The playing field is a simple sequencer. The towers are sound effects within the sequencer, and can be activated by tapping the button in rhythm with the sequencer. Enemies pathfind to the right side of the playing field by the shortest route they can find.
Note: the pico8 web player maps the 'x' key to (X) and the 'z' key to (O) by default 🤷♂️
@abraxas-interactive this was my first pico-8 experiment, and my impression is: we get a modern (powerful) CPU attached to extremely constrained input/output hardware. I was afraid I'd break it with hundreds of creeps and/or particle effects, but so far, no problems :)
Interesting game! Looks nice, sounds nice. I don't like having to tap to fire though, it feels unnecessary since I just spam and it works fine. Especially if you try to build a maze, because now every column has a turret! My poor finger!
@KScorp yep, fair enough. Actual spamming isn't supposed to work (there's a cooldown on the button, but it's not super fine-tuned.) But you're totally right about the gameplay if you try to build a maze and go late: the rhythm tapping gets painful.
This is incredible! The whole game feels so polished. It took me a couple of attempts to realise that you get more turrets for each wave cleared. I love the music that gets made from just focusing on building a good maze! This is such a good crossover, you don't even realise you're making music until you hear it during the next wave. The only change that I would like to see is having the "enemies passed" counter decrease for each successful wave you complete. A really great game!
I was never any good at keeping a rhythm, especially while trying to do something else like aiming a cursor. Still, I love the concept, and it looks great
Woaw, a very original entry! I like the sound of the music you created as the levels gets more and more complex (more enemies, but more turrets!)
The building / rythm tapping mechanics works very well, and is very original too. The audio and graphics are quite polished too, I like the particles ;).
P.S.: As a first time user of a "fantasy console" too (I used TIC-80 instead of PICO-8 for my entry) I'm very impressed by what you achieved in such a limited time. Congrats!
@bitjester-media I am equally bad at multitasking, which is why there's a pretty long delay between waves. For me, it was usually enough to make adjustments to my towers, and then focus on rhythm during the actual wave. (But if I decide to work on the game more post-ld, I'll probably add an easier mode where the wave doesn't start until triggered in some way.)
This concept was great and well executed ! I really enjoyed playing and trying all the turets to see wich one was the best and how could I go futher in the game, I was really into it actually, wich is a good thing ! Bravo !
wow, awesome game man, congrats! I'd have never come up with something like this. Really cool concept. I've played it a couple of times and I feel like I'm unable to succeed. Like as if I need to be able to put more obstacles in each way as opposed to just one or something like that.
Overall a really solid entry and fun game to play!
If you want to get a bit further, try building a maze to force the enemies to stay on screen and in range of your towers for longer. I usually start something like this:
... and also, you get bonus towers after each wave if your rhythm was particularly accurate :)
Super glad you enjoyed, and thanks so much for the feedback.
I played it for a while, it was fun! I will try it again with building more intelligent mazes as you suggested. I also loved the confetti animation on game over, the PICO8 platform seems a nice choice here. One suggestion: maybe it would help if there is a sound-feedback when I hit the rhythm.
That was fun! I tried a second time after reading about the bonus towers if you hit the rhythm, however I only managed to do so a couple times, it's really hard without much warning that the wave is about to start and you need to start hitting the rhythm again. Some feedback on hitting it right would definitely help. I couldn't figure out what the different towers did, at first I thought the size of their circles when you hit them was their range, but that was clearly not the case, so I just placed towers randomly =).
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Still, I love the concept, and it looks great
The building / rythm tapping mechanics works very well, and is very original too. The audio and graphics are quite polished too, I like the particles ;).
P.S.: As a first time user of a "fantasy console" too (I used TIC-80 instead of PICO-8 for my entry) I'm very impressed by what you achieved in such a limited time. Congrats!
Bravo !
I'd have never come up with something like this. Really cool concept.
I've played it a couple of times and I feel like I'm unable to succeed. Like as if I need to be able to put more obstacles in each way as opposed to just one or something like that.
Overall a really solid entry and fun game to play!
If you want to get a bit further, try building a maze to force the enemies to stay on screen and in range of your towers for longer. I usually start something like this:
... and also, you get bonus towers after each wave if your rhythm was particularly accurate :)
Super glad you enjoyed, and thanks so much for the feedback.
A sound cue on successfully hitting the rhythm would be good, but I actually hit a limit of pico-8: there are only 4 audio channels!