DriveCross

DriveCross is my first foray into game development and it has been a ton of fun. I created this by watching Krystian Majewski from Lazy Devs in the Basic Shmup tutorial. I always wanted to learn how to make a game and stumbled onto Pico8 and then the tutorial series. This game has been a great first step into learning more about Pico8. Looking forward to creating more games and engaging with this community!

Controls

Use the arrow keys to move up, down, left, and right

x = shooting main bullets

z = shooting bombs (when collected from enemies)

Rules

• Survive 10 waves of ruthless enemies and defeat the Cyclops Eye to win the game!
• You start off with zero bombs and can only hold three.
• If you have 3 bombs and don't use them and collect another, you will get 5000 points!
• If you rescue 1 astronaut, you will get an upgraded bullet.
• If you get hit while you have the upgraded bullet, you will lose it.
• If you rescue 4 astronauts, you will gain a life.
• If you have all your lives and rescue 4 astronauts, you will get 5000 points!

Behind The Scenes

This has been quite the journey. One of the many things that I struggled with is the limited size of the sprite sheet. I originally wanted to create a gigantic final boss that would take up the complete top half of the screen. I created it, but then realized that if I wanted to animate it, I pretty much shot myself in the foot. Another "learning opportunity" was music. I'm definitely going to have to spend more time getting used to it. The ending boss music came from the tutorial, but it inspired me to spend more time with Pico8 music. One of the last things I tried to do was with the Start Screen. I wanted to have a gradual white flash go off then have the Start Screen appear, but that was difficult for me. I experimented with timing and cls(7) and it kind of worked, but didn't look great. I took it out and just let the Start Screen show up.

Credits

A huge thank you to Krystian Majewski! I have learned so much and have much more to learn. Excited to keep going and make more games.