PICO Space

2023-06-12に共有


v1.2
Defend the animals of the galaxy from the space weevil invasion in your grandad's space taxi!

Check the notice boards at space stations for prospective passengers. Gain rewards when they're delivered safely and discover how to defeat the weevil menace.

The galaxy is quickly becoming a more and more dangerous place so be careful out there - with 50-70 systems and some questionable government policies an animal needs to look after themselves!

Please report any bugs or if something is unclear below. Feedback helps me improve and is always welcome :)

I recommend a gamepad if you have one, but keys work fine too. Holding the X and O buttons together is useful to use the ship flip ability successfully. On mobile, I've found swiping my thumb backwards and forwards between the X and O buttons works okay, but it does seem easier to play with keys or a gamepad (to me at least).

Use the up and down directions to highlight an option and X to select it.

NOTE: THIS DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK IN THE BROWSER - YOU WILL NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE STANDALONE PICO-8 CONSOLE VERSION TO LOAD FROM SAVE CODES OR ACCESS THE GAME THROUGH SPLORE
THE GAME WILL BEHAVE UNPREDICTABLY (PROBABLY CRASH) IF A MALFORMED CODE OR OTHER DATA IS PASTED INTO IT

Please tell me if you think these ratings aren't very correct so I can try to tweak them

(the following is an extract from the dog-eared manual you found in the glove compartment of your grandad's ship)

Congratulations on your purchase of a Farwilre P1C0 Star Taxi!

Your ship will enable you to fly anywhere within a system's boundary by directing it with the arrow keys or control stick (if fitted). Be careful of flying into a system's sun as there may be undesirable explosive consequences.

Select the System Map (with Up, Down and X) from the options shown.

Solar systems are large so to avoid excessive journey time it is advised to utilise your ship's hyperdrive from the System Map (where traffic laws permit).

To do this:

Note: be sure to peruse the System Map in a safe location to avoid possible accidents while it has your attention. Last year 45% of ship accidents happened while pilots were viewing their map screens - don't let the next one happen to you!

Systems in PICO Space are linked by Hyperspace Wyrmholes (of as yet unknown origin). These can be used to traverse between stars even in ships that are unequipped with an interstellar-capable drive. Thus to travel to another system simply fly into the centre of a wyrmhole and your ship will travel through hyperspace to a point in the system indicated in the wyrmhole's name.

If you know which adjacent star you wish to travel to, it is easiest to find where the wyrmhole to it is by using the System Map.

To navigate about the greater galaxy and hence determine which wyrmholes to use it is advisable to examine the ship's Galaxy Scanner.

The Galaxy Scanner will open centred on your current location - shown by the ship icon and expanding circle indicator. Adjacent stars (i.e. those which are connected by a pair of wyrmholes) have lines drawn between them. Systems adjacent to your current location have green lines drawn to them. Corresponding wyrmholes should be visible on the System Map.

The view and cursor in the centre may be moved using the direction keys. The currently highlighted system will be the closest to the cursor position.

The galaxy is quite large so for optimal viewing it may be necessary to zoom the view in or out by holding the X key and using the Up and Down directions to change the scale of the view.

If your ship is fitted with an Interstellar Drive then it is possible to hyperjump (without traversing a wyrmhole) to adjacent systems by highlighting them with the cursor in this view and pressing O, Z or C.

At any time your current status can be checked from the Main Menu by selecting this option.

The screen shows:

Should you be unfortunate enough to encounter a hostile threat on your travels your P1C0 Space Taxi is fitted with a standard P3W Blaser; a small but adequate defensive weapon.

When docked at a space station the following standard options will be available:

Waiting passengers are listed here for an enterprising space taxi owner to transport to their desired destination.

Use the Up, Down and X keys to select a passenger that you wish to transport. Be careful to choose a journey you can complete - an animal never backs out of a deal!

Choose from a range of desirable colour schemes to customise your Farwilre pride and joy!

The station will launch you back to space so you may continue on your journeying.

extract ends

If you are not sure what to do:

Good Luck, Captain!

UI colour changes

fade effect improved

screen shake added

UI improvements: menus

bad loads shouldn't crash the game so badly

a little music for the title screen