@The4thCircle@mastodon.gamedev.place
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The4thCircle

@The4thCircle@mastodon.gamedev.place

I make games, mostly bad ones.

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The4thCircle, to random
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So I've had time to stew on my #TweetTweetJam 9 experience. Before I heard about it I was just finishing off a couple of Pico8 projects before switching to a new engine, but this jam got me thinking about making a new tool to help when I do this again next year.

Watch this space I guess.

The4thCircle, to random
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Ok, is officially over so I'm going to talk about a few of my favourite games in no particular order.

I was going to do this earlier but when I went to the website to get a link I saw there had been some last minute additions which I wanted to play first (And I'm glad I did because one I found particularly entertaining)

The4thCircle,
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Snake 1999

A simple classic game but what sets this aside is the look of it. I'm a huge sucker for skeumorphism and this stimulates my Nokia neuron.

This game does some very clever things, such as using escape strings to poke into memory things that would normally take huge function call blocks, and putting the frame draw in a for loop to make shadows.

https://jadelombax.itch.io/snake1999

The4thCircle,
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Sneaky Kitty

One thing which is hard to fit into 500 characters is charm. The games in this jam are simple by necessity so aspects such as personality are usually the first thing to go out the window.

Sneaky Kitty, through use of a simple shifting musical scale tied to the player input makes this the most charming game in the lineup.

https://bts.itch.io/sneaky-kitty

The4thCircle,
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Comet Ping

Sure, its pong, big whoop, right? Except that in just 500 characters this has a computer opponent and absolutely wild graphical effects, with the fire and ice paddles igniting the trail on the ball to a beautiful streak across the board.

A good project to study if you want to learn about graphical effects in pico8

https://sizescape.itch.io/comet-ping

The4thCircle,
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Piano Tiles

I'm told this is a demake of a mobile game but I've never played the original.

This does so many things well, from the uncluttered display to the control layout and the fact that the randomly generated notes always seem to sound good in any order.

It's not a rhythm game so theres no time pressure but it makes you want to play fast to see how it sounds.

https://kosyne.itch.io/piano-tiles-tweet-cart-edition

The4thCircle,
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Tastebud Tap Dancer

A deceptively simple game about vore. Yes, you read that correctly.

That undulating tongue acting as a floor isn't just for decoration, the waves have a peristalsis motion, drawing other objects towards you. It gives great context to what would otherwise just be an abstract jumping game.

https://andymakes.itch.io/tastebud-tap-dancer

The4thCircle,
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Hungry Bubble

One of the ideas I had this year but didn't do was an Osmos demake, so I'm glad someone else took on the task of making big circle eat small circle.

The screen acts as an upper limit to how big you can get but the score counter goes to 4 decimal places so you can get a really accurate idea of how well you did.

https://soundole.itch.io/hungry-bubble

The4thCircle,
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Billabong

A simple idea well presented. Who would have thought truchet tiling and a flood fill operation could create a complex area control strategy game?

The only 2 player game of the year and that flood fill gives it amazingly fluid animations. Just lovely.

https://dredds.itch.io/billabong

The4thCircle,
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Make Ten

So this looks like an edutainment game from the Atari 2600 era, but this Fruit Box demake has (IMHO) a better aesthetic than the original.

Well readable, colourful and clever, with complex combos possible when you get into it.

https://pancelor.itch.io/make-ten

The4thCircle,
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Frogger

Its Frogger! What's not to love? I know it's old school but this might be the most complex game logic in the jam.

Cars, logs, moving platforms, score count, safe spaces filling up, this is all of frogger, beginning to end.

https://ryancavendell.itch.io/frogger-tweettweetjam9

The4thCircle,
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Super Match-io

Okay, so the gameplay is nothing special, but that kind of full screen scrolling animation and big scale graphics is rare in pico8, before you even get to the 500 character limit. I think theres some complex polar coordinate maths used to draw that star.

https://liquidream.itch.io/super-match-io

The4thCircle,
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That's all my picks for 9 but there's so much more to see.

There were 52 submissions this year and only 10 of them were mine. Pretty much all of them do something clever in the code so they're all worth looking at.

https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9/entries

The4thCircle, to random
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I had to cut some stuff but I did it. I Zooped.

Tenth and final entry to 9 is 500P, a classic action puzzler now without the action.

All in just 500 characters. See next toot.

Check it out here:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games/
Or here:
https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9

The4thCircle,
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@platformalist

technically 3 were variants of the same game, so it's more like 8

The4thCircle, to random
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I'm going to do my riskiest attempt at a demake yet for tomorrow, my final entry into 9.

The4thCircle, to random
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So I submitted a 9th thing to 9 and now I'm in a pickle.

I managed to crunch down the input logic on BellyFish to fit both keyboard and touch controls into the 500 character limit.

So now I have the same game submitted 3 times but two of them are deprecated. Should I withdraw the old versions or leave them for posterity?

All three are on my website:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games/

The4thCircle, to random
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This is technically submission number 8 for 9.

Solitaire is a mouse/touch controlled triangular pegboard. I hope you know the rules of solitaire because this game does not. Feel free to cheat.

All code, 500 characters, next toot 🥱

Check it out here:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games
Or here:
https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9

platformalist, to gamedev
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Took things down from 1500 chars to 637, but things are looking pretty dire at this point! Not sure how I can take this down any further, will have to try again tomorrow!

video/mp4

The4thCircle,
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@platformalist

Just looking at your code I think you could maybe save some characters by refactoring the btnp if block into a single btnp call and some bitwise math.

The4thCircle, to random
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At this point I mostly just want 9 to end so I can stop thinking about it.

I submitted 3 projects today.

The4thCircle, to random
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So given that I finished my 9 submission for today last night... I did another.

BellyFish uses left and right keys to swim and descend on prey. All code, 500 characters, next toot yada yada.

Check it out here:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games/
Or here:
https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9

The4thCircle, to random
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I pruned down my first 9 attempt from yesterday into another 500 character game: Sophon Simulator 2024

Touch/mouse controls. All code in the next toot as usual.

Check it out here:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games/
Or here:
https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9/

The4thCircle, to random
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I did another 9 entry!

This one was a little rushed after a failure this morning, it's called DIE and it's a puzzle in 500 characters of code. As is customary I will prove this by posting the code in my next toot.

Check it out here:
http://the4thcircle.co.uk/games/
Or here:
https://itch.io/jam/tweettweetjam-9

The4thCircle, to random
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Really messed up todays attempt, accidentally had pico8 in token count mode instead of character count mode. Switched it over and was at like 900. Nightmare.

Going to shelve this one for pruning tomorrow and start something simpler from scratch.

The4thCircle,
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@platformalist

I'm going to fix it tomorrow, made something else today

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