardless. I recently ended up buying a third Miyoo Mini Plus for myself, too! And I don't think this will be my last PICO-8 game.
