Trireme by MarekkPie
Build the most technologically advanced fleet in all of Greece in TRIREME, a fast-paced shipbuilding sim! Take a ship spec and build it quickly to earn points.
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How to play
A trireme is made up on individual ship sections: the front, middle sections with or without a sail, and the tail. Once an order comes in, you start working from front to tail, following the on-screen instructions to make the necessary materials for each section. Your active section will be highlighted yellow underneath it in the work order, and will turn green on completion. Each work item in a section requires one material to start (either a tree or a sail). Complete all the sections to finish the order and earn bonus points.
Tip: Don't forget to check which color the sail is and apply the correct paint prior to painting!
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Controls
Uses the PICO-8 control scheme
(O) - Z,C,N
(X) - X,V,M
Directions - Arrow keys
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Note: the source is in the .p8 file you can download at the bottom of the Web link. If you have PICO-8, just open the file. Otherwise, just open it in any text editor; it'll be at the top of the file under the "__lua__" section.
#ldjam
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Changelog:
8/31:
* Swapped (O) and (X) to /actually/ reflect how they are written in the PICO-8 documentation (d'oh);
* It was possible with luck and really fast fingers to overflow the score (PICO-8 numbers only go to 32k). Reduced ship-length score multiplier, but added bonus points for each sail section;
https://twitter.com/mkosler
---
How to play
A trireme is made up on individual ship sections: the front, middle sections with or without a sail, and the tail. Once an order comes in, you start working from front to tail, following the on-screen instructions to make the necessary materials for each section. Your active section will be highlighted yellow underneath it in the work order, and will turn green on completion. Each work item in a section requires one material to start (either a tree or a sail). Complete all the sections to finish the order and earn bonus points.
Tip: Don't forget to check which color the sail is and apply the correct paint prior to painting!
---
Controls
Uses the PICO-8 control scheme
(O) - Z,C,N
(X) - X,V,M
Directions - Arrow keys
---
Note: the source is in the .p8 file you can download at the bottom of the Web link. If you have PICO-8, just open the file. Otherwise, just open it in any text editor; it'll be at the top of the file under the "__lua__" section.
#ldjam
---
Changelog:
8/31:
* Swapped (O) and (X) to /actually/ reflect how they are written in the PICO-8 documentation (d'oh);
* It was possible with luck and really fast fingers to overflow the score (PICO-8 numbers only go to 32k). Reduced ship-length score multiplier, but added bonus points for each sail section;
https://twitter.com/mkosler
| HTML5/Source | https://mkosler.itch.io/trireme |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=11038 |
Still a good game though :)
Pretty good game. Thanks!
* Larger instructions. The arrow key graphics are a little hard to parse, especially when animated. There's plenty of room for gorgeous pixel art on the stage.
* Have the ships do something. Maybe ships are sailing your way, and your ships fight them. The goal is to push the enemy off the left of the screen with your own ships. Larger ships can deal more damage and last longer, but take longer to make, and small ships are quick to make but do less damage.
* A cursor showing where you are on the ship. I think those little dots underneath *sort of* do that, but it seems like you have to do multiple things for some dots, and it felt a little confusing. (Luckily, the onscreen instructions help zip through that.)
Overall, a fun little diversion. Enjoyed it.
Had to press Z to start...
Not sure i GET IT! Found myself just hit the keys and see if something happened.
* Agreed. The arrows (and buttons) are glyphs that the PICO developer added in to represent PICO-8's "controller," but there's a lot of confusion about it (especially that (X)=keyboard Z). As far as pixel art, it wasn't until less than two hours to go that I knew there were more than 64 potential sprites! Would have been so much prettier if I knew I had more sprite space!
* The concept is based off a game called "Cook, Serve, Delicious," where you are a chef taking orders from customers. I didn't want the player to have to make decisions; I just wanted twitchy action. There's probably room to make that connect to it being ship "orders" visually.
* You're right, that's what the dots are showing. White=not complete, yellow=currently working on, green=completed.
Took me a while to figure out what was even going on, but it was cool! Like some other people said I think if the UI was rearranged and enlarged it could help(theres a good amount of 'unused' space, and stuff like the island doesn't really need to be there, etc.) Nice simple music!
Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description. (you can already find several games from the jam there)
Very twitchy! Not much else to say that hasn't been said. Very good job!
High Score - 22090
Some endgame screen with ability to start again wouldn't hurt.
I think you mixed up the buttons btw; The PICO-8 "O" and "X" buttons are usually mapped to "Z" and "X", not the other way around. It's still a bit confusing that Z is O, but at least X is X!
Just looked at the manual again. I'll swap it when I get off work this evening.
Good use of the PICO-8 graphics and sound. Great job!
Nice sound effects and music)
Hard to understand controls for the first time, but second...)
I like how confusing the player gets at first play... I guess it must be intentional. :)
Also, nice graphics and idea. I still think making a PICO-8 within 48 hours is a lot of work, and it's a nice job you did.
And I've managed to build 2 ships within the time limit too! Especially with half the ships being 8 length, that's quite an achievement! :)
If you still want to improve, I'd probably try to make the game a bit more focused... for example by replacing all those lights by 1 arrow showing the yellow light position, tell the user the real keys instead of the pico-8 buttons, change the timer or ships lengths so that you can finish 4-6 ships in a run.
But even now, it's a nice game. Well done!