Space Race

Clone Jam - Game a Month

This is my entry to Clone Jam. Pico-8 version of 1973 Atari classic "Space Race" with a couple twists! This is a two player game, just like the original. Invite a friend over and use same keyboard! But of course you can play this alone too, trying to aim for a high score. Or try to play both rockets at the same time!

Game play

Now here comes the twists. 

In original game asteroid fields had fixed patterns. I think this was a limitaion of original hardware (yes, this game was made completely with hardware). I changed asteroids to be random. Now players can't learn the patterns. 

Next change is selectable game lenght between 30 seconds and 180 seconds. Timer will start beeping ten seconds before time runs out.

And that's not all! Last but not least, now you can also enable horizontal controls for the rockets! So, you can also move diagonally (Not Diagon alley. "Now don't forget to speak very, very clearly."). Without being too technical, by moving diagonally you can actually move 1.41 times faster than just up/down left/right alone. If that matters in this case.

Sounds

In original game the sounds and noises were horrendous. I hope the noises in this version of the game are somewhat more tolerable. If not, just mute the Pico-8 from the sidebar or press enter for menu.

Controls

Player 1 uses UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT arrow keys, and player 2 has E, S, D, F keys. ❎ is a keyboard x-key, and 🅾️ is keyboard z-key. In other words standard Pico-8 controls. Press Enter to pause the game and access the settings like sound and volume.