itch.io

I learned that trick from looking at some of Gruber's compositions. He's the Pico-8 music master, after all :)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :) I've put all my previous Pico-8 up on Bandcamp, but haven't made music just for the sake of it before in Pico-8, previously it was always game soundtracks. This was a lot of fun though and not a big time commitment, so it's like I'll do some more! Extar on Bandcamp

Fun little game! It's really satisfying lining up a perfect jump once the screen starts to fill up with enemies. Very addictive :)

Any games I finish get uploaded to the BBS, but this one is still a total mess.

Really cool game. Simple and addictive gameplay. The overall presentation is really good, nice music and graphics. Here's my modest high score:

 Glad you enjoyed it! If you like the soundtrack, it's on Bandcamp: :) https://extar.bandcamp.com/album/toybox-troopers

Yes. Why wouldn't it be?

Thanks to everyone who joined for making the jam such a success! I'll be streaming some submissions as well, head on over to https://www.twitch.tv/extarscube and post your game in chat :)

Fun little endless runner. I loved the black and white pixelart graphics and the music was so great. My high score was 415 when I got taken out by a witch :)

Just wondering why my game was disqualified? :/

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Absolutely. Look forward to seeing it! 😊

Really nice graphics, the worm was especially creepy, I love it. It was cool how the hands swapped when you moved the mouse side to side, I haven't seen that in a game before. Also, you've clearly got a bright career ahead of you making the background graphics for Street Fighter character select screens.

I liked the music, it fit the gameplay well. Nice particle effects on the win screen! :) The game is pretty simple but fun. It's a little bit on the slow side, maybe having a way of speeding up the robot but using more battery power or something would help. The big sprite animation when you start a game had me laughing for some reason, like something off Monty Python. The cleaning up gameplay is really satisfying, as is getting the robot to turn neatly. Nice job :)

This game is clearly unfinished and crashes all the time. Really sloppy work. Can't believe you would submit something like this. The music was really annoying and unnecessary. I just kept getting kliled by the stupid robots, really poor gameplay, didn't get what was going on at all. You should add an upgrade system or crafting or something, because at the moment it's kinda simple. The robots look okay I guess. It's a good first try.

Okay so the game is clearly unfinished, I'll just pick out some random things I liked and areas for improvement :) I liked the design of the robot and the title screen--nice logo. The UI on the combat screen was nice and clear, I never had a hard time understanding what was going on. Some animations or pauses between actions would make everything feel a lot better and also slow the player down so the game would feel more tactical and less 'spam the three best attacks' :) The icons for each attack and attack attribute worked really well. The game desperately needs some sound effects! :D

So yeah, hope that feedback is helpful, and I hope you can get the game finished post-jam, I'd love to give it another go. :)

I liked this a lot--really fun. The stealth mechanics were nice and simple, too often these style of stealth games are too fiddly and hard. The level design might need some tweaking, hiding in the doors never felt all that useful. I liked the climbing and the shooting and the design of the different characters--the sprite work in general was really nice. The walking sound effect was super annoying, the game would benefit from a few more different sound effects. Those negatives aside, the gameplay was really fun, it would be nice to see this expanded with more levels and enemies. Nice work! :)

The presentation of this is great, all the the sprites were lovely, the HUD was great, nice minimap, nice dialogue boxes (I appreciated the fact you could skip the text scroll--nice attention to detail.) The robot theme felt a little bit superficial, apart from a couple of sprites it just felt like a regular villager/crafting kind of game. There was lots of actions the player could take, the inventory system worked well, all of the information for the player was really well presented and easy to understand. The missions the player gets felt a little bit linear, maybe I didn't play for long enough but I was surprised not to get into a resource gathering/crafting loop. I can't believe you started off working with Pico-8 by joining the 1k jam--you absolute nutcase :D Great entry, nice work! :)

It's admirable that you submitted an unfinished project--I think in the same situation I would have just quietly withdrew my project so as not to get mean comments! The 1-bit graphics are really cool, and the movement and item easing on the menus looks really swish. I'm really looking forward to seeing this finished. Creating loadouts for the robots to then battle with looks like it would be a load of fun. :)

I played both versions of the game. The buggy version that let you go straight to the end level was way more fun, I loved the end boss! I got hopelessly stuck on the third level of the BBS version just from running out of moves. I think a grading system to reward completing a level in as few moves as possible but not punishing inefficient gameplay would be more fun and more friendly to new players.

The graphics were top notch, I loved the molecular animated background and all the particle effects--so nice to look at. The text outline make the text a little hard to read. I loved the sound and the music as well. Nice work. :)

I loved the old school arcade platformer gameplay. Great stuff. The character designs were all really cute and nicely animated. The title screen really nailed the style of those old games, with the attract mode that explained the object of the game etc. nice touch. It'd be nice to have some score pop-ups, a lot of games of that era had that feature and it would make collecting the b-bots feel more rewarding.

Excellent work for a first project, there was only really one bug I encountered where on level 2 I was able to move into the wall off the side of the screen--didn't get in the way of my enjoyment though.

To answer your feedback questions from the Itch page: Yes, the game is lots of fun. Level 1 could maybe be simpler, maybe miss out the conveyer belts or the jump pads and save them for the level 2 so there isn't as much for a new player to take in at the start. Difficulty wise, the old games are usually pretty hard so I was expecting to die quite a lot, the first level could maybe be a bit easier, maybe fewer enemies to ease the player in.

