PlayPico

570 games and counting

Nuklear Klone

353
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By freds72 Published on Jan 24th, 2018 Last updated on Mar 15th, 2018

Suzie and Bob are trapped in a merciless world. Can you fight your way out?

 

 

Gameplay Elements

 

  • Random maps

  • Multiple biomes
        

  • Multiple enemies
  • Multiple weapons (but one at a time!)
  • Loop-based difficulty
  • Supports keyboard/mouse

 

Controls


Keyboard:

 

  • arrow keys: move & gun direction
  • bttn 1: fire & lock direction
  • bttn 2: pick up weapon

Mouse (selected in option menu):

  • arrow keys: move
  • mouse: gun direction
  • left click: fire
  • right click: pick up weapon

Note: any resemblance with a famous Vlambeer game must be purely accidental...

 

Changelog


1.2:

 

  • fixed: woobly sprites
  • fixed: actors stuck on corners
  • fixed: warp in/out effect
  • changed: impact feedback
  • changed: health upgrade on loop

1.1:

  • fixed: unexpected god mode
  • fixed: boss hp
  • fixed: boss attack
  • changed: tweaked game speed
  • change:balanced high level gameplay (loop)

1.0:

  • preview version

 

Dev Log


2nd finished game (last was Thunderblade). Took 4 months to complete & refine.
Un-minified source available on Github:
freds72/pico8/carts/nuke.p8

 

Tech Highlights
JSon Rules!
All entities (actors, weapons, particles, levels) defined using json (worth 3500 tokens!). A lightweight parser (450 tokens) converts strings into lua tables.

Entities are created using a parent template with support for:

  • lua references
  • random values
  • method & attributes override

Rotating Sprites
Player weapon (and couple of other sprites) are rotated in real-time using an optimized sprite routine. It is fast enough to allow ~10+ sprites on screen (before tanking FPS!)

Performance
An actor map is maintained each frame. It allows immediate bullet/actors lookup.
Only player/npc collisions are checked to ensure player cannot zip through enemies.

A-* path is refreshed for a single npc per frame. It ensures a large number of npc’s can be created without too much cpu stress.

Sprites are added to buckets matching their y pixel coordinate.
Saves both cpu and tokens as no global sort is required :]

Toolchain
Cart is minified using picotool (19k compressed). All json attributes are replaced by their short equivalent using output from minification script:
cat nuke.p8 | minify | replace > nuke_mini.p8

Missing In Action:

  • RPG aspects (upgrades/xp/abilities...)
  • Good music (for total lack of musical skills!!)
  • Scoreboard

Credits