Delve in the depths of dangerous caves to find and retrieve precious gold, armed only with the ability to pick things up and a pick-up truck! The deeper you go, the tougher the climb. Made in 48 hours using Pico-8. (Actually more like 36.) Play on itch.io!
CONTROLS
Z/Up - Jump X - Grab/Throw Left/Right - Move Down - Stay low during jump
BEHIND THE SCENES
This game was built on some platformer code I've been working on before. I want to make a full Pico-8 engine and this was a useful test case to see where my engine design would fall short (and fall short it did)! The code more than doubled in size to accommodate collisions, the level traversal and the picking up mechanic. The engine itself is very "gameobject" oriented, but I found that this style is unnecessary and might be more optimal with shared components and some kind of inheritence.
In the end, it was a struggle against the physics bugs, and a fight against the engine to implement features that made the game fun. I wanted to get more out of the "you can only pick things up" mechanic, such as a box that dropped a bomb every time you jumped on it, the permanent whip upgrade and the magnet (although gold isn't magnetic). The bounce box was the only special item that made it into the game. In the end, it would have been incredibly hard to create unique opportunities for each item. The bounce box is made redundant by stacking the normal boxes (or corpses).
I like that dying a lot makes it (sometimes) easier. If you want a ridiculous challenge, try beating the game with 0 deaths!
I didn't really have enough time to playtest level 4, so it's a bit too hard and unfair in my opinion. I wanted to get around 6 levels in but I ran out of time. I probably should have cut it at 3 levels to make it more achievable and fun. If you beat the game, I commend you!
#### Changelog
Version 4:
* Fixed a crash when enemies fell into lava.
Version 3:
* Made death sound quieter due to complaints.
Version 2:
* Fixed a bug where boxes were respawning inside levels they didn't belong to. * Removed an unfair enemy.
I have a few of my own past corpses seemingly permanently attached to the front of my truck from when I was trying to land the gold on the arrow (and in true Darwinian fashion after multiple deaths eventually worked out the arrow meant 'press down here').
Lots of fun! The first time I saw that my body persisted after dying I couldn't help but smile. I could never figure out what the button next to the x is though.
@mrnyarlathotep Thanks! You should be able to remove the corpses by picking them up (but they may have also glitched permanently, anything can happen). I definitely felt like the down arrow wasn't enough of a clue, but I was running out of time to add more tutorial text!
@brookzerker thanks! That would be the Z key, it's just another way to jump. Pico-8 uses weird O and X symbols because it's a "fantasy console" but the default keybinding is Z and X. I actually require you to find the X key specifically in the splash to make sure you can figure out how to pick up the gold later.
Good complete game overall, I had some difficulty to figure out how to drive the truck, just jump over driver seat and press down arrow. Only arrow X and Z(w) are usefull. Nice sound track
I'm impressed with the gameplay and polishing this game has for being made in just 48 hours! Really fun and so simple. I like how you can use your dead corpses to get to places and it also plays off the theme because they get in the way too. First one I played for this dare where I actually found myself invested in the game and wanting to beat it!
Nice game. I'm joining to other pleople about the death effect beign too harsh, but playing the game is fun. If you say you built the engine for the game, congrats on that as well. Good job!
Good job! I only got to 15 bags, and then the game crashed, but I enjoyed it the whole way through. I really liked how you could use your "dead body" as a tool to make things easier. It was a built in mechanic for less skilled players, and was pretty smart. Everything felt smooth, and one of my only complaints was that some parts felt outright "unfair". It was never too bad, though. Finally, I'm a bit confused about how it fits the theme, but great job nonetheless.
@chaseplays Thanks for the kind words. Which bags didn't you get, 16 and 17? I think the unfair parts really start to appear in level 4, which just didn't get any playtesting, unlike levels 1 to 3. I wanted to have a lot more time to do the level creation. I sometimes think maybe I should have just cut 4 altogether, but then there would be very little in the way of challenge.
How does it fit the theme? I don't really know. There was meant to be a story reason that having more gold was bad but it got cut. In general, it seems people feel like the buildup of corpses is as much a curse as a blessing, so I guess that's kinda within the theme.
the game is ok. the astethtics are pretty good and I like the music and sounds. But the gameplay is a little bit too punishing. * Bug: when you push two gold blocks together they stay one in other
@isogash It actually wasn't too unfair - it just felt like there were moments that were a bit more difficult than others. Also, I don't exactly remember which two bags I didn't get, but they were definitely in level 4. I would've gotten them all, but the game crashed. I forgot to take a picture of the crash report, so sorry that I can't help much there. Finally, I don't think you needed to cut level 4. Nothing was *too* hard to where you couldn't beat it, and getting all 17 bags was supposed to be a challenge as it was. Anyways, great job!
Really good! It just needs a few minor tweaks to live up to its full potential. The mileage people get out of PICO-8 never ceases to amaze me.
