Rebuilding a World - Alien Planet 2

I originally made Alien Planet for a game jam months ago. I knew I could improve upon it with what I had learned since then, but on revisiting it I realized that every single element of the game would have to be reworked. So I decided to start from scratch. I copied the character sprites over to a new file and got to work.

The first thing I did was to make a more efficient system for the tileset. This is very important because pico-8 has a limited amount of space to store all the sprites for the entire game - and half of that space was already being repurposed to fit more map data for a larger world, not to mention the massive backdrop image. So rather than drawing a new sprite for every possible tile that could appear in the game, I only drew sprites for the different edges that could appear. For example, there was a ground tile sprite and a left wall sprite, which could be used on their own or layered on top of each other to create a top-left corner tile. By layering sprites in this way, I could store an entire tileset in only 5 sprite slots, leaving more room for other graphics.

Since making the original game, I also learned about pico-8's alternate color palette. Having more colors to choose from really opened up new opportunities. I was able to make a day-night cycle just by switching the color palette to mimic different lighting conditions. I could also make each of the biomes more distinct and cohesive. 

In the original game, I used some very basic procedural generation to randomly scatter plants, rocks, etc. across the world. In the update, I added another layer of complexity by making the objects out of smaller parts that were combined together procedurally. I also had the objects placed in a more meaningful way; for example, the pine trees only grow in low-lying areas in the forest biome and become more scarce at higher altitudes.

I really wanted to add animals to this world, I know it would feel so much more alive. However, I also knew I wouldn't have time to implement them in a truly deep and interesting way, so instead I focused on polishing what I had, and I'm glad I did. They say art is never finished, only abandoned. Having seen the improvement I have made after abandoning the project and coming back to it, I'm sure at some point I'll come back again, but I am satisfied with it for now.