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I think a native version of this on the next for the next would be most ideal. I still prefer the more limited Speccy version of AGD over the windows version because of the sterile and invasive feel of windows I get these days.  I just hate the fact I'm in windows when I'm in windows, basically.  It's a me problem, I know.

That said, I'm not skilled/knowledgable enough to do any of the necessary sweat-work of making it happen.  So I hope and refill my patience meter and enjoy what is available today.

Thank you for selling the p8 file as well.  :)  I know some authors want to protect their software, but for us that like to stay in Pico8 and respect dev rights, it's nice to have that option.  :)  

Okay, I will state first I'm more of a visual designer type person, hands on learning, sitting in a classroom makes me die slowly of boredom even if I want to learn the subject and, most importantly, I. Do. Not. Like. Separation. Of. Code. And. State. This is not to say I want things to 'code for me'. I don't want AI coding and I find AI as a 'dofer' and 'gofer' concept rather silly overall. No, this is about bridging the real gap and a...dare I say potential blind spot for folks who find themselves infatuated with 'code'.  Let me explain a little...

As a person into computers and programming as a hobby but absolutely brick-headed, i've always been interested in various paradigms of constructing computer software and presentations that is less about the 'dialect' and 'expression' of code and more about the end product and the bridge from concept to final, operational software. I feel in 2025 with computer tech being intensely far superior to the kinds of presentations I'd like to make, namely the exact style of the lovely Decker software(!), writing 'code', however expressive or powerful it is falls short of how one who thinks in 'here and now' rather than in prose of 'code', I have no idea why it's necessary to do 'script' or otherwise do what was done with punch cards when in an application like Decker, we already know the basics: we want black and white, we want it now...and in the world of 3d raytracing in real time, this would seem to be an easy thing to create, but the culture...the CULTURE...this is the problem, I think?

So as a personal critique of Decker, and keep in mind this is a user of Decker (as much as I can be so far) as well as HyperCard and have looked at ViperCard as well, a similar ideal...I feel like I can look at these projects and tell where they fell short and for me it's literally the language itself. The concept of Hypercard wasn't just 'put stuff here then you can put code inside it'.  That was the selling point!  The real capture of the 'noob' was hypertalk.  Even Livecode messed this up by adding so many words to the dictionary, you basically have a new problem of complexity on your hands! Then, if you're introducing a new programming language, what's the real gain of function by not letting the user create their own dictionary? That was why the original Hypertalk was so cool...if you looked at how it was syntaxed to mimic some aspects of English, you could make your subroutines and all those other 'PROGRAMMING WITH A CAPITAL P' stuff actually work syntactically so you literally were, near the end of a project, just writing english with a few shortcuts...then the programmers came in and complicated everything...

At any rate, this is a problem I've been following loosely, providing no solutions of my own mind you (I couldn't program my way out of a wet paper sack and the language was called WET BAG SHREDDER). I've followed Decker and open it when I have a chance between other projects and hobbies I've going.  I really want this project to be awesome, it's exactly what I hoped for...except LIL.  LIL.  L.I.L.  

So here's another bit about me specifically so hopefully folks reading this can properly direct their dismissal of this post and/or otherwise deconstruct it with high accuracy rather than conjecture. I don't want to be a professional programmer or game designer, etc nor do I care about languages. I did take programming in jr. and high school (30 years ago now?) along with typing (thus why you're seeing a well executed but ultimately flimsy diatribe about the legitimacy of my request) and have actually completed full projects written in QBASIC for for MSDOS as well as some bits and bobs in LUA (which I programmed like BASIC lol) for Pico8, etc. I've tried. I've put in my time, but my nature makes it extremely difficult. Abstraction is not fun for me.

With all of this preamble (holy moly!) I put in a request that I know is going to be absolutely disregarded as impossible and/or against the concept of the project, etc. Again, as someone who understands passion and goals with a project, I'm not here to derail or in anyway poopoo anything going on here. I absolutely do fire up Decker, and keep plugging away trying to understand it when I have a chance, failing every time, but I do try...and I definitely enjoy everything everyone else makes.  Keep mind mind...one of the things I think folks who use systems like this forget is there's folks who absolutely don't know jack about it but can at least load things to be inspired by and enjoy...obviously it seems this part of the point of Decker...HOWEVER...it falls folly to the abstraction principle of solid construction folks like myself....

