Ludum Dare #53compo
Bundle Dumper: Florida Edition
Bundle Dumper: Florida Edition
Hurl babies through five exciting levels (including a tutorial level) in this flappy inspired side scroller with a Floridian twist! Also my first complete PICO-8 game, so now you've been warned.Play the post-jam version here!
Controls
It's a PICO-8 game, you get what you get and you don't get much:* left and right arrows to change direction
* `Z` is the circle button (`C` on keyboards that nobody uses in Florida)
* `X` is the cross button (`V` on keyboards that nobody uses in Florida)
* But save yourself the wrist strain and just use a gamepad/controller!!!
Hazards
* Think you can cheese the game by camping at the top of the screen? Think again! THE MERCILESS FLORIDA SUN WILL BURN YOU TO TOAST* Think you can cheese the game by camping at the bottom of the screen? Think again! THE MERCILESS FLORIDA ALLIGATORS WILL CHEW YOU UP LIKE BUBBLEGUM
* Well armed Floridians will shoot you
* Cleverly placed drones will shred you
Mechanics
* Flapping increases vertical AND horizontal momentum (that is, flapping while turning changes your direction *faster*)* Aim your delivery by holding down the cross button but keep in mind you can't flap or turn while aiming
* Once you've started aiming, you're committed. Release the cross button to drop the baby from your beak
* If you hurl a baby and miss, you can get another one from the hot air balloon at the beginning of the level - don't worry, you can't run out
* ...even if you don't miss, on levels with multiple deliveries you will have to go back to the hot air balloon to get more babies!
Speedrunning Notes
* The timer starts when the first level loads and ends when you see your final time displayed on the "YOU WIN!" screen.* Strategic deaths will get you back to the hot air balloon faster but if you run out of lives and then continue all your deliveries in the current level will be reset.
* regrettably the timer is only precise to seconds (I ran out of time! I barely had time to add sound effects!)
My personal best time is 5 minutes and 31 seconds - I DARE anyone to do better and post a screenshot in the comments!
Apologies in Advance
* Hit detection is a little off... it was my first time writing my own AABB collision detection and while I've done my best sometimes there are deaths that look cheap.* The aiming trajectory thing is largely accurate when you're moving right, and off by six pixels or so when the player is moving left. At least the clumsy hit detection works to your advantage here.
Disclosure of Totally Legal and Not Disqualifying At All Critical Bug Fixes Post-Submission
* *5/1 @ 1828 ET* resolved bug where pressing "continue" after exhausting all storks would not replenish storks (imo critical/game breaking)Tags: #cute, #flappy bird, #open source, #pico-8, #pixel art, #short, #singleplayer, #speedrun, #violent
Genres: action
Tools: PICO-8
Comments96
The sound effects were great too, and while I did notice the lack of a main theme song, it never bothered me and I feel it helped me focus on the puzzles at hand.
Amazing game for a game jam, and even more amazing considering it is your first PICO8 jam!
Great job, great entry!
Oh and I couldn't go near you 5:31. :D
and omg this is so brutal, i love it hahaha!! especially that you can see the alligators closing in when you go near the ground :)
Here is a link to the VOD that starts at your section.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1809875425?t=04h37m58s
Also really funny! Hilarious seeing your stork explode followed by the baby. Art was good too, appreciate the polish you got in with the win screen.
Only real criticism is the sound is a little sparse, but you did have all the sound FX needed to support the gameplay.
4/5
https://clips.twitch.tv/FrailTrustworthyToadMrDestructoid-M4shA_eqJkyLaxDf
I didn't find the controls any harder to use than I'd expect for a flappy bird game. My biggest struggle was probably getting used to the physics, and I figured that out pretty quickly
Everything feels tight, and was good fun too!
Still much improvement possible :)
my time on level 4 still can be improved a lot tho
My score: 9 minutes, 2 seconds. But, it was 9 minutes and 2 seconds full of fun and blood. My favorite two moments where when I got shot down, but the baby survived, and was successfully delivered, and when I was just flying along and clipped a drone and it turned the baby into a strawberry smoothly while I just kept on flying.
Great entry!