Overall, I really liked the game and it's a great first Pico-8 game, especially considering you were making it to a deadline. Great work :)

The core gameplay is really fun. Once I realised it was about joining the arrows my puzzle brain took over and I was having a great time. I didn't really get what the icons were on the tiles, and it wasn't clear how the scoring worked, some score pop-ups during gameplay would make it a lot easier to work out how well you're doing. I liked the music and the sound effects. The graphics were really nice, I appreciate the high contrast mode--nice to see a jam entry think about accessibility. Nice transition wipe effect.

I didn't really see how this fit into the robots theme, maybe if the tiles looked like robot parts or something you could pretend you were designing a machine. There desperately needs to be a high score screen! :)

Great entry, lots of fun. I love action puzzle games like this.

I really like the title screen, the way the game logo blew away like sand, well let's just say it *blew me away*. I love the setting/lore of the game, very original idea. The idea of programming the robots for when they are in the caves is in intriguing. I imagine that an awesome amount of work went into the UI, there were so many different screens and menus, it must have been a nightmare to code. I found the game absolutely impenetrable, fortunately I had someone in chat to hold my hand through the tutorial and the first couple of caves. The amount of information to take in as a new player is completely overwhelming. The early levels really weren't all that difficult, but it was a real challenge to create programs because of the awkwardness of the UI. I really hope this doesn't come across as negative because the overall presentation is really good. I loved all the graphical details like the paper items blowing in the wind and the little tyre trails that the rovers left. It looks from your Itch page like this is your first Pico-8 game. Absolute awesome achievement for a first project! Kudos! Big respect for pulling this off, it just a went a little bit over my head! :)

Congratulations on making your first game in Pico-8. It's not easy making your first game, and even harder trying to make it for a jam. So kudos to you! The shooting gameplay felt a little bit clunky, the collision code probably needs tightening up, it would be nice to have some more sound effects too, like confirm/cancel sound effects on the downgrade menus. That's the (minor) negatives out of the way.

I loved the idea of making the robot more fuel-efficient whilst lowering performance, really cool way of linking progression with increasing difficulty--something a lot of RPGs struggle with. I loved the lore of the game, the idea of being some old, forgotten robot stomping around the wasteland after the war is over is just great.

The graphics were really nice, I liked the little enemies running around and the different animations/poses of the player character. The design of the player character was really cool.

Awesome first game, and awesome jam entry. Respect!

I liked how this was basically two games in one. I think the laser level was my favourite. I really liked the graphics and character animation and some of the enemy designs were really fun. Great platformer gameplay. Nice work :)

Fun simple little game. Some of the collision felt off which is a bit big deal in a game like this. I didn't really see how it fits in with the theme either, but a solid entry nonetheless. Cheers :)

This was tonnes of fun. I really liked how the conveyor belt worked, it really made it feel like a robot factory. I always reached a point where the game very suddenly got too quick, maybe slowing down the rate the speed increases as the game progresses would help. The graphics were really nice and I appreciated all the animation. Super addictive action puzzle game, and a refreshing change from what could otherwise have been just another match-three-style game. Great job :)

This was a fun little platformer. I found it pretty difficult, I'm not very good at precision platformers so I didn't manage to see al of the game. This was based on Nerdy Teacher's platformer tutorial, right? It's a great tutorial, I've used it for a couple of my own games too. I liked the addition of wall jumping and double jump, and the feel of the character's movement was spot on. It didn't really adhere to the theme but was a fun game nonetheless. Great work :)

This was a lot of fun and a nice original spin on the Metroidvania formula. The character designs were nice and I liked the design of the level. Lovely stuff.

This was a lot of fun. A nice simple jam game with some great graphics and animation and nice arcade gameplay. Great work :)

I really liked what was going on in this. The idea of a command line to enter inputs like Logo coupled with a slow refreshing feed of what your robot can see is super atmospheric. It's all incredibly well executed, awesome stuff.

This is great fun! The controls were a bit weird at first, seems odd that you can't aim whilst not charging up a jump. However once I got over that I started really enjoying it. The presentation is great, I love all the particle effects and the way the lilies bounce off each other--the underwater koi look great too. Nice work! :)

Yep, that's going to happen every time. The jam doesn't allow changes to submissions during the voting period so not a lot I can do about that at the moment besides withdraw the entry and find the nearest asbestos dump.

Nice music, sounds creepy and atmospheric. 😎

This is a super addictive game and such a nice twist on the Snake formula. Really nice graphics and music and a very satisfying upgrade loop! :)

I love the idea of a stealth action platformer. The graphics are top notch, lovely colour palette and great sprite work. I got stuck on a part of the level, I fell down off a roof and get stuck in a area with a lampost, which was frustrating. That aside, this was a great jam entry, great work. :)

Very nice game. I like the twist and it's good how many different mechanics you added into the game to keep each section fresh. I really liked the battleship levels. Very accomplished graphics, and nice sound effects, I just wish it had some music. Awesome game :)

Nice little shmup. I appreciate the effort that went into the boss fight. It's kind of annoying having to sit through the talky cutscene at the start of the level each time you die. Other than that, it's a small shmup. Nicely animated sprites, music and sound effects and a few different player abilities. Good job :)

Nice simple gameplay loop. I was a bit confused at first why I was getting crosses, but once I realised that the mutant cows were the flashing ones I had a lot more fun with the game. The movement of the ship feels kind of weird, maybe needs a bit of adjustment. The overall presentation is great, though, the gameboy colour scheme, nicely animated lowrez sprites, and good sound and music. Nice job. :)