itch.io

Thank you! I'm glad you like it! 

I can't take credit for the on-screen control though, since those are part of the HTML-5 export from PICO-8, so any PICO-8 game should have them when played in a browser. It's a nice little thing, especially for slow paced games.

Thanks a bunch for playing!

Thank you for playing! I was hoping that the quick resetting and short levels would allow people to experiment their way towards the solution, so I'm happy that it seems to work!

Thank you! And thanks again for organizing the jam!

No worries! For what it's worth I think it would be a great idea to also ask people about the game engine when games are submitted in upcoming mechjams. It's a great way to find out about things - I had not heard about Corgi Engine before you mentioned it for example :) 

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by "if you can't do the programming yourself feels like it should be mentioned". PICO-8 provides a code editor where you write everything relating to the game from almost nothing in a subset of LUA, so it's all programming. 

As a 'game engine' it only provides the ability to draw basic shapes like rectangles and circles (using code) as well as referencing locations in a sprite sheet and playing sound effects you compose yourself. Compared to some of the big game engines like Godot or Unity, Pico-8 (intentionally) provides way less in terms of out-of-the-box  functionality. You can see the API here if you are curious: https://pico-8.fandom.com/wiki/APIReference . If you want something as basic as a start screen that transitions nicely to the game, you'll have to program the state machine that handles that yourself.

I checked out some of the other entries in the jam, and none of them seems to list the game engine as an 'asset'. The game page also already clearly states that it was made with Pico-8 under the 'Made with' label.

Glad you like it! Hopefully the difficulty curve is reasonable, it's a bit hard to judge how tricky puzzles are when you're the one making them.

I tried to make resetting the level super quick and simple (with [X] ) so that it would be as easy as possible to experiment towards solutions.

Thanks for playing! 

Thanks! I aimed for a small but 'complete' game, so I'm glad you found it polished.

Thank you for playing it!

It's made in PICO-8, which imposes similar limitations to TIC-80. So this game was limited to a display resolution of 128 by 128 px, 16 colors, 8192 "tokens" and a maximum of 32kb of total data. To make it a bit friendlier to work with I use VisualStudio as an external code editor and Aseprite for sprite editing, but it all gets imported into PICO-8 which effectively works as a game engine with additional restrictions on top. Music and sounds were composed using the tools inside PICO-8, which are actually really great!  

Thank you so much!  I'm glad you enjoyed it and found the difficulty curve appropriate, it was one of my biggest worries since I did not have the time for proper playtesting. 

Really fun little mechman (pac-mech?) game! stomping the little innocent bystanders felt so so wrong and still very fun. Like other commenters my main gripe is with getting stuck, but all in all it did not impact my enjoyment of the game that much. 

Nice work! 

Thanks for playing it! I'm a fan of your youtube gamedev videos by the way, ever since the last mechjam, great stuff!

Very cool! This was one of the games that I played the longest in the jam, I very much enjoyed it! 

I got all the way up to lv 17 when the last enemy thought it would be a good idea to escape away over the ocean. I tried to hunt them down and managed to fly to a different island, which was a cool, but I never caught the enemy..

The art style is neat, but it would be even better with some stronger visual impact of the rockets and bullets. It's very satisfying to take down a whole cloud of bots with a missile and it would be even better with some debris and extra explosions. The upgrade system is very effective and satisfying as well.

Nicely done, I really like this one!

Glad you liked it, and that the whole gradual introduction of mechanics seems to work! Thanks! 

Very solid jam submisssion! I had a blast hunting down the enemies and trying out all the guns. There is clearly an ambitious game being made here and I hope you keep working on it. My favorite part was the responiveness of hitting enemies, with the hit counters and effects it felt very tactile.

I wished the player mech moved a bit faster/was more agile, but that's just a small detail in an otherwise fun experience! Nicely done!

Thanks! I'm glad you like it!

Thank you for playing it all the way through! It sounds like you got the hang of it level-by-level as I had hoped players would.

As a side-note, the 20 levels were designed in the last 3 days before submitting, all of the rest of the time was spent on getting the systems, mechanics, etc. to where I liked them. I was very worried about the difficulty curve and the introduction of mechanics, since there were really no time for proper playtesting. So thank you for your detailed comment! It felt great to read!      

I love how complete this game felt! Lots of levels, characters, weapons, etc. It's great that there were a tutorial level to start off with as well. Art style is cool too, it has just the right level of detail.

I think that a bit of weapon balancing would be great though. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it, but the level size, movement speed and bullet spread of most weapons made the sniper my only viable option. Still, I had a lot of fun! Nicely made!

