picolite is a space trading and combat game for the pico8 fantasy console, based on elite: the new kind (christian pinder, link) from the original classic by david braben and ian bell (link).

flight controls:

left/right - roll
up/down - climb
o - fire
x+left/right - switch between lasers and missiles
x+up/down - accelerate/decelerate
pause menu - hyperspace/auto pilot/ecm/energy bomb

dock controls:

pause menu - change screen
o - select planet
x - launch
up/down - change item/scroll
left/right - sell/buy item

web player:

arrow keys
z/x - o/x
enter - pause

hud - fs (front shield), as (aft shield), ct (cabin temperature), lt (laser temperature), al (altitude), sp (speed), fu (fuel)

music - @gruber_music (the blue danube by strauss)

** under development **

this project is currently under development, if you spot any bugs please let me know. features may change and there will be gameplay and balance issues.

More information

Status	In development
Platforms	HTML5
Rating	Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (4 total ratings)
Author	jamesedge
Genre	Simulation
Made with	PICO-8
Tags	Flight, Space, Trading

Download

pico8 source code 44 kB

Development log

update #001 (bug fix and fast forward)
Oct 08, 2020

Comments

Truncana1 year ago

Awesome conversion! Can you add the possibility to buy new ships? Thank you!

Cue_Ball2 years ago

this is impossible to understand, I have no idea whats happening. i just fly around and green and white things show up on the radar but it doesn't seem to mean anything.

Coffee 'Valen' Bat3 years ago

Although I've never been specially great at Elite, this demake is utterly amazing and lovely to see, I just hope it's still in development, good job fella!

Zivinator3 years ago

This is a great homage to Elite and you have done an amazing job building it in Pico-8. I love this genre of games and I am having a lot of fun playing it!

I did run into a couple of issues:

I can buy more than 20T of cargo (which I think should be the limit), but if I buy more than 20T I become an offender when I re-enter the system. Buying the large cargo bay doesn't seem to make any difference.
I can't buy the fuel scoops. I can pay for them over and over again in the equipment menu but they don't get installed.
Not a bug, but I also very rarely get attacked by pirates which makes the game less exciting IMO.

I'm using the latest version of 64-bit Chrome. I hope that helps.

jamesedge3 years ago

Hi, thanks for the comments. I'll have a look into it. I think I tuned down the ship spawning to help debugging.

Roysterini3 years ago

The mind boggles. This is an astounding achievement. Well done James.

jamesedge3 years ago

thanks - that is a very nice thing to say!

drake_blue4 years ago

This is an amazing achievement - I am in awe. I flew about a bit and shot at some stuff and it was great. I tried (unsuccessfully) to write this kind of thing on an Atari ST back in the early 90s so have some inkling of what's involved.
Couple of things I noticed with the stations:

- the one at Lave disappeared when I got close to it (then I hit it, of course) - perhaps the geometry is clipped/culled by design when it's too close, but thought I'd mention it.

- Also, I jumped to Diso and flew towards the station and it suddenly disappeared entirely and I couldn't find it again. The indicator at the top right of the scanner stopped updating at that point as well. I played elite 2 a lot more than the original previously and I'm a bit confused by what all the UI means so perhaps I'm just misinterpreting that. though

Anyway, looking forward to improving my rating in the future :)

jamesedge4 years ago

thanks! I’ll look into the disappearing stations bug.

jamesedge4 years ago(+1)

update - i had a look into this, it was an issue with deleting objects. it should be fixed - let me know if it reoccurs

drake_blue4 years ago(+1)

Seems fixed - I successfully ~~crashed into~~ docked at a couple of stations just now :)

freds724 years ago

Need to play some more - fantastic premises!

- not sure I understand how to dock (slow speed and that’s it?)

- what is the purpose of the ‘missile’ view at startup?

Couple of bugs so far:

- unable to exit from enter code menu

- crash when going to trade hangar (from start screen)

Will you post link to source? Happy to help on tokens!

jamesedge4 years ago

thanks fred!

- docking is the same as in elite, rotate at the same speed as the station whilst approaching the docking bay

- the second menu page just displays each of the ships in the game on rotation

bugs

- i've fixed the return to main menu bug

- not sure about the trade hangar bug, i haven't seen it so need some more info

source code will be released when the game is finished :)

freds724 years ago

Played some more, couple of comments:

- love textured planet diversity (well, sort of :)

- incorrect aspect ratio (see pico8 manual for recommended settings)

- nice to have: option to copy code to clipboard

- how to do loot asteroid? not yet supported?

- how to pick up cargo canister? I crashed on it!

- travelling to base is quite boring...

- radar items "below" should be drawn "under" the radar (a bit confusing)

- should radar flashing effect be limited to attack situations?

jamesedge4 years ago

thanks! all good points. i was wondering why the cart was scaling badly. you need a fuel scoop to pick up items, and you need to collide with them in the lower half of the viewport. fast forward should be easy to add.