April 2017: Roundup of small free games and criticism (Part 2)
This week I’m finishing the roundup of games from April that I started last week.
More from Ludum Dare 38
I was going to wrap up my list of interesting games from last month’s Ludum Dare with one more PICO-8 cart: Around the World in 80 Seconds by 4KbShort.
It’s a cute and clever interpretation of the jam’s theme, “A Small World.” I also like how it functions as a parody of Inkle’s 80 Days.
While searching for the link a week later, I found that someone else had the same idea for Ludum Dare: Around the World in 80 Seconds by Shaolin Dave.
It’s also cute for different reasons. I like the parallax objects in the foreground and background, and the nice pixel landmarks identifying the many places along your journey. (I think the mimes by the Eiffel Tower were throwing baguettes at me.) (I also learned that the whole world is a continuous, traversable landmass.)
That’s all for Ludum Dare 38. My thanks and congratulations go out to all the devs who devoted a weekend to beautiful creative practice and experimentation.
More random PICO-8 things
###Dusk Child###
Apparently Sophie Houlden made this one forever ago and I just missed it until last month. It makes pretty great use of PICO-8’s visual limitations to pull off a Metroid-like aesthetic, especially these mysterious and expressive statues she illustrated with just 3 colors:
It also has funny moments, difficult platforming, nice puzzles, and cool particle effects for waterfalls, fire, and magic orbs.
###Japanese Food & Drink Sim 2017###
This cart is just… adorable?? It’s simply a one-screen walking sim where you can check out 4 different food vendors and read descriptions of things one might eat in Japan. The creator, @blueninj0r, wrote that “I set myself a target of finishing something within approximately a day of effort. The eating microgame never made it into this minigame.” So I’m including it in this roundup for 2 reasons:
- Look at what you can do in a single day with PICO-8! You should be learning PICO-8 right this instant!!
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It’s a lovely example of the wide range of functions games can fulfill beyond the usual norms. We could have a genre of one-day vignette games like this one from all over the world showcasing cultural features of different cities and communities! (Maybe I’ll make a game jam?)
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