Thanks! I was aiming for a small-ish but complete gamplay experience. I'm glad you enjoyed it! 

I really really dig the varying mech-designs and their great names! It also adds so much to the gameplay that there are lots of different mechs to play, each with their own abilities. 

It took me a lot of tries to get the hang of the controls, and I would love to hear some sound, as others have already remarked. 

The art style is great too! I hope you expand on this game! 

I'm glad you liked it and I hope it was not too hard! 

It was two busy weeks, but time-wise it was very helpful to work in PICO-8, as it forces you to work with limitations that keeps scope down and very low-res, which in turn makes the development quicker.

Thanks for playing! 

Thanks! 

I think you are right about level six, I checked my notes and had written to myself that perhaps that one should be moved to later because of the difficulty. It's likely the hardest of the basic level without any multi-kills or ice mechanics, hence why it's still early in the game.

Thanks for playing and for the feedback, I might come back and adjust the difficulty some time after the jam. 

The cover based mechanic is satisfying. I enjoyed quickly ducking down as the enemy lazers flew above only to jump up and blast them right back!

I found it pretty unpredictable and only won about half of the battles. Though that might be a skill issue and I still had fun! 

Thanks! Glad you liked it! 

Thanks for playing, I'm extra happy that you played all the way to the end!

Neat beginnings of a game, especially considering the super short development time. As others have mentioned, sound and a better defined hitbox would add a lot to it.

Very cool character design! 

Thanks a bunch!  I agree that there are many things that could be added to expand the game and make interesting puzzles. I toyed with having the enemies move, shoot, more complex island shapes, weapon types, etc. 

In the end I decided on limiting the scope to be able to submit a smaller but more 'complete' gamplay experience.  Perhaps I'll make a sequel in the future. Thanks for playing! 

Very interesting idea with weaving in a story into wiki-reading. Also a very effective use of audio that had me jumping when I came across some of the pages. 

While this is not the typical type of game I tend to play,  I must admit that I've never felt such a sense of suspense/danger while navigating a wiki before.

Highly original. Well done!  

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! 

Very cool art, sound and general style! I hope you make more of it!

The core dashing mechanic is very satisfying and the 'horizon effect' is really neat thing that adds to the scale of mechs. I kept imagining the white blocks as building, so I could totally see this being set in a city-like environment, perhaps with additional destruction. Occationally I got pretty disoriented, in particular when a dash or enemy projectile suddenly turns you 90 degrees, but in the end that did not take away from the fun. A more varied environment would also help with that! 

So far this is the most 'Mech'-y feeling game I have played in the jam. Nice! 

Please do!  And thanks for playing it!

Thanks! And thanks for playing it on stream and for organizing everything, it's one of the best jams around!

Thanks! I put effort into making the destruction of the enemy mechs as 'crunchy' as I could manage, so I'm glad you noticed! 

Impressively solid RPG for a game jam!  It seems appropriately hard and is clearly set in a very fleshed out world. I really liked the worldbuilding and it's always great to see jam submissions that feel like a cohesive game, which this one certainly does.  

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it!

Neat game! This feels like one of those games that get more and more fun the more weapons, enemy types and upgrades are added to it. I was also positively surprised by the level of polish on the menu screen/ general UI, considering the time limitations of the jam. 

I would love to see some satifying sounds relating to shooting/impact being added!

Thanks for playing! 

You're absolutely right about the enemy shooting thing. If this was a longer game that would likely be the next twist on the puzzles after the ice tiles. Perhaps I'lll expand on it one day! 

Also fair point about the 'bot' being more robot-like than mecha-like. In my case the explanation is simply that the character had to fit within 16 x 16px, which means that the head has to be about half the sprite to look nice , which in turn gives it that 'bot'-like look.  

I had fun with this shooter! I like the variation in enemies and base-layout, it makes it very fun to explore. I got a kick out of unlocking the grenade launcher, it was a blast to use!

I think that I would find it even more fun if there were a way to 'strafe' with the mech, it would work nicely with the bullet-hell-like feeling of the game. Also would be really staisfying if the regular gun had some impact feedback, I think that's why the greanade launcher was so nice to use. 

There were some things I never got the hang of, like the green bar at the top, but all in all it's a fun contribution to the jam :)

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

Nice little strategy game! The humor and the music stood out to me as particularly good! I unfortunately ran into a bug that crashed the game very early on while in the first battle sequence, but it's still very nice to see games that manage to include, story, gameplay, music and UI despite the time constraint of a gamejam!