The request?

Just rip off some concept from Etoys, for Minecraft's sake.  Etoys was literally Hypercard on steroids but without hardware level support because it was trying to be too 'pure of code'...(oh my....here we are again with the coding stuff)....but the concept of etoys?  It's beyond scratch, it's beyond anything and it's perfect for a lo-fi sketch pad of fun ideas. I actually tried modifiying Etoys to be low-resolution and black and white and everything and it was so...let's just say Smalltalk is 'easy', but there's a point where you need to ask someone "Hey, why did you hide this little display routine over here in this COMPLETELY UNRELATED CLASS?!"  and running into that multiple times, I sorta gave up and just decided Etoys is Etoys...

If you don't know what Etoys is, here's a short demonstration of how it works and I'll write up some of it's functionality. It's old hat to anyone into computer languages, but just in case....

Etoys - Making Waves - YouTube

So with Etoys, you can 'inspect' anything, get it's property sheets and modifying the property sheet modifies the thing. But you can drag the property out into the open and it turns into CODE!  That thing we all hate (well me, anyway!)  Now, you're just making instructions by telling properties to do things when you call out to do so from where else!  There's menues to select kinds of events, all hypercard centric since that was the literal inspiration for this also...it's just...it's really good and no competition to decker because of a huge limitation: it's rendered in a really really non decker-cool/hypercard awesome way and furthermore, how it handles projects is pretty messy compared to decker...

What all this is to say...I FEEL IN MY UNPROGRAMMING BONES that it's possible to create somewhat of an 'etoys-like' paradigm with the right kind of widgets...and possibly a 'decker extension package' of sorts (put this contraption in your folder, then do x, now you got y function kind of ideal)...for folks like me who just like drawing and telling things to do stuff when they bump into each other, the less typing in the abstract I have to do and more like...just sliding some numbers around because it's literally all just abstraction of pixels and groups of pixels and data...do we have to text it all up?

I hope my lengthy and very self-serving post is at least read with good humor. I know it's not the goal of Decker to be something else and I know my 'coding' problem is a me problem in the same 'grass is always greener' way.  I suppose my real goal is to point out 'coding' is not necessarily a 'thing' to pursue but maybe 'design' and coding is just a roadblock for some of us...and in 2025, seemingly very unnecessary in many respects, considering how many systems programmers there are...

Thanks for reading and...if this was a waste of your time, I apologize. I hope you at least enjoyed a good snack while reading!  :)

Cool concept, though I'm not quite sure I get it.  Corn and the whole thing.  But in terms of 'figuring it out' game-wise, didn't take long.  I think it's a little annoying to have corn I can't pick up because of the stage layout.  I have to leave it behind and it makes me super sad.

I remember enjoying the first one.  Will try this soon.  Thanks for the hard work!

Ever since I clicked on a little Pi icon while holding SS and Break 2 weeks ago, I've been hunted by some unknown people who are trying to kill me, what is...dammit, they're coming!

Glad you dig. I was surprised as well by it's existence. I can't use it with my current tool directly, but it's definitely a huge resource of inspiration.

If you want more fonts, check out this site...it's a collection of zx spectrum fonts used in games throughout the years plus some modern ones made just for fun.  ZX Origins - DamienG

I still haven't dug into learning the language involved with this environment as I haven't had enough time and mental will power to do so, but I do keep up with this project and very much enjoy what I've checked out that other people have done. All this is to say, I'm not a power user, but especially appreciate this project existing.  Thanks.

Terrible point.  Setting the tone of culture via government is better than telling an indie dev to not get paid in the current system. It's literally the same kind of argument about anything at all.  "If you don't like it, leave" is one I hear people say a lot about folks critiquing the current status quo.  It's not a defense and frankly, again, telling someone to 'walk the walk' where walking that walk is literally disadvantaged is...silly. "Why don't you just bring a knife to the gun fight and prove your point?"  Cause it's a gun fight right now, that's why.

