[HN Gopher] Show HN: Driftmania - an open source PICO-8 racing game
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Show HN: Driftmania - an open source PICO-8 racing game
I've been spending a lot of my spare time over the last year
creating this little racing game. It's built in PICO-8, which is a
really fun "fantasy retro console" that's been mentioned on HN
several times. The console has strict limits and I wanted to see
how far I could push them The source code for the game is over
here: https://github.com/maxbize/PICO-8/tree/master/Driftmania.
It's a bit of a mess, but I'm happy to answer any questions on it
or development of the game. Cheers! EDIT: For those not familiar
with PICO-8, there's only a few inputs: arrow keys, Z/C/N, and
X/V/M
Author : frenchie14
Score : 87 points
Date : 2024-02-16 19:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (frenchie14.itch.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (frenchie14.itch.io)
| freedomben wrote:
| Whoa dude, this is really cool! Nice work! You should definitely
| include this on your resume/CV because if I were reviewing your
| resume and saw this, I'd be very interested :-)
|
| For those not familiar with PICO-8:
|
| > PICO-8 is a virtual machine and game engine created by
| Lexaloffle Games. It is a fantasy video game console[1] that
| mimics the limited graphical and sound capabilities of 8-bit
| systems of the 1980s to encourage creativity and ingenuity in
| producing games without being overwhelmed with the many
| possibilities of modern tools and machines."[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PICO-8
| AugusteLef wrote:
| Just played it for 10 minutes! Great game. One remark: to start
| the race, you need to select "restart level" even if you just
| started the game. I would suggest starting the race by simply
| pressing enter.
| freedomben wrote:
| Ah yes, I hit that too. Selecting "Continue" (which didn't make
| sense since this was my first load) just exited the menu.
| Didn't take me long to try "Restart" but it is a little
| confusing.
| frenchie14 wrote:
| Ah, you must be entering a race from the pause menu. PICO-8
| controls are arrow keys, Z, and X (emulating old school
| consoles with limited input options). There's a level select
| screen just off the title menu
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Aside, I just realized Vimium doesn't get disabled inside iframes
| on pages where it's disabled, nor can you disable the iframe
| domain from the parent page since the iframe regex won't match
| the parent url. I had to disable the whole plugin for "x" to work
| in the iframe. Seems like an oversight on Vimium's part.
|
| As for the game, it's satisfying to ratchet down to the 39 second
| threshold for the gold medal by figuring our drifting. I realize
| I was overdrifting and easily beat 39 seconds once I stopped
| drifting much sooner along the turn.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I just ran into this also. Incredibly annoying.
| vunderba wrote:
| yeah, this used to happen a lot to me on the itch.io platform
| which uses iFrame embeddings for HTML5/Canvas games.
| silenced_trope wrote:
| This happens with anything Vimium.
|
| I usually just hit the "i" button to enter insert mode.
| frenchie14 wrote:
| Sorry about that! There's another version uploaded here:
| https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=140202
|
| Does that one work better with vimium?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It's not your fault, of course.
|
| I just figure HN is the only place where someone might
| commiserate with me for the self-inflicted pain of using a
| half-baked Vim keybinding plugin for the browser.
|
| It's nice to have the BBS link so I could star it though. :)
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Really cool! I made some pico8 games with my son, which were fun
| but nowhere near as good as this. Nice work.
| vunderba wrote:
| Nice work, gives me very Micro Machines vibes for the NES. The
| only thing I don't like about PICO-8 is that its completely
| closed source. An open source alternative that seems very
| promising is Pyxel. It has similar retro / pixel art limitations,
| a built-in sprite editor, music tracker, etc.
|
| https://github.com/kitao/pyxel
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| IIRC, the browser builds of Pyxel games end up pulling down
| 30mb+ of Python libraries, which seems a bit overkill for
| little pixel games.
|
| TIC-80 is probably the closest open source thing to PICO-8. The
| browser builds ran 10% slower than the desktop app last I
| tried. It doesn't have a "CPU budget," so it's possible to
| write inefficient code that works fine on powerful machines but
| not slower ones.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| What was your workflow? Last time I played around with PICO-8 I
| found the built-in editor to be inadequate. Using an external
| editor was also annoying for reasons I don't quite remember, but
| I remember having to close and re-open PICO-8 all the time. Not
| exactly a the tight, seamless iteration loop I was hoping for.
| frenchie14 wrote:
| My .p8 file just has `#include driftmania-min.lua` and I do all
| the code edits in an external editor on that file. By splitting
| it out you remove the conflicts from modifying code and
| audio/graphics at the same time
| gausswho wrote:
| Really enjoyed this for my ten minutes. A note that I found it a
| bit confusing that 'enter' doesn't select, X does. But the core
| game feels really good!
| lagniappe wrote:
| This device is perfect for PICO-8 if anybody wants the handheld
| formfactor
|
| https://powkiddy.com/products/pre-sale-powkiddy-rgb30-rk3566...
|
| Non affiliated with the company, I get nothing from saying this,
| it's just a decent device all around. The 1:1 aspect ratio on the
| screen really does PICO-8 games justice, along with MAME and
| other popular platforms. The greatest thing is these devices are
| super cheap and easy to come by if you're patient.
|
| Here's a video review of it by a youtuber whose opinion I've come
| to respect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIMepWAzUuw
| frenchie14 wrote:
| I have an RGB30 and can confirm PICO-8 looks and runs great on
| it! It's a Linux handheld and can run the native PICO-8 binary
| asimovfan wrote:
| is there a way to play these on the phone?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thank you for the recommendation. Bought one!
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I have a Gameboy-shaped Anbernic RG351V (which runs Linux
| behind the scenes), it is fun to play PICO-8 games on too.
| joemi wrote:
| Nice. Reminds me somewhat of Super Off Road, which was an arcade
| game I loved as a kid:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Off_Road
| amethyst wrote:
| Mixed with R.C. Pro-Am, one of my favorite NES titles:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.C._Pro-Am
| elwell wrote:
| I was excited by the appearance and sound but found it too hard
| to control to enjoy. Also took me a couple minutes to get started
| because I didn't know I had to press 'x' (and 'x' closes the tab
| for me with Vimium extension, even though I disabled all Vimium
| keys on that page).
| lbotos wrote:
| Interesting meta question:
|
| Do others expect the car be lined up to go right?
|
| Is this a cultural expectation? I come from a LtR writing culture
| so I was wondering if others were surprised at the car going left
| at the start.
| frenchie14 wrote:
| There are 15 levels with a variety of start directions. Which
| direction I picked was based on how I wanted that particular
| level to flow
| willio58 wrote:
| I love Pico8. The idea of starting with a small set of tools and
| building around those limitations I think leads to better game
| design and development.
| d--b wrote:
| I wish there was an iPhone app for pico 8, the controls in the
| browser are terrible.
| grugagag wrote:
| Got a Miyoo mini for my kid and I played a bit on it and have to
| say I fell in love with pico-8 games. They're simple games but
| the playability is off the charts. I think I'll join the club and
| make some myself.
|
| Will definitely check this out..
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| Nice work! It captures the same fast, small-track feel of RC Pro-
| Am from back in the days of the NES.
| theogravity wrote:
| It's pretty fun! I had problems trying to drift consistently. I
| wonder if it would help to have a curved accel / decel like gear
| shifting.
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(page generated 2024-02-16 23:00 UTC)