Bloodfall

Bloodfall is a, work-in-progress, first-person shooter featuring rogue-like elements made for the PICO-8 fantasy console. It uses a combination of my previous Mode-7 implementation, together with a brand new raycast engine inspired by the classic Wolfenstein 3D engine to push the console to it’s absolute limits.

The graphics engine is able to render wall textures of different heights, an animated floor and ceiling texture, a physics based particle system, and even moving sprites. Especially the latter ones were quite tricky to get running efficiently, but I am happy with the solution right now, sitting at around 80% CPU usage in a busy scene. The maps themselves can be easily assembled with PICO-8’s map editor together with a proprietary (and still quite inefficient) data format for placing NPCs and objects.

Gameplay wise it is a first-person shooter where the player is able to fire magical missiles at an assortment of enemies. Health and Mana can be replenished using potions, which are scattered across procedurally generated dungeons. Completing three dungeons without dying grants the player access to the final boss of the area, which is an intense bullet hell fight against a single strong enemy.

I have a rough outline for the story and world surrounding the events, which the NPCs dialogue already hints at. There is still a long way to go, with more features like a leveling system, an actually helpful dodge button and more acts still missing, but as they say: these things, they take time