The Flipside of Gaming
I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, but one thing I can post about today is Lexaloffle’s Picotron, kind of a successor to their Pico8, except instead of a fantasy console, it’s a fantasy workstation, with tools for making games that run under it. It’s currently about $12. Here’s Lazy Devs’ introductory video (one hour long):
That should be good enough for now. Maybe by tomorrow my brain will have unpacked enough to say more of interest!
The Pico-8 is the most popular fantasy game console by a wide margin. We’ve already linked to Josh “cortex” Millard’s Ennuigi, which is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia entry.
Ennuigi was more of an extended joke than a game, though, while Pico-8 Moon Patrol is no joke; it’s substantially harder than the original arcade game, putting you up against harder obstacles earlier. Sometimes it doesn’t feel fair when a flying saucer drops a bomb at such an angle that neither speeding up nor slowing down could have avoided it in time, although it’s possible, in this version, to shoot down the bomb before it strikes you.
Give it a try! This video is my best run to date, getting through the first three sectors:
pahammond’s Moon Patrol for Pico-8 (lexoffle.com)