Boba
A short platforming adventure played with just one button! Master the singular control to hop your way through three distinct areas, with a variety of upgrades. Can you find all 15 coins and reach the summit?
Control
Arrow Keys, Z, X: Press the Button
Actions
Press: Begin moving in the direction you are facing
Release: Jump into the air!
Items
Hook: Activates automatically when you jump into a ledge.
Speed Shoes: Press the button just as you land for a burst of speed.
Sticky Glove: Hold the button to stick to walls. Release for a wall jump.
Feather: Jump, then press and release again midair for a double jump.
Balloon: After your double jump, briefly tap to deploy. Pops on contact with any surface. Tap again to pop early.
There may be additional items...
About
This is my first pico8 game, and was made in around one month. Once I had the prototype movement working, I realized how much fun I was having just bouncing around the test area, so I decided to flesh it out with additional levels and a tiny upgrade system. I'm not sure I *can* layer any additional player actions into that singular button.
I certainly ran headlong into pico8's cozy constraints. The project uses all 128 sprite tiles, the entire map area, and 7922 (out of 8192) Lua tokens. It's a tight squeeze, but I made it fit.
Everything was created by my own human hands, including all of the Lua code, pixel art, music and sound effects. I hope you have as much fun playing it as I did making it!
Download
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Comments
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To those of you having trouble with the speed shoes, there's a trick to them: You can press a little bit before landing and they'll activate every time. If you don't want them to activate, get in the habit of holding A right after you jump and keeping it held the whole time you're in the air. No press near landing == normal speed.
This is certainly a frustrating control scheme to internalize, but exploring it was the entire point of this project. :P
I'm getting reports that some browsers are adding a ton of input latency. There's not much I can do about that, and it'll make this game a loooot more finnicky to control. Try a different browser or the native player if you're getting lag. There is no input buffering; the game should be responding to your inputs basically instantly.
what do i do in this section ? am i softlocked ? ive got the dash and the ledge climb but cant get across the gap with them ...
The dash is the solution! The timing here is a little tight. I was battling small screen size and "the player can't ninja their way across this without the necessary upgrade" considerations. Try to release your dash-jump right on the corner of the yellow triangles.
yeah been trying that but even if i can get the dash to trigger it just falls off the platform and gets nowhere need the other side ... do i need to keep the jump button pressed after triggering the dash ?
must have spent a good 30 minutes trying it , about 100 tries and not once been able to pull it off !
not having any lag issues in firefox
Oh, yes! Press as you're landing and keep it held. Once you release to jump you should maintain that momentum. You'll even keep your faster momentum after bonking into a wall, which can help with setting up a few of the leaps more consistently. But if you fall off a platform without jumping, you lose your dash speed.
I can tell this mechanics really needs coyote time. I'll do a quick revision pass later (I need to fix a few errors and frustrations I didn't catch during my own testing) and I might try to sneak that in when I do.
ok so sadly im giving up on this game which is a shame as i love the style and the art but that dash jump is just too hard to pull off accurately - half of the time it doesnt seem to trigger then the other half of the time it doesnt work properly and you just end up falling off a platform and dying or having to do the whole section again which is way too annoying .
i dont mind when levels get tough but when the core mechanics are so fiddly / dont work half the time then thats too much for me .
Great Game!!!