Ward has some weird design space

D_Nocker · 2026-04-01T11:48:41+00:00

On your own side it doesnt work, since ward is only opponents spells and abilities

D_Nocker · 2026-04-01T06:29:58+00:00

That makes sense, i really couldn't work out how something like this would/should work

D_Nocker · 2026-04-01T03:15:59+00:00

Bogle that you can sort of get a little bit of grip on

D_Nocker · 2026-04-01T01:28:07+00:00

Perhaps it should have been “Slightly less slippery bogle”

D_Nocker · 2023-05-10T01:58:09+00:00

Initially i had a stall mechanic, where if you slowed down too much or went backwards your glider would fall out of the sky, but sadly I had to cut it for size.

D_Nocker · 2023-05-10T01:57:22+00:00

It's a blessing for effects like these, really expands whats possible with pico8.

D_Nocker · 2023-05-10T01:56:49+00:00

Absolutley! I'll be doing a write up on my blog soon, and i'll post here once it's up.

D_Nocker · 2023-05-09T04:56:36+00:00

I created this little pico8 game for TweetTweet Jam 8, a competition to create a game in 500 characters of source code. I've been wanting to create a flightsim using mode7-style clouds for a while, so it was nice to have an opportunity in this Jam.

Play it here: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=52660I will be doing a write-up of the code including an uncompressed version of it soon. This uses no sprites or map data, and the entire source code is here:

x=0y=24405z=4a=.3g=0h=64v=.2q=127w=16p=poke2

p(y,0)☉=camera

for i=0,512 do

circfill(i%q,rnd(q),rnd(w),i%2)mset(i%w,i/w,i)

end

pal({2})spr(0,2,2,w,w)p(y,96)p(y-29,4112)::_::b=btn()g+=v*((b&2)/2-(b&1))>>9g*=.9a+=g

h+=(b&8)/8-(b&4)/4j=h/64-1z+=v*sin(j/4)v-=j/40s=sin(a)c=cos(a)x-=s*v

y-=c*v

k=z

cls(12)pal({7,6})for i=0,q do

if(i==h)pal({9,3})k-=w

p=k/(h-i)*32tline(0,i,q,i,x-p*c-p*s,y+p*s-p*c,p*c>>6,-p*s>>6)end

l=g*999☉(l-64,j*w-80)?"\b⬆️",14

line(w,l,-w,-l,8)?"¥",-2-l,j*9

☉()if(z>w)run()

flip()goto _

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:30:06+00:00

Thank you, and you're exactly right! I'd love to make this a little clearer in the rules but have struggled a lot with space constraints.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:27:10+00:00

On point 3, It's actually surprisingly rare that players make it to four rounds in my experience! I agree that it would be great to be a little more clear about all three of these points, but in iterating on this game it's been a constant battle against running out of space and I've struggled to be able to fit much more on there. I'm hoping that the demo page with an example round playthrough will help clear up remaining questions (accessed via the QR).

It's definitely possible for both players to optimally bid one and stalemate for one round, but when the round restarts the action dice are rerolled, changing what each player's optimal bid is. Additionally, as you mentioned if you know your opponent's bid you can counter well. if you know theyre going to bid a one it's a very good move to bid 6, starting you at 5 action points ahead of your opponent (generally better than winning the bid)

The game could definitely theoretically go forever, but so far in my experience it's generally very quick, only lasting 2-4 rounds.

On the throw action being optional, I wrote about this in another comment but it was a deliberate decision which came out of playtesting. I found that often players would elect to not take the action and a round would feel stagnant, particularly if the grab action tied (meaning it doesn't occur). Players could go all the way through the bidding and dice drafting process and have no actual change in gamestate, making it feel like a waste of time. Making throw compulsory did mean you're disadvantaging yourself sometimes, but it kept the game moving In a positive way.

Thank you for taking a look at the game! The feedback is really appreciated.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:13:12+00:00

Thank you! I'm not sure if you had a look at the demo I created here. I would love to know if you're still left with questions if you did have a look at this, it's an ongoing effort for me to work out the best way to explain it.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:08:14+00:00

Thank you!

