The art is interesting because it's not determined pixel-by-pixel, but rather with a list of coordinates for lines (see code) that get drawn to the screen.
I think a lot of the early PLATO games were played in classrooms, so didn't have sound since that would be distracting. The PLATO was also weird in that it used recorded sounds AFAIK, so they could use any kind of sound imaginable... but I wasn't able to find out exactly how it worked, so I didn't think I could accurately replicate it.
I'm not familiar with the original game but took me a while to realize I needed to shoot the opponent to score points. But they appear in the same spot and never really get away from me, so all I did was shoot, get points, repeat.
This is very faithful both to the atari and mariokart - good job! It's quite fun even if I found that I wasn't too good at it. The poison may fit the theme of side-effect, but it is so painful that it leads me to not want to pick up the bonuses, thereby making that part of the game disappear. Poison should just last 5 seconds or so.
That is incredibly faithful to the Kingdom game (a smart choice for a demake!). It looks great, but unfortunately I think I'm running into bugs that freeze the game, so I haven't make it that far.
Now that I look at the official jam logo, showing orange text on an old computer, it seems like PLATO and other old computers should be covered. It would be nice to add this to the list on the jam page to make it official.
Rules say: "Your game must (loosely) follow the restrictions of the platform you’ve chosen."
So my reading if that is that the limitation decision is up to you. I suspect visual restriction will be the most common. RAM restrictions would be hard to implement on most modern systems.
PLATO IV seems the most innovative, with 512x512 pixels with a monochrome orange display. While it isn't quite a "console" is it okay to use these limitations for this game jam?
The title of this jam makes it seem like the game should take place in the console, but the rules make it seem like it’s just meant to be an ASCII based game in the browser (DOM). Is the latter correct?
It would help to add some more clarity to the rules of the jam to specify whether you're looking for games that specifically align with the specs of the 8-bit console (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_generation_of_video_game_consoles). I would think that having a rule that the game must be 256x192 or 256x240 resolution with 16, 25, or 32 colors on screen at any time would help to guide the entries, and actually lead to better games.
Does this mean that SVGs are okay since they're just shapes? I wouldn't consider them "images/textures/sprites" but they seems to fall into the category of "image data" ("Loopholes such as storing an image data and recreate them at runtime aren't allowed")
I'm loving this game so far. The ship handles great, graphics are nice, and the QoL things like "F" mode and the map are really helpful.
The problem I'm running into is that I don't know how to reliably earn currency to buy O2, and it doesn't seem possible to just refill the O2 while on the planet. Mining is very slow and earns maybe 60 credits, not enough to refill the O2 that I used during the mining trip. Not sure if I'm missing something (maybe something to add to the tutorial), or mining is just really slow at the start.
I like the theme and the humor, and I really appreciated how many things could be interacted with. But I didn't get far; I couldn't figure out what to do with the candy corn and the beer glass ... or whatever they were.
First of all -- I have never seen a Pico-8 game look so beautiful. The sprites are gorgeous, the animation is really smooth / in all the right places, and the music is really cool. 10/10 for aesthetics. But... yeah -- you made level 2 too hard. The game is a little more puzzley than I normally like, and it feels like there's only 1 right solution to each level. Maybe if the player got a blinkstone for each level, or had a few more tricks they could use, it would be nicer for people like me who don't like to plan too far ahead.
My High score: 0. I'm terrible at this game -- it's more difficult than I usually like -- but I think the concept is really interesting. I wish it was easier at the start so I could get farther into the game to experiment more with different spell wheel configurations. Animation, graphics, and general polish are really great.
Hover tips on each spell power would be a great thing to add; I found myself constantly referencing the list down below and trying to interpret the icons (dagger = damage I assume?).
High score: 0. I'm terrible at this game -- it's more difficult than I usually like -- but I think the concept is really interesting. I wish it was easier at the start so I could get farther into the game to experiment more with different spell wheel configurations. Animation and graphics are really great.
Hover tips on each spell power would be a great thing to add; I found myself constantly referencing the list down below and trying to interpret the icons (dagger = damage I assume?).
I had fun traveling around the map, and got a delivery made, but it wasn't clear how the engine charge works. Would be nice if there was some kind of challenge -- like a time limit, or an enemy, or some inventory management.
Pretty amazing that the entire map is made of html elements.
This was a lot of fun and very innovative! The physics and controls just felt perfect, and the variety in levels and enemies kept things fun the whole way through. The shadows/line-of-sight graphics looks really slick, I'd love to hear how that's done. I think if there were more dungeons (for longer gameplay), and of course some graphics, this would make for a good commercial game.
The overland map is wonderful, and the character portraits are beautiful. The game does a good job of providing a feel of adventurers in an tabletop rpg traveling around the world. This definitely has the polish of a professional game (probably good for mobile).
A few things I'd like to see added: Highlight the location on the map when you mouse-over the travel buttons (I spent a lot of time going to the wrong place); highlights where there are discovered places of interest (in my playthrough I got lost); some risk/reward decision to the combat (maybe attempt a risky maneuver and combat ends quickly).
I was going to make a game ... then I was going to do a game demo ... now I'll be lucky if I submit one file of refactored code (as a renderer "framework")
The instructions seem to make it sounds like the size is determined by Size on disk rather just Size. In Windows (and probably other OS's) this amount can be quite different, so you might want to make this extra clear. My preference is for using the raw Size, since that shouldn't vary between operating systems.
