I have to admit, as much as I love it, I also have a problem with it. I might've fallen into the trap of "investment". My problem is not the lack of programming skills. I've been programming stuff since forever, professionally since 2008. Maybe this is why I pick tools that should serve me in the long term.
Pico-8 is great and all, but I don't want to do Pico-8 games forever. I am afraid of the switch to the next technology. Of limitations that will force me to change my toolkit when I want to go further. So I pick something higher-level. And since I go with frameworks rather than engines, I'm trying to make myself a template for my next games while making tutorials and smaller things.
Damn, so many challenges ;-)
PS. I think the title of the second table is incorrect ;-)
Thank you Maurice! Indeed I really see your point and I understand your approach.
Coming from programming experience may instantly reflect PICO-8 limitations as you tend to think on bigger systems within an engineering mindset.
But from my perspective, someone thinking about gamedev without that experience could have a better understanding of systems and mechanics when they deal with an environment like this and limited doesn’t mean simple, physics and collisions (well done) are interesting challenges.
Actually I was also thinking (in the future) to use a framework like Love2D to just have pure code and have even more fun 🙂
I also thought about Love. Recently I picked up Rust and Macroquad (shiny object syndrome) and playing around with it. But I gotta admit, it's not the collision nor my ambition that make me feel stuck. It's the necessity of tackling things topics (keyboard driven menus, game state management, etc.) without proper tutorials that makes me stuck...
Excellent article!
I have to admit, as much as I love it, I also have a problem with it. I might've fallen into the trap of "investment". My problem is not the lack of programming skills. I've been programming stuff since forever, professionally since 2008. Maybe this is why I pick tools that should serve me in the long term.
Pico-8 is great and all, but I don't want to do Pico-8 games forever. I am afraid of the switch to the next technology. Of limitations that will force me to change my toolkit when I want to go further. So I pick something higher-level. And since I go with frameworks rather than engines, I'm trying to make myself a template for my next games while making tutorials and smaller things.
Damn, so many challenges ;-)
PS. I think the title of the second table is incorrect ;-)
Thank you Maurice! Indeed I really see your point and I understand your approach.
Coming from programming experience may instantly reflect PICO-8 limitations as you tend to think on bigger systems within an engineering mindset.
But from my perspective, someone thinking about gamedev without that experience could have a better understanding of systems and mechanics when they deal with an environment like this and limited doesn’t mean simple, physics and collisions (well done) are interesting challenges.
Actually I was also thinking (in the future) to use a framework like Love2D to just have pure code and have even more fun 🙂
I also thought about Love. Recently I picked up Rust and Macroquad (shiny object syndrome) and playing around with it. But I gotta admit, it's not the collision nor my ambition that make me feel stuck. It's the necessity of tackling things topics (keyboard driven menus, game state management, etc.) without proper tutorials that makes me stuck...