I'm sure others have put you in your place already but if you're not there, allow me to further cement into the public discourse your low level brain operation.

1.)  Having a critique of something doesn't require one to actually participate in the 'better version' suggested in a critique.  For instance, "This game sucks" does not mean one has to produce a better game to prove said game sucks.

2.) Using art as a form of critique is literally one of the main things art does.  Games are supposedly art except when they do more art and then the people wanting games to be taken seriously as art get pissed off because the art says something they disagree with.  In the biz, we call that 'an opinion'.  

3.)  With regards to the idea of capitalism vs. communism/socialism...here's the thing most folks don't understand about socialism...it's about finding where the balance of distribution meets with individual achievement.  That's it.  That's literally it.  To stupidly take in the, frankly, idealism of the people that stand to lose the most in a system that benefits them (but would still benefit them in a skewed way even if slightly adjusted) description of the thing they fear is like listening to some podunk idiot from the sticks talk about crime in the cities.  They have no real connection to the topic and to repeat the crap they say is to just remain ignorantly loud and...again, stupid.

4.)  Read number 1 again cause I bet you still don't get it.

5.)  I farted and in communism, you must smell it along with all of us together.  It's communal fart.  You will enjoy it.

could we build a vector drawing app inside decker?  

Sorry for two posts tonight, but I'm curious is there a way to scroll in fat bits mode?  I found a shortcut to click for fat/non fat views, but staying in fat bit and and scrolling would be swell, I'm just not finding the special key/mouse combo!

To be specific, control+v...that would seem to be the thing that defaults.  Instead, nothing happens. Should I just make a script that does this? Intuitively, as I mentioned, this 'feels' like it should work internally.

I did a search here and could not find anyone else having the issue I am which is copying a bitmap selection off the card itself and pasting it into a canvas.  Am I missing something? Intuitively, it should 'just work' but obviously there's a technical issue I'm ignorant of for this to be so...

Madman.  I've been making some fonts myself.  It's a bit of work for a project when every little piece needs to be fabricated from nothing. Some of these are close to what I was making, too.  :)  Very lovely resource and much appreciated.

Is there a hotkey I've not found to draw patterns with transparency? (i.e. white does not turn black pixels white when using patterns)

That is some hardcore icon harvesting.  Rad!

That's really cool!  The stuff that stuck out to me was the usage and implicit object message kind of relationship between I guess variables and colons, along with brackets and what is in them, though I can see the lua influence there for sure.  I'm not a programmer by trade or training, I just kinda learn what I have to in order to do the thing I want and try to just visually plan everything else out within those limits of my programming skill.  :P  

Anyway, was just drawing tonight, added a lulz caption to it. Like I said, I was doing this in Hypercard already.  It's nice actually I can full screen draw now since MiniVMAC's handling of tablet is quite poor with random jumping no matter how the input is configured through the system driver.  I'm rather fond of black and white AND low res art...so...yeah...again, this little project is what I'd do if my aformentioned poor programming skills were actually worth a fart in the wind.

Thanks for the reply, and am looking forward to the bug fixes.  I'm not much on feature requests in general for small projects as usually the designer already has a roadmap, etc. and makes adjustments based on real world usage, etc.  BUT if you EVER run out of ideas, just say so, I think a couple of us may have some...like pressure sensitivity with the pencil tool and it's various 'nibs'/brushes, but it's also something I could probably make myself if there's already way to detect pen pressure....

Right now, I'm still in the experimenting and exploration stage, so I probably shouldn't be asking too many questions just yet.  :)

I did have a non bug question and more of a question about LIL.  I noticed some of it's syntax looks like SmallTalk.  Is it in any way related and did that influence the decision to use it (aside from it's small footprint)? I didn't know if you were going back to some of the influences over Hypercard in this '2023 Remix' version and was just curious.  

