itch.io

Yup, can confirm that function is expensive. A lot of time was spent tweaking the pond generation to get away with as many lillypads as possible, whithout performance drops. I think you can still get frame drops if part of the map generates unusually dense, but I haven't had that happend in the last week of testing.

The game wouldn't have happened without this function. Using sprites just wasn't the same. 

I will link the URL to your function in the discription of the BBS version I'll be posting monday.

There's a little secret for very patient kitties too.

This game only has individual words, and I'm not sure it would be the most helpfull to add to your portfolio.

If you think this is an interesting game to translate anyways, feel free to do so, but mind pico-8 doesn't nativly support switching languages and with the very strict code size restrictions pico-8 has, adding language support myself might not be feasable. I could turn it into a seperate edition easily, but then it will only be accessable as a seperate download.

The only other places I'm planning to publish this is lexaloffle: the official pico-8 website, and maybe newgrounds.

Do with this information as you wish. If you need anyting from me I'll hear it.

This comment is a literary masterpiece! It was a joy reading it.

I'm gonna try to answer some of your questions without spoiling it too much. Anyone reading along, I recommend playing the game first:

On the tad one-liners:

The other tads pick random lines from six different lists:

There's a default list, most lines you'll see will come from there. It contains all the normal chitchat that isn't tied to any particular situation, but it does contain some of the general hints.

Some events cause a different list to become active and make the other tads pick a message from that list immediatly. That's why, if you pay attention, you'll see shocked reactions from other tads when someone is killed in front of their eyes, or you see them screaming when a predator is chasing them.

When you lay an egg, a list is triggered that either calls you out on your bad parenting, or compliments finding a good hiding spot. New tads briefly have their own dialogue list, but they grow out of that in like a single frame.

At last there is one line that overwrites all others, when you are big enough, the bottom prompt for egg laying will show, the first time you run the game in a single session. Reading your comment, I realize I should probably also make that mention C/Z for people not already familiar with pico8.

On the predators:

The "urchins" jump at you (or everyone else) when they hear you. 

Most predetors also have a hunger system, so if you ever find one chilling, it's probably still full from eating one of your pondmates. (they get tired too)

Lillypads don't help with eggs, because they only conceal from above, You need to find something that conceals from all sides.

Hope this information was interesting without spoiling the hidden mechanics too much.

Is Jeremy still doing well?

I found the whole chicken saga the most hilarious thing. 

I think the discord in general was the best parts of the jam.

I kinda joined to spy on how everyone was using the sprites so i could take notes about possible improvments, but guess I ended up kinda working on a game after all (thanks NarcolepticFrog). We are planning on expanding on that game toghether (either in picotron or a "real" engine).

I enjoyed working on the spritesheet with Tom, but have to admit a little over a month for 250+ sprites was a little tight.

And we need more cats ;)

That is the highest food count I have seen so far. Congratulations! Unfortunately I didn't have the space to save highscores on this one. Maybe if I make a post-jam version.

Impressive

Pretty good shmup. One of the better ones among the 1k shmups

Trust me. Clouds don't hit nearly as hard when you fly into them :). Also my top scores aren't that great either. I can confirm it's hard.

This is actually a bit of an overused trick. But in this case it was defenetly justified.

Impressive!

really love the lighting

I guess if they were boids they would also react to eachother.

So fascinating to see how they move. Are these boids?

Love the stair rendering. Also very tense