Firelighter

Cool little game!
I have to admit that I found the mechanics to be a bit cryptic, maybe a couple of instructions to guide the player at the beginning of the experience could be a good thing to add. Although I admit that I'm the first one to leave instructions till last minute in a Game Jam. :see_no_evil:

Very cool entry overall! Super brave to do it as a first!

Fun concept, I like the simulation systems. It was just unpredictable enough for the exploitative strategies that I came up with not to work. The intro is quite cute as well :slight_smile:

The control scheme is strange, I would have liked something much different (X to wait, Z to make next movement a dash, move on arrow?).

Fun twist to the theme! Haven't played Pico-8 games before so it took some time to understand the controls :)

I have never played a Pico-8 game and I found this game really interesting. I loved the oldschool feel behind the gamplay, graphics and audio. I did lack the rules explanation and ability to win or score some points. But overall, it's been fun, great job!

Nice little game. I was a little confused how to move around at the start; also seemed like player 2's hand would get in the way of player one's x/c buttons? I only played with single person so no problem. Art was cool and I like the fires. Very unique movement scheme that I haven't seen before, which sets this game apart from other games from the jam. Overall nice work!

edit: I should have watched the gifs before playing! My bad.

Updated description with explanation and controls, yeah, they are a bit wonky, haha, thanks for powering through them to try the game everyone!

This was an interesting mechanic, although I couldn't quite figure out what decided whether the fire spread or not. It ended up feeling like a twist on snake, which is a pretty cool new take on a classic. Nice work!

@kevinworkman Ooh, very interesting thought there: "twist on snake", it totally feels like that sometimes! The fire spreading to adjacent green squares is randomly determined, with the chances being higher the taller the flame is. So the fire is a bit unreliable!

Took a while to fully understand the controls, but then it got fun when I held down the speed button.

I really liked this game both aesthetically and conceptually! My only recommendation would be to speed up the pacing :D

Once I understood the objective of the game it was pretty fun, was able to keep going spreading the fire everywhere. I think it would have maybe worked a little better with the controls if you didn't have to worry about the countdown and just selected the direction and then decided walk/dash at that point.

@kjscott yeah, the countdown was an idea I thought would solve the issue of having a lot of different types of powerups/moves but I think there is probably a better solution, and at the very least my game could introduce it better

Nice concept, good job.

Interesting game, but I'm not sure about the balancing. The second ability left behind a trail of burnt ground, and felt useless. I also don't see why you'd sleep. So I ended up holding down z on the normal step, and just circled a bit of fire, replenishing the grass that it consumed. And that seemed to work without a hitch for a long time. Ultimately I found that this uninteresting tactic was the most efficient, and I never engaged with the other options that the game provided, even though the second ability looked pretty cool. I also got into an odd habit of forgetting about z. I just held the button down, and when I did want to think about something, I forgot that I was speeding it up and wished I could slow the timer down. I know that sounds pretty stupid of me tho.

Overall though, the game was pretty good, I like the graphics, though the obstacles were a bit hard to spot. There's also a neat optical illusion in the graphics, if you stare at a point it looks like there's dots on the intersection points of the grid. That's called the Herman grid apparently. Even tho my gameplay tactics felt a bit cheap, it was still fun trying to keep the fire alive, and the unpredictability meant you always needed a backup plan. This strategy didn't work forever either, perhaps I could've used the dash to recover, but I didn't use it enough for it to be a consideration. The fire was also very well animated. Congrats on your game! :heart:

It took me a while to get used to the control scheme(a tutorial would've helped me understand things a bit more), but one I got used to it I really liked how it worked. Sadly, it felt like both the dash and sleep abilities were basically useless. The best strategy seemed it be just holding down Z on the first ability and constantly moving to cover up dirt patches in a circle.

I really liked playing this, though. Maybe you should consider adding a timer in? That way you can actually compare how long you kept the fire alive with other people.

@mental-inaction and @justcamh thanks for the feedback, definitely needs balancing that leads to some strategy/tradeoffs with the abilities