Okay, back to decking the halls of my cards with cool stuff.  

Two fonts I already transferred over from my hypercard 'sketchbook drive image'  by hand...more to come and i'll eventually just drop them all as a font pack.  Is there any possibility to...use some of the hypercard/system font editing tools down the line?  I.e. selecting specific characters and making them more condensed?  I'm a graphic design graduate and fonts in the pixel space irk me to no end and hypercard actually made pixel fonts less annoying...what solutions for use perfectionists of sketches ( lulz  :)  ) might be available when using the field tool?  

A screenshot of me playing around with some of the gadgets and what not.  I've actually been using hypercard for the last (insert embarrassing number of years here)...well after it's market death date using mini-vmac with this yearning to have just a *little* more graphics capabilities and other little things that seem to have been addressed here.  It has crashed on me and there's odd things like being able to delete entries from the prototype list but it doesn't actually delete the item and it repopulates when the menu is reloaded....but that said, it's a fresh new project and 75% of it is stuff I'd have on my feature list/improvements and that's 100% more than I had before, so thanks.  :)  

I posted this over in the ReMarkable 2 users group, but I'll post it here just to plant as many seeds as possible...this 1bit little sketchpad would pair well with an ePaper tablet.  Sure you gotta get rid of the more flamboyant animation stuff (or at least slow it down), but having a focused little programmable tablet with stylus running one of the funnest little prototyping environments ever?  I dunno, seems like a cool combo to me.  :P

A little background on my Hypercard usage, I was slowly creating my own little 'custom OS', adding little scripts into the system script, creating little debugging tools, engines for certain ideas, etc.  I plan on doing the same in Decker, likely making the biggest. bloatiest deck but never meant to see the outside world...though I'd like to spit out pieces of it into their own little public presentation...is that something that's now possible?  Moving cards between decks?

Again, thanks!

EDIT:  Almost forgot...another bug and one that probably only I have run into...when using a tablet for input with a lot of the widgets, i.e. the pattern editor, there's a weird seemingly 'hanging press' just about every other stroke of the pen.  Basically, that is to say i make a pen mark on the widget (say the aforementioned pattern editor) and it operates as intended.  The next stroke makes a straight line to the new starting point when I pick the pen and move it somewhere else.  It's a little frustrating and only happens with gadgets.  I'm on Windows, btw using the the Native version.  I also noticed the operating system icon doesn't switch over based on position but based on last interaction when using the tablet as well.  It feels like when windows has detected you just interacted with another program to which case to switch back to the previous program you tap THEN you start your interaction whereas Decker doesn't do this, so it keeps psyching me out to tap to re-focus the main window with the toolbars being used.  (i.e. tap the tool bar to pick a pattern, moving over the main window you expect the cursor to change from finger back to arrow, but it stays finger as if the tool bar is still focused and requires a tap onto the main window to set focus THEN continue drawing...).

Just thought I'd report my experiences with a tablet and Decker native on windows.  Might be useful for you somehow, I hope.  If tablet usage isn't a target user, then I'm just fine adapting to the difference.  :)

Gotta respond to this one, too. Spine makes stuff ugly because people have no idea how to make it look good.  Who cares if it's industry standard if the 'industry' makes ugly things with it.  *sigh*  

As a game player, I think off the shelf physics engines make games feel too samey.  Mario and Megaman feel very different because they rolled their own physics.  I'm not making a plea to 'learn to code' here, I"m making a plea to not rely so heavily on things that remove the individuality of your game.  
I welcome the hate, though.

The first games I made were in QBASIC for MSDOS.  I felt super cool making a 40x25 text-based puzzle game.  Then I felt like a loser when I jumped on the internet (this was way back in '95) and found a QBASIC site that had all of these killer games in 256 colors with sprites and 3D.  It was gutting.  I never did learn to do any of that PEEK/POKE assembly-ish stuff.  I always felt too dumb to understand it.  

