Nine Lives

Cloned from Shovel at de91a464728448405762a9e067c9b0839aaf4ce7.

Entry for js13k 2025, theme "BLACK CAT".

TODO

• Web: Keyboard stops working after a gamepad interaction.
• • See gp() in index.html: We are polling every button once the gamepad connects. Ought to update player state only on changes.
• Remove Laser.
• Switchable gates.
• Breathing fire - burn things.
• Output video sizing is imperfect. Visible especially at 1x. (xegl). Update Shovel if we fix it.
• Remove AUX1-to-quit before release, at least for web.
• Eliminate persistence if we're not keeping a high score. Are we? No, no space for it.
• Face the door at init and hatch.
• 13 sensible maps.
• Put maps in order.
• "reset level" key.
• Promo pics.
• • js13k cover: 320x320 (<=50 kb)
• • js13k hero: 800x500 (<=200 kb)
• • itch cover: 630x500

Notes

Preliminary sizes:

• 986 caught_the_mouse
• 1564 get_over_here
• 636 nine_lives
• 560 graphics
• 9625 zipped bundle

That's about 3 kB of music. Could thin it out if needed. If we're going to reduce it to just one song, as I think we will, why not make that one song ridiculously long? If we keep it reasonably thin, we could probly get like 5 or 10 minutes of music out of it.

We could probably drop text. Might still need numbers, for presenting the score or clock.

I assumed there would be Hello and Gameover modals. Don't necessarily need those.

Jump: Can ascend 2 meters, not 3. With a single corpse, can ascend 3. Laterally at same elevation, can clear a 5-meter gap, not 6.

Map Format

Input is text, a picture of the map using two characters per tile:

• ., = empty
• Xx = wall
• Ss = spikes
• Ll = laser
• Hh = hero spawn
• Dd = door
• Ww = switch
• Gg = gate
• Bb = burnable

There's 220 tiles per map, of which the overwhelming majority will be empty and wall, often in long runs.

00cccccc : (c+1) empty.
01cccccc : (c+1) wall.
1000cccc : (c+1) spikes.
10xxxxxx : Reserved.
11000000 : Spawn point (empty).
11000001 : Laser.
11000010 : Door.
11000011 : Switch.
11000100 : Gate.
11000101 : Burnable.
11xxxxxx : Reserved.

Neighbor-joining is the runtime's problem, that keeps the encoded data tighter. Unspecified tiles are wall, so encoder can safely trim those from the end. First trial map, admittedly a sparse one, is only 30 bytes. Looking good even without a vertical filter.