Obviously I could have as much flexibility as I want if I learned Vulkan and wrote all the graphics calls myself, but of course that's really hard and time consuming. Pico-8 being restricted makes it easy for me to quickly hack something together just for fun.
For about 25 years there's been a small but dedicated group of people making romhacks for Super Mario World, and the early stuff was pretty quaint -- mostly rearranging tiles and enemy placements to make new levels. But over the years people have done some incredible hacks with custom graphics, enemies, mechanics, you name it. I've played some of them on real Super Nintendo hardware with a Super Everdrive which allows you to load rom files to the cartridge memory from an SD card. It's amazing what some people have made.
It's easy for people to think "Why would you constrain yourself to a DOOM engine when you could use Unity/Godot/Unreal/whatever and have better graphics and more freedom?!", but that's kind of missing the point. The point is figuring out how far you can stretch something, and how to get the most out of something limited.
Blade of Agony, for example, exclusively runs on GZDoom, which while more advanced than the vanilla DOOM engine, is still a lot more limited than Unreal or something, but I think that what they did to really stretch that engine to its fullest extent has made something that's extremely fun, charming, and gives it a distinct look and feel that you simply wouldn't have if you used a "modern" engine.
My level design skills are pretty weak. Being able to partially compensate for that by getting built-in nice character movement, enemy design, etc for free was really really nice. If I wanted to do more 3D stuff right now I'd almost certainly be using something like Mario Builder (I think stuff like Doom custom maps get at a similar idea).
https://uguu-org.itch.io/bouncing-dvd
It's pretty bare bones since I made it just now, feel free to fork it:
happy to answer q's if anyone has one. I haven't built a full pico-8 game since this (my stuff got...weirder...[1]) but I miss it + have been toying around with playdate and picotron ideas.
I've spent some time in residencies as an artist, and it's amazing how much it helped me to open up new perspectives. It'd be nice if there were more of these opportunities to do nonsensical (i.e., non-commercial and non-competitive) things in science. I'm sure it's beneficial to society or at least for the lucky individuals who get accepted there.
The School for Poetic Computation is an experimental school in New York City and online supporting interdisciplinary study in art, code, hardware and critical theory. It's a place for learning and unlearning.
If Recurse sounds fun and magical to you - it is! And you should consider applying :). You can always defer your acceptance until the timing works out. It's free (they make money via job placements, but when I applied I was clear that I wasn't looking for work). I've been meaning to write a blog about my time there - here's what I would want to say:
The best thing that Recurse (RC) did for me was help me get in touch with my own taste. When I arrived I was making games that were pretty "normal" - Flash-style games with high scores and weak themes. While there I got weird. One of my first projects was an abuse of the OpenSearch spec to make a version of Wordle that ran in the Firefox address bar[1].
It was the perfect place to build something like this - folks were encouraging and supportive and interested; it made me realize that people were interested in the type of thing I actually wanted to do. I think I shipped 8 games during my 12 weeks at RC. I wouldn't have started making the types of things I now make without RC. I think plenty of folks have similar experiences across all sorts of techy things, not just games. Kinda like finding product-market fit but for your own interests.
RC also connected me with a bunch of folks that were doing similar things. The community is huge and kind and weird in the best way. It is like a writers' retreat but for people that want to program (and become better programmers).
I am probably coming off as shilling RC hard and I suppose I am (although I'm not being paid for this - I'm just a grateful alum). I'm literally typing this from the RC space right now (I occasionally stop by to chat with people in batch and work).
[1] https://eieio.games/nonsense/implementing-wordle-in-the-fire...
Perhaps it was the location. New York City is expensive, and although I had enough savings to justify taking unpaid leave from work, many things seemed unreasonably priced. New Yorkers also have a reputation for being unfriendly, which added to my feeling of disconnect. Despite hearing glowing reviews from others, I didn’t quite mesh with the environment at Recurse Center, similar to how some visitors to the city might not feel entirely welcomed during certain encounters.
On the bright side, some of the residents and alumni [1] have become quite well-known in the tech industry. You might get lucky and find one of them around the space, which could lead to some really insightful conversations. During my time there, I had the chance to meet people like Robert Lefkowitz [2] and Filippo Valsorda [3], which was pretty cool. They definitely added some interesting perspectives to my experience.
[1] https://www.recurse.com/residents
I absolutely loved Recurse though and credit it for a lot of my development as a programmer and it's my favorite programming community.
Luckily you can also do Recurse remotely now!
https://github.com/pythops/bouncinamation
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35785932 [2023]
I haven't used a recent macOS in years, but I use the following command to get a fullscreen screensaver and locked screen on (Devuan GNU+) Linux. It's probably about as secure as a cheap padlock and flimsy chain or cable to lock a bike.
xtrlock -f & xterm -fullscreen -e 'sleep .05 ; /path/to/file/bouncinamation'
If running with 'xtrlock' you must enter your password first to unlock 'xtrlock', and then 'Esc' to exit 'bouncinamation'.
The 'sleep .05' is to make it work better or more reliably. I don't remember exactly what, but there was some kind of issue that was fixed when I did 'sleep .05' before running 'bouncinamation'.
Obligatory The Office reference.
Dirty Dancing
At first I thought 'Huh?". After clicking the link I see you were referencing the US version of The Office.
Thought I was going crazy for a few secs.
Eventually saw the US office and hated it.
Canadians are culturally stuck between US and Europe, so it can go either way
“Married… With Children” was remade as “Married for Life”
“The Golden Girls” was remade as “The Brighton Belles”
“Catch Phrase” was remade as “Catchphrase”, which seems on point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_television_ser...
Fair warning, you might see a disproportionate number of American-centric references.
Disproportionate, but still a minority in the absolute sense.
It also seems to be on-again-off-again the most streamed TV show in a given year, competing with the likes of Friends, Suits, and Grey's anatomy. I can't find UK stream numbers to compare, but it doesn't seem like it's ever made one of the top 10/25/etc lists that netflix or neilson publishes.
I think the American version is great in its own right (post the dreadful first season remake), but's The Office (US).
In fact I don't see how it ever could hit a a corner exactly.
You are correct.
Both seem obviously false but I’m struggling to think how someone could otherwise have come to your conclusion.
When I was a student I much preferred hacking around with games I actually liked playing already like Skyrim and Minecraft vs. "fantasy" consoles or purely educational systems like Scratch.
Whenever I became more familiar with programming I liked retro systems like the Apple ][ but I think that was inspired by an old comp sci prof who showed us QBASIC.
Source code (pico8): https://github.com/nolenroyalty/put-the-dvd-logo-in-the-corn...
The 2000 noughties/aughties.
Stupid app i made to (colloquially) roll the dice using the dvd screen