So from then on I sorta use 'middle ware', which I guess nowdays is called 'engines' or 'tools' or whatever (stuff like GameMaker and Pico8).  My first project in something like that was actually a couple of pinball games made in Visual Pinball, which uses a customized visual basic script to control table elements and track events (like Bumper.Bump()  etc.).  I still hate most languages since they're text-based.  Where's all this processor power going?  I keep hoping there's someone who's like me and understands the fundamentals of how programming works but makes it powerful yet simple so game design is less about the technical stuff and more about game logic itself.  I was quite impressed with Arcade Game Studio's approach to AI scripting, where it used almost a music-type sequencer, with each row being a 'kind' of event, such as movement, turn on/off flags for collision, etc. and then the topmost row would jump to the different columns on events or set it to only happen for a certain amount of time or event.  It was so easy to just try out all kinds of ideas, mixing and matching a fairly robust set of 'baseline rules'.  

I went off on a tangent.  I'm hoping a dev reads this deep down and one day thinks about the problem of solving problems from different points of view.  I've never gotten on with 'coding' proper and find it tedious and boring...it's like being into photography and the only thing anyone else wants to talk about is lenses and FSTOP and such and you're like, 'I'm into framing and subject matter'.  It's not as if that other stuff isn't necessary, but in the end, if capture the subject matter properly, that's what actually counts to people you show the photo to, not whether you used a Nikon or Cannon.  No one cares. 

In the modern day, with so many games coming out on everything that's ever been able to play a game ever, really the most pragmatic way is to make it run on everything possible.  It's fairly easy with some engines/systems, while others are difficult.  For instance, I think GameMaker spits out for every major platform and modern computer, but if you want true 'runs literally on anything' then making a game for an old console/computer and then binding it to emulators to run on everything is another way to do it.  It depends on skill level and effort.  Other things mentioned work, but if your game is windows-only, well, only people with windows will play your game.  Likewise, if your game is on NES and there's no single-click/normie solution where it can be easily run on their system of choice, unless they're already into emulators or flash carts, they'll pass it up or ignore it, even if it's something they'd maybe be interested in. 

I think folks sometimes focus too much on trying to be the loudest person in a sea of social-media type places when you're more likely to get folks looking at your works in a relevant community that's already looking for the kind of game you are making.  From there, it's, imo, likely easier to grow an audience more organically.

Just don't rely on social media advertising.  It's trash.  Word of mouth, blogs, reviews in prominent places work a lot better along with proper tagging in youtube (as someone mentioned YT trailers are good...get a professional or someone competent to edit the trailer...)

Just don't get discouraged.  Not every game can be minecraft or mario.  There's plenty of room in the world for games that only two people in the world have ever played and if you're making games for yourself, then it won't matter how many people play but how many people of those enjoy it.  i.e. Qualitative entertainment rather than quantitative.

Jellybeans.

Crash Report.  

Machine: GPDWin2 running win10 and intentionally underclocked to 70%.  Crashed after selecting AGAIN after scoring 250,000 or so points on the first game of the session.  I.E. crashed while starting 2nd game of session, the exact point was the level monsters manifesting into being.

Sorry there's not more to report, can't replicate it.

I just like classic mac aesthetic. It just happened to also lend itself well to manga style jhorror as well, which is just a neat combo. I hope it sets a trend.

I disagree with your assessment.  To me, this is an absolutely brilliant build up and advancement of mechanics made popular in 1982 with the mother and poster child of what twin stick shooters should be, Robotron.  The influence is absolutely clear here and makes the right decisions every step of the way.  To promote no-death long runs to get greater score is just brilliant.  It makes every single risk/reward judgement become even more riskier and rewardier!  I love it!  

The entire point of risk reward is a split second decision on 'is it worth it' and encouraging the player to take risks for huge reward forces the player to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. 

One of the biggest problems with twin stick shooters is 'circle strafe boredom' becomes there's nothing to break the circle strafe.  This is done through 'rescue/bonus' items strewn and wandering through the hoards of enemies.  

