Tastebud Tap Dancer

Tastebud Tap Dancer

You've been swallowed by a giant serpent but you're trying to make the best of it.

• Arrows to MOVE and JUMP
• control-r to RESET

• Collect hearts to GAIN LIFE
• Touch throwing stars to LOSE LIFE
• Going off either side of the screen IS DEADLY

Do not die and have fun! The game gets harder over time.

About

This Pico-8 game was written in just 500 characters for #TweetTweetJam 9

This is the exact length of a mastodon post. You can see me post it on mastodon!

Changelog

v1 : the version that started it all

v2 : trimmed a few chars and fixed two exploits:

• You could run off the right side of the screen and never die
• The left side would kill you but only if you were not holding the jump button

The Code

I have the full 500 character source code below, but if you want to learn how this game works, I have a very heavily commented version of the code here.

This code was written in Pico-8 0.2.6b

p={x=9,y=9,v=0,t=1}l={p}h=3s=0a=abs::_::cls()if(a(p.x-64)>63)h=0
if(h>0)s+=.04b=btn()if(b<4)p.v=max(p.v,1)
if(rnd()<s/999+.02)add(l,{x=122,y=0,v=0,t=4-rnd(1.1)},1)
for i=0,128do line(i,87-sin(i/60+s)*9+sin(s)*i/9,i,128,14)end
for o in all(l)do
t=o.t
o.v+=.3o.y+=o.v
j=0z=o.x
while(pget(z,o.y)>9)o.v=1o.y-=1o.x=z-t/2j=1
d=a(p.x-o.x)+a(p.y-o.y)<7and t>1if(d)h-=t\1*2-5
?("웃♥✽")[t],o.x-3,o.y-5,6+t
if(o.x*h<1or d)del(l,o)end
?"♥"..h.."\n"..s,9,9
if(b*j>3)p.v=-5
b=b%4if(b%3>0)p.x+=(b*2-3)*2
flip()goto _