A-Club PICO-8 Puzzle

A PICO-8 Game

The purpose of this game is to have a quick intro to 4 Core (Variables, Functions, Loops, and Conditionals) which will be used at the booth for A-club.

(Instructions for the game can be found here in our cool gitpitch slide!)

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• Level 1
  Focuses on introduction to programming with PICO-8 and variables. The section for variables should show the player that variables can contain strings, numbers, and boolean.

  The variables could be done like so:

  Variable Type	User Input	Example
  String	Name	name = bob
  Number	Age or Color Choice	favorite_color = 00
  Boolean	Game Start	start_game = false

• Level 2
  Focuses on functions and conditionals by having the character not move at the start and require the player to code the conditional statement for a key press and call the function for movement.

  The user editable code could be done like:

  if btn(0) then 
      move(left)
  end
  
  function move(direction)
      -- code for movement with direction param
  end

• Level 3
  Focuses on showing how loops work. The puzzle could be a color game where they have to draw the same amount of blocks/sprite with a certain color using a loop.

  For example, let's have 4 blue blocks and the player also needs to draw the same color with the same amount using a loop. Here's some pseudocode... User editable code:

  for blue = 1,4 do
      create_blue_block()
  end

  Logic code:

  function create_blue_block()
      -- code for blue block drawing
      count_blue_block += 1
  end
  
  function complete_level_3()
      if count_blue_block == 4 then
          -- function for going to complete level screen
      end
  end

• Level 4 and up
  These levels could focus on solving problems with the other tools in PICO-8 including the sprite sheet, map editor, and sfx.

  Example activities that could be done here:

  1. Choosing a character from the sprite sheet with a variable and [optional] quick customization of their character.
  2. Solving how to get through a certain part of the map with an unaccessible key/door by adding "solid" sprites.
  3. Finding where the key for the door is using 3 sfx sounds for 3 proximities such as "Near, Close, and On Top of the Key, Press X."