I just got the Voxatron and PICO-8 bundle. This is how my kids will learn to program! I love everything about these projects. I just started working on a Robotron: 2084/Smash TV style game idea with LÖVE but I think using Voxatron is going to be way more fun for me. The first cartridge in the list is a Robotron: 2084 style game.
One question about Voxatron: Can it run on something small (eg. a Raspberry Pi, Gigabyte Brix, or NUC) and played through a regular HDMI TV? And how about using it with a game controller? It seems like this would make a great little "console".
Saw big pixels. Expected something 2600-esque. Was very pleasantly surprised - smooth and fun!
If I may be lazy and ask instead of reading all the docs right now - how much processing power would it take to implement PICO-8? I know you say there's RasPI support but this feels like it deserves to run on a proper 8-bit micro, not just a small Linux SoC.
It use lua for the logic so i thing it will need a bit more processing power than that.
Maybe it will run on something supported by elua: http://www.eluaproject.net/overview/status
Good job. Just for the clarification, it is well a voxel engine, but not a "2D" one as it makes no sense (voxel means VOlume piXEL, which is a 3D unit box, compared to a 2d unit-rectangle for the pixel), but a real 3d voxel engine.
The good old method to make a voxel like that (specifically, a terrain) is to iterate over the screen column then to iterate over the 'z' coordinate in (3d) world-space. Those loops, for screen space, for world space, is quite an interesting hack of early graphics programming.
However, in the case of this game, it seems the renderer works more like a for x-world for z-world, draw square.
it's actually a full 2d voxel made only of rectangles, using the classic position_(x|y) / position_z * focale method, and drawing them from farthest to nearest z :)
Also PICO8 cartridges are PNG images with the image in the style of an old cartridge (Example: http://www.lexaloffle.com/gfx/jelpi.p8.png). That almost make them feel like something physical and perfectly fits into the theme. I think that's the smartest design choice I have seen in recent years.
Oh, scheming up ways to get me back in the game, eh? At first, I thought it was a glitch or something that can't be what it appears. Then, I find you actually added God Mode to the game. ;)