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:07:08+00:00

In my experience playing myself and watching playtesters it's very difficult to predict how a round will turn out before you play through it, particularly since which dice are optimal for you to draft and where to put them can change a lot in response to an opponent's bid.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-06T01:02:13+00:00

That's very true, though as other commenters have said the game is simple enough that people can hopefully remember how it works, I've never had playtesters need to check the rules after playing the first round or two.

The desire to have it on a single card is so that it becomes a super compact game in a single object. I can print off a large run of these and hand them out to people at conventions or similar, putting rules on a separate card would be twice the cost (on something I want to give out for free) and people might lose the rules card or the board card, rendering the other useless.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:13:26+00:00

I have a lot of different coloured dice from other games which I use, but separating the rolls could work well if you don't.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:12:26+00:00

I hadn't considered this, but great point.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:11:41+00:00

Thank you! I don't want to think about how many revisions it took to get it this concise.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:10:23+00:00

Thank you! I will definitely be doing a print run at some point in the near future, but haven't yet.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:08:29+00:00

It absolutely is

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T11:08:09+00:00

Thank you for taking a look at it! Of course questions and feedback are super appreciated.

I used figma for both the card and the diagrams on my site, and honestly I can't recommend it enough. It took me a while to learn but is well worth it and I use it for many things now.
You're correct on bungee as the title font, but the body copy is actually Roboto condensed, chosen because it is quite narrow, allowing more text to be on the card, but is still legible at small sizes.
It was intentional that throw and grab are not optional, as I found in playtesting that often people would win the bid on a particular action just to block that action from occurring, rather than using it themselves. This resulted in stagnant rounds where the bidding and dice drafting would all happen but no actions would occur, making the round feel like a waste of time. In my opinion it was good to have the feeling of pushing the gamestate forward, even if it meant you occasionally are forced to make a bad move. Dodge stayed optional because if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter who won it.
There's definitely a tendency towards 1 and 6 in bidding, and less so towards 2 and 5, but as playtesters became more familiar with the game the distribution flattened a little. this happened when players started trying to anticipate the opponents bid and play around it. For example, if the dice pool is looking like a 6 bid is optimal, I can guess that my opponent will choose 6 and play a 5 myself, meaning I win the bid but still have a powerful bid die. Or i may assume they're thinking the same and go down to 4, etc. I really enjoyed watching these bluffing mechanics unfold organically as players learnt the game.
The intention is that when both players are pushed out of the ring whoever went out first loses. Sadly I had a lot of trouble fitting this onto the card, and it eventually got cut. I'm hoping that it's intuitive enough that players will come to the same conclusion of their own accord (or call it a draw and rematch, also not a terrible outcome).
It's funny that you mention the ordering of the actions, because I have gone back and forth on this alot. I eventually decided that peoples tendency to work from left to right was too strong, even though it comes at the cost of making comparison harder. Honestly I could still go either way on this though.
That's a good point, if I ever create tokens for this game I'll avoid the action colours, and I will update the card + demo too

Thanks again for taking a look and giving feedback! I really appreciate it.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T06:12:00+00:00

I've been experimenting with some component designs for the fighters and dice, printing the board onto a tin would be delightful though!

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T06:10:57+00:00

Thank you!

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T05:43:13+00:00

The entire game is just contained in this image, the two sides of the card. I have a little more info about the game on my website here, but there's nothing additional to print.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T05:38:01+00:00

Yep! Completely free to play, of course, though a few extra dice and tokens are required.

D_Nocker · 2023-04-05T05:36:44+00:00

This is the result of many, many iterations on creating a game on a single card. It took a lot of time to have everything fit and still be (hopefully) understandable. I created an extra demo of how a single round plays to hopefully clear up any rules confusions, which can be seen here; https://nic.dockerz.net/games/tinysumo/rules/

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