chromatophore/masquer8

Octo/CHIP 8 Pattern matching game

Masquer8

Masquer8 is another submission for Octo-ber jam II: http://octojam.com/octojam-ii/games/masquer8 It's written for Octo, a high-level assembler for Chip 8, an 8 bit assembly language from the 1970s: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo

Masquer8 is a game where you control Cammy Cuttlefish, a master of disguise.

!! Using V on the "Press Key" menu page will continue from the last level you were on !!

Blend in with your surroundings perfectly so that the Shark can't see you!

You have a HUD in the bottom right corner.

You start with access to Vertical Lines on keys 1-4. Every time you change your pattern, the shark will get slightly closer. There is an icon for the Shark in the HUD. If you can see its eyes, it's really close!

At any time, press V to try and blend in. If you're not quite a perfect match, you will lose a lot of time and the shark will get closer. You must be lined up both horizontally and vertically. This can be very hard with some patterns.

The HUD has an indicator that shows which patterns you have active. Try cycling them a little bit to see how it works. You can use this to work out how to get back to normal.

After a few levels you will unlock horizontal lines on keys Q-R.

After a few more, you will unlock Patterns mode, which is REALLY HARD. These are on keys A-F and Z to C. A pro tip to get started is that, remember these puzzles are only 2 or 3 layered patterns, so, find one you think must be involved and try toggling on other patterns.

If you get a game over, press V on the title screen (or just navigate all menus with V) to Continue from the level you were on.

The game has 10 levels.

After you get the ending screen, you will enter infinite mode, where you will be presented with random puzzles to match. In this mode, the Shark will ignore you. If you can't beat a puzzle, or get your camouflage in a muddle, mash V a bunch and it will give you a game over and allow you get a new puzzle.

You can press Z on the title screen to jump straight to infinite mode, also.

Infinite mode is really, really hard, and I often see a puzzle on it and go 'how the hell can you do that??', so, don't feel bad.

The game was designed to be playable even at 7 cycles / frame. It also has a loading screen where it generates all of the patterns for Cammy, instead of having to program them in yourself. This means that there's about 1K of 0s at the end of the code, which hopefully would have been easier to type in.

After going back and revising the game a little bit, I have managed to get the memory footprint to be under 3.2k, which hopefully means that this game would have been genuinely playable on original hardware.