Bad stuff: - Death by squishing feels rather unfair when in a tight space, and doesn't contribute very much to the game - Bags 16 & 17 are impossible to reach without taking damage - Don't like the music very much
Good stuff: - Physics are quite solid - Graphics look nice - Gameplay flows very nicely - Basically everything but the above points
Fun little game. Nothing much to critize. Hm, maybe that there are some deadends like bag 5. But if you think befor jumping in you can see that you cant come out just with simple jumping. Good work!
@mao Thanks for the feedback. I'm definitely not happy with the way level 4 turned out and the music, they were both rushed within the last hour or so and I would have much preferred to work more on them.
Death by squishing also used to occur from corpses, rather than only doing a hit of damage. I left the boxes and gold squishing because in playtests it felt better as a "rage" game, especially with the super fast respawns. It's meant to be at least a little bit frustrating, but I definitely think some of the tight spaces ended up unfun. I think with some rethinking and better level design it wouldn't feel unfair any more.
It's definitely possible to get bags 16 and 17 without taking damage by carefully controlling the height of your jumps but it's *way* too hard. The spike block hitbox needs to be slightly smaller than the visual to feel less punishing, which is something I knew but would have been very hard to implement cleanly with my physics solution (which is limited to tile borders).
@koemeterion You can throw bag 5 onto yourself to die and respawn or use the suicide option in the menu (that the game never tells you about). If I'd had more time I would have added a system to tell you that you'd put yourself in a dead-end and that suicide was an option.
oh congratulation! Nice art! Can I follow it also on indiexpo? Do you have also a page there? This looks great! I looked for the games that used the #LDJAM but I don't find yours. So good luck!! I will hope to make a video about it!
The 4th level sure is tough. I accidentally hit the reset button by mistake and now I have to start over haha. Anyways, I really liked how you didn't rely on tutorials on the first level. I bet a lot of players tried to throw the gold and died when it landed on them. I do think that you should rearrange the tips you show at the start of the levels. Some of them apply to the next level but not in the current one.
I also liked the music. The BGM can be repetitive but it's still enjoyable. The pixel art was nice as well.
Overall,good job! I don't know how hard Pico-8 is but you should be proud of accomplishing this much.
The art is well polished, the controls are smooth and the game is fun (although it gets a little repetitive at some point). The 8-bit music is minimalistic but doesn't get annoying. The sound effects are well tweaked, they also don't get annoying also you hear them a lot.
The physics also seem rock solid (the only glitch I was able to find: with proper timing, you can jump while grabbing the object you were standing on. I don't think this was intended, although it's definitely practical :-) )
With such game mechanics, I also feared that it would be easy to get stuck ... but I actually never did.
@fahim-faysal you should have a look at the source code if you want a rough idea of the difficulty involved in using Pico-8. The findgold.p8 cart is openable as a text file and contains all of the code right at the top.
It got worse and worse over time, as I would start to cut corners a lot.
Comments34
Feel free to try and give feedback on my stream.
I have a few of my own past corpses seemingly permanently attached to the front of my truck from when I was trying to land the gold on the arrow (and in true Darwinian fashion after multiple deaths eventually worked out the arrow meant 'press down here').
all together a good game.
Very well designed. I didn't manage to get all of the gold but I had fun trying!
How does it fit the theme? I don't really know. There was meant to be a story reason that having more gold was bad but it got cut. In general, it seems people feel like the buildup of corpses is as much a curse as a blessing, so I guess that's kinda within the theme.
* Bug: when you push two gold blocks together they stay one in other
"Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To find our long-forgotten gold."
:laughing:
Bad stuff:
- Death by squishing feels rather unfair when in a tight space, and doesn't contribute very much to the game
- Bags 16 & 17 are impossible to reach without taking damage
- Don't like the music very much
Good stuff:
- Physics are quite solid
- Graphics look nice
- Gameplay flows very nicely
- Basically everything but the above points
Death by squishing also used to occur from corpses, rather than only doing a hit of damage. I left the boxes and gold squishing because in playtests it felt better as a "rage" game, especially with the super fast respawns. It's meant to be at least a little bit frustrating, but I definitely think some of the tight spaces ended up unfun. I think with some rethinking and better level design it wouldn't feel unfair any more.
It's definitely possible to get bags 16 and 17 without taking damage by carefully controlling the height of your jumps but it's *way* too hard. The spike block hitbox needs to be slightly smaller than the visual to feel less punishing, which is something I knew but would have been very hard to implement cleanly with my physics solution (which is limited to tile borders).
I also liked the music. The BGM can be repetitive but it's still enjoyable. The pixel art was nice as well.
Overall,good job! I don't know how hard Pico-8 is but you should be proud of accomplishing this much.
The art is well polished, the controls are smooth and the game is fun (although it gets a little repetitive at some point).
The 8-bit music is minimalistic but doesn't get annoying.
The sound effects are well tweaked, they also don't get annoying also you hear them a lot.
The physics also seem rock solid (the only glitch I was able to find: with proper timing, you can jump while grabbing the object you were standing on. I don't think this was intended, although it's definitely practical :-) )
With such game mechanics, I also feared that it would be easy to get stuck ... but I actually never did.
Great job!
Loved it!
Congrats on the entry man!
It got worse and worse over time, as I would start to cut corners a lot.