If I make a game like this next LD I will make sure the enemy cycles are powered by time-since-last-respawn instead of time-since-game-launch so the runs are deterministic entirely according to player input, which should largely remove the element of luck and make demonstrations of skill like yours even cooler
I'm very happy that you're having so much fun with it. That means a lot to me. Thank you
@baknik thanks! you do too!
@glove there's a common turn of phrase "sink or swim" but in florida it's "swim or get eaten by alligators". thanks for playing!
@calcopod thank you for the kind words! I shouldn't have waited until the end of sunday to think about sound design and music but 48 hours is just never enough...
@pianoman373 happy you think it's humorous, it's deliberately ridiculous (trying to crack top 3 in humor (again)) thanks for playing!
@cinterre i saw a gator in florida last summer! that's exactly what they're like!! thanks for playing
You can't respawn until all of *the stork's* gore particles despawn (baby gore doesn't matter).
Drone movement is based on the time since the cart loaded, the effect being the cycles - for all drones, on all levels - begin on cart boot and don't end until cart reboot.
Man I can see myself grinding this another 1-2 hours tonight lol
its can be great mobile game! :)
Regardless, thanks for playing!!
I loved the graphics. The detail and character in your stork with what...50 pixels? The baby is like 10. Incredible.
here's a link to the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1812705828?t=2h27m54s
I first saw it on a stream and kept thinking to myself "Damn this guy sucks", then when I got to play it I saw how hard it is!
The graphics are amazing, you can recognize the rednecks and aligators. The bloodbath of every death is so ludicrous and fun.
The sound effects are awesome, but I missed some music to accompany.
I managed to beat the last level though the stork died right before the baby got delivered. I got the game over/retry screen, and then the house raised the happy baby flag. I had to rage quit!
One nit-picky thing I'd point is that the instructions mention circle button but in-game it looks like a square. This got me slightly confused at start, but it's just a small detail.
Congratulations on such a fun and crazy experience!
* drone cycles start when the level starts and restart when you "retry" a level after all storks are exhausted
* elapsed time on winner screen includes fractional seconds
* the first formation of drones on level 2 moved 8 pixels upwards
* corrected stork and drone hitboxes
other than some effects, ui, and minor sprite enhancements there are no other changes
@olddog i'm glad you had fun thank you for playing!
@kot9 thank you for the kind words
one thing you could fix that would drastically improce speedrunning is that when you hit the new level button for more than one frame it does a flap at the start of the level. that makes it e.g. impossible to clear the first formation on level 2. Maybe make it so it does not register the flap input if it was pressed on level select?
250ms cooldown on flap input when stork spawns
It was a bit bloody for my taste, which is something I never thought I'd say about a game where I played a baby delivery stork :laughing: But it's a solid and well put together game. Props for making it in PICO8, I really like that retro vibe.
I appreciated the wackyness of it all! I wished I could keep on flapping while taking aim. I couldn't beat all the levels. I have to give props for accomplishing this as a compo entry, and in a very limiting environment!
Since I took a decent number of deaths (I think I saw the retry screen at least once in level 2 and then about twice in levels 3 and 4 each), it did frustrate me a bit that it took a long time to respawn. Though that's probably to give a ejected baby a chance to just barely make it while the stork expires? (Though maybe there could've been a button.)
So _maybe_ not really 'for me', but otherwise this is exemplary of PICO-8: Small, retro, juicy and joyful in its own strange experimental way.
Anyways, nice delivery + flappy bird combo. I'm glad there's retry feature so I could complete this game.
The bird feels very good to control and I liked all the ideas for the hazards. the floppy alligators were my fav >:D
That said, this is why I don't live in Florida.
This is a great use of PICO-8, with excellent graphics and sounds effects as well. Great job!
I spent more than 1 hour playing, there were many attempts, to reach this result.
I really liked it!
@poshdan you gave it your best shot! Thank you for playing!
@francis you're right. it seemed like a good idea at the time, because I wanted it to be difficult enough that it couldn't be beaten on the first try. if i had more time I would have added more hazards and enemies instead and tightened up the controls and bird mechanics. Thank you for playing!
@meta-link thank you so much for the kind words and thank you for playing!
@veralos the gators are my favorite part too and i'm glad folks like them, I spent nearly half the jam trying to get them right!! Thank you for playing!
@lcstark There are dozens of us! lol Thanks for giving it your best shot and I'm glad you stuck wihth it long enough to effectively see all of the game content