I beg you to reconsider what this mechanic brings and absolutely makes the rescue/bonus mechanic that had not been improved on since 1982 actually IMPROVED.  I'm ALWAYS looking to make that Friends number bigger because my points get bigger!  And I've died trying to make it bigger even in situations where I thought, 'yeah, i can do this' and NOPE...couldn't.  And that feeling of anguish and seeing all the points dry up....man...it makes me take even MORE risks to build it back up!

I LOVE this aspect and I don't agree it should be changed.  Whether it was accidental genius or calculated genius, I don't care, I love it, and I vote that it does not change.  It's brilliant and does all the right things to make the game harder, without forcing one's hand.  This game is FAR easier than Robotron in general if you're just looking at 'staying alive', but this mechanic balances PERFECTLY for score chasing, you make the game harder yourself.  And you pay for your mistakes in judgement.

Twin stick shooters aren't about circle strafing.  They're about having the fire power to deal with impossible situations and having a reason to put yourself in an impossible situation.  Geometry Wars is a circle strafe bore.  Satyrn is a damn fine game that breaks the circle strafe intelligently and finally takes the mechanics that nearly everyone who's played it finds Robotron the perfect sweaty palms game and FINALLY pushes it forward.  

Props to maybell, I have suggestions for minor changes here and there, but your risk/reward system is definitely not one of them.  Keep pressing forward.  In my humble opinion, folks that find it too hard have played too much Geometry Wars or Binding of Isaac.  They're fine games, but they're they're own thing.  I see all you did here and even though it's an iteration on a great game, it's a GOOD iteration and moves in the right direction! 

At the end of it all, my one suggestion is top 10 scores.  Single high score is no good for this kind of game.  Top 10 at least, if not 10 top of the day and top 20 of all time.  But I'm fine with everything as it is right now, no changes necessary, I love everything about this. Smash TV failed to improve, and it had Jarvis on the team.  Same with Total Carnage...you did it absolutely perfectly, imo.  In my opinion, this is proper Robotron II. 

Consider yourself a hero, maybell.  A winner is YOU.

Loving this.  You got the magic formula most people miss....you have to force a player to kill themselves by risking their livelihood for points and glory.  Fun stuff.  

Interesting concept. I wonder if the narrative would be more impactful if the some levels were handmade and slowly became more derranged and unwinnable...just making them larger didn't make an impact on me since the first level was already unwinnable.  

I think another fun tangent idea would be a game where dying is the goal, i.e. to win, you must actually lose.

I hope the tools will be enjoyable.  I don't know why most fantasy console developers miss this aspect, but never having to leave the environment is one of the main draws of Pico8 and similar tools, not poking and peeking and doing obscure things that end up just being in-jokes to other programmers.  Programming is a craft, yes, but game design is hindered when barriers like archaic programming is put in the way.  

Just my thoughts, but I'm still looking forward to this.

Game Maker 1 compiles fine to it, is your project convertible to GM1? I have it and could try to export it. I don't know the differences between the two versions, specifically or if there's differences in project formats. It would probably not allow the raster effect, though. Maybe it would, I'm not sure. I have GM1, but honestly have never really spent any time in it!  :3

They all show up identically in terms of what is shown. You can see the raster effect in modes 1 and 2 also. The screen has garbage in the top left, black for most of it, and blinks dark red. In the bottom right, a separate rectangle is 'offset' blinking the rest of the red/black flickering, faster than the rest of the screen. 

I tried to access the other modes by hitting the correct keycombination blindly to get to mode 3, but as I said, the graphics don't change, it just renders the same weirdness. The music and controls are full speed with no lag. 

The Fuji is running win7 with 1GB RAM. It has rudementary support for OpenGL 2.0 and I believe it's running DX10 or 11. 

I hope this helps. I'm not especially worried or sad if you decide to not support this configuration, I know it's old and archaic and was, even in it's time, a bizarre system. 

I like this game, and super appreciate that it's compiled for 32 bit, but is there a way to get it to software render the 'non filter' mode? It simply throws garbage on my screen when I try it on a paulsbo system. Tested on Fujitsu u820. Runs fine on Thinkpad W520 though.