Picofender

PICOFENDER

Picofender is my personal love poem to the 1980s arcade shooter and to Defender in-particular. It is also the first game I've ever built beyond just simple demos <200 lines of code. Developed solo using Pico-8, this captures a number of features from Defender, but kicks it up a notch with faster speed, better frame rates, multi-layer parallax scrolling, a shield, achievements, and more. 

INTRUCTIONS

1. Push [LEFT] and [RIGHT] for your shift to thrust left and right. You can travel as far as you like in either direction, the world wraps around.

2. Push [UP] and [DOWN] to move your ship up or down inside the playfield.

3. Push the  'Z' button to shoot lasers.

4. Push the  'X' button to deploy your shields.

5.  Push 'Z' and 'X' to use a bomb. You have three bombs to start, but you can earn more bombs with bonus points. You can earn more bombs at 20k, 40k,  and 80k points and for each 80k points thereafter.

6.  Shields make your ship invulnerable while deployed, but your use of the shield is limited. Use the shield too much and your ship will explode! 

7. Watch the blue bar at near the top of the playfield, which shows how much shield power you have remaining. The shield indicator will turn red and warn you before you explode. 

8. In 'Arcade Mode' you have three lives to start. You can earn more lives at  20k, 40k,  and 80k points and for each 80k points thereafter. Score as many points as you can. 

9. In 'Deadline Mode' you have unlimited lives but only three minutes to score as many points as you can. 

10. Watch the blue shards that eject from downed enemies. Collecting blue shards increases your score multiple, increasing the number of points you get for each kill. 

11. Be careful, if you die, your score multiple resets back to 1. 

12. Save the humans! The evil picoaliens are trying to capture the humans walking around at the bottom of the screen. If you shoot an alien while it has a human in its clutches it will fall. 

13. If a human falls just a bit, they will survive. However, if a human falls from a great height, they can only survive if you catch them on the way down. The player gets bonus points for every human saved.

14. Don't kill the humans! Don't let all the humans get captured.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Can you get all the achievements?

THANKS FOR PLAYING!!

Please let me know what you think in the comments. Follow me on Twitter, check out my website.

CREDITS

Programming, Art, Sound, and Music by Jon Loiterman, Sunbear Interactive.

Special Thanks To: Rob Bastholm, @ravikanodia, @2DArray, and @fsouchu.

Inspiration from: The Vid Kidz — Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar.

This game is not affiliated with Defender and is not  licensed by or affiliated with Williams Entertainment, Midway Entertainment, or Warner Bros.