Space Ranger
WARNING:
This game may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Controls:
- Move: Arrow Keys
- Shoot: X
- Bomb: Z
- Pause: Enter
Instructions:
- Defeat 30 waves of space pirates and recover the doubloons they leave behind.
- The ring around your ship indicates the range which will attract doubloons
- Destroying space pirates will increase your score multiplier. Letting a space pirate escape the area or taking damage will reset this multiplier to zero
- Collecting 100 doubloons will grant you a temporary shield which will absorb damage once without resetting your combo
- Once you take 3 hits your ship will be destroyed
Power Ups:
- Powerups will appear throughout the run, cycling between three abilities: Power, Option, and Magnet. Powerups can be upgraded 3 times, after which bomb pickups will appear in its place.
- Power (P): Increases the fire rate and potential damage of your ship
- Option (O): Options will orbit around your ship, firing additional shots, widening your range.
- Magnet (M): Increases your pickup range, allowing you to collect doubloons easier. It will also increase the range of any Options that orbit your ship.
- Bomb (B): Bombs will clear all enemies and their projectiles on the screen., awarding additional points for each enemy and projectile cleared. You start with 3 bombs.
Alternate Color Palettes:
You can select from 19 different color palettes in the Pause menu (press Enter). some of which have been curated by content creators who have supported the game throughout its development. Check out their pages!
- "Chanland" chosen by BoopieChan
- "Hokunnie" chosen by HyruleDragon
- "Raikin" chosen by TheRaikin
- "Diante" chosen by DianteClark
Additional Info:
Design, programming, art, sfx, and music done by me. Completed in ~3 months.
Special thanks to Krystman, everyone who playtested, and the wonderful PICO-8 community -- this project would not be here without you.
If you'd like to support this game or future projects, donations are greatly appreciated. 100% of the proceeds go to feeding my addiction to game development :)
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Space Ranger v1.35 - New enemies, boss enhancements, and more!Jun 06, 2024
- Space Ranger v1.2 - QoL UpdateMay 17, 2024
- Added Space Ranger OSTMay 13, 2024
- Space Ranger v1.1 - Major Update!May 13, 2024
Comments
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This game is absolute GOLD!!!! I love this game. So fun! Great variety of enemies, powerups, and a nice spin on difficulty for non shmup players like myself. Im stepping into these pico-8 games and this one has definitely got a place in my heart! Everything about this game scream nostalgia for me. I hope to see more on this or even a sequel. From what I've read pico-8 has limitations on space, but I look forward to seeing more games from you!
Wow, thank you for the kind words! I'm glad people are still enjoying Space Ranger.
The space limitations was killer but also had a lot to do with how the final design / aesthetic came out, so it was beneficial in some ways. I do want to try my hand at a larger/expandable project, either in Picotron or another platform and am experimenting with different ideas right now.
Thanks again for checking the game out!
Anytime!
Very cool game! At first I thought it was infinite until I hit the boss (who died very quickly lol)
My one bit of feedback is that it would be nice if the "weapon" upgrade made the shot visually look stronger instead of just upping the damage. You could do this either by having chunkier/wider bullet sprites, or simply by upping the fire rate instead of damage. Consider increasing bullet speed a bit as you upgrade too -- it's not really much of an advantage but it will look/feel stronger to the player.
Hey! Thanks for playing and providing your feedback. I agree the sprite should change when powering up. This has been fixed in the latest update so you should now see a visual change on each power increase.
Regarding shot speed, this is actually technically already in the game -- the closer you are to the top of the screen, the faster you shoot, so as to reward riskier playing. The effect may be a bit too subtle though.
I'll definitely consider this for future versions!
I did notice that yeah! I wasn't sure if it was a shot limit or something else, the fact it's based on height on the screen explains it, as it didn't seem like I was shooting faster just from getting close to enemies.
I played through with the new changes -- the new bullet sprites feel really nice, good work! Definitely feels like more of a power upgrade even though it's just an aesthetic change, very satisfying.
I also like the new coin design, they're a lot easier to distinguish from the enemy bullets.
One thing I noticed is I don't seem to be able to collect the powerups as they're leaving the screen -- sometimes I miss the one I want in the rotation so I wait for it to come around again, but the powerup is too low to collect even though it's still visible.
Interesting. I'll do some testing on my end to see if I can reproduce.
I'd like to gather some more data on this -- Does the issue occur when the powerup sprite is still fully visible? Or is it partially out of view when you're unable to collect it?
I'm not sure -- I think it was still mostly on screen but starting to leave. It might just be that the hit box is a bit smaller than I was expecting
Gotcha. Yeah I'll check it out and see if I can make some adjustments.
Quick side note -- You do amazing work btw. Absolutely incredible shmup you made with Praxis Fighter -- You're one of the folks who inspired me to feel comfortable about making a single level shmup experience.
I would love to finish a roguelike that even comes close to the elegance of Into Ruins as well!
Hey, just wanted to follow up and let you know I was able to reproduce the powerup issue you mentioned and it should now be fixed in the v1.2 update.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Fun game! I like the art, nice colors! The upgrades are fun with how they tie into each other, and the explosions are satisfying. However, i do have a couple gripes. First of all, the names for the upgrades are strange, like "tractor beam" doesn't really make sense as it increases pickup radius? Would just call it pickup. Same with weapon, if you called it power and made the shots thicker if you get it it would make more sense. Plus shields should just be called options so that it makes more sense. It's not like they shield you from bullets, right? Then there's the scoring with the chaining, which is fine! But one thing that confuses me is the fact that the score just seems to always go up? Like if i stop shooting and not grab any medals it still just goes up? Kinda strange and not really satisfying. Other than that, fun game!
Hey! Thanks for trying it out and providing your feedback.
I struggled with what to call some of the powerups (originally the pickup was called Magnet, but I changed it to Tractor Beam so it would stay thematic. To your point, though, it may just be more confusing. Would Magnet make more sense? Or Pickup instead?
I plan to go back and adjust the Weapon / Power so that it does change sprites, I just am not great at sprite work so I couldn't find a sprite I was satisfied with at the time.
I agree Shields could be called options, though they do also damage enemies on collision. I only recently learned of the term Options for those and thought it might be confusing to newcomers, but perhaps it's more confusing not calling them Options. I'll give this some thought.
I don't recall the scoring working the way you're describing, but will do some experimenting and follow up on this.
Thanks again for the insight and for playing the game!
Hey thanks! I think that options are indeed a bit weird, maybe you could do something like buddies or helpers? I noticed they do collision damage too, awesome! Power and magnet are fine yeah, but if you want it to be more thematic, maybe you could do something like cannon and lookout? idk. If the score works differently, then how does it work?
I realized shortly after I posted what you were talking about with the constantly increasing score -- this was originally intended to be a "survival" score of sorts, so you would be rewarded for staying alive longer. If it diminishes the satisfaction of the game however it's something I'll need to go back and revisit.
I discovered a couple of bugs that need sorting out anyway so I may end up revamping how scoring works a bit.
Aah i see, that is a cool idea, but i think you should have a normal score for enemy kills and medals on top of that
It's looks and feels great!
Thank you for playing! Glad you enjoyed it :)