Fixel is a game where you are a pixel that must save the world from an evil Undead Pixel Warlord. However, this is just a demo, so it quite lacks in the Undead Pixel Warlord department and so on, but it does feature one boss, several enemies, items, spells, and a randomly generated dungeon. I hope, even with this demo, it's fun and slightly (maybe just a little bit!) addictive.

Here is a screenshot of it:

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595241

Included in the package is the source code, too, and I hope it'll compile fine on Mac OS X or Linux! The libraries required are in the Compiling.txt file included with the package.

Download

Looks good, and it was pretty fun. It will be nice when you get it done:)

I did that so you can see the "stars" falling out of the sky easier. I guess I could move around some of the stuff and do it, though.

I can add some text labels to fix that one up.

I could change the color of the spell when it can be cast and when it can't be... Would that be good?

Yea, Pic-Pax is very resistant against spells, especially Astral. I was going to release a bestiary with the demo but I forgot (Pic-Pax is very weak to stab attacks, so use the Puny Dagger against him)

The inventory system is going to improved a lot in the actual game. That is just the quick-change-items part--in the real game, a dialog box will pop up if you, say, click on the items or something similar with a list of your items divided into sections.

Yeah , changing the color of the selected spell when it is unavailable would be just fine.

Will the game pause then? I like the current game play style where you can control the players items and settings with the right hand while moving with the left. I don't think I would want to be moving my right hand back and forth between the mouse and keyboard every time I wanted to change selected items.

I like the way that the pixel creatures use a naming convention similar to the periodic table. Be sure to let us know when you have a few levels and more creatures so we get some more game time.

- Edit -
I've played it some more and I've noticed a couple of quirks. Fighting the grrlac leader spawns some enemies which is an interesting touch I like. When they get defeated they drop some puny daggers and I couldn't always pick them up though. Also , they end up cluttering the item list with multiple entries for one kind of item then. I also had a problem with one of the puny daggers that I had picked up , when it was selected and I tried to use it it didn't do anything.
About the intro star screen , I like it , it's just misleading to say 'press S to play' and then go to the menu when you press S. Maybe 'press space key to continue' would be better?

Ahh , pretty cool! A new spell , new enemies , keep it coming!

I do have a problem though, for some reason when I advance to another level then my framerate consistently drops lower than on the previous level and if I lose and start over without quitting the program and restarting it then the framerate is too low to play.

Here are some framerate figures as I progress through the game :

                       fps
Opening screen       65-70
Start menu              47
Main menu               36
First floor          20-29
Second floor start      14
Second floor clear      18
Third floor start        7
Third floor clear       12
Fourth floor start       4
Fourth floor clear       9
(Without quitting the program) :
Opening screen          30
Start menu              22
Main menu               19
First floor start        4

Have any ideas what it might be?

It could be a memory leak, or something I'm doing funky with Lua (since the entire game is practically written in Lua...). I noticed it happens to me sometimes, too, so I'll look into it further.

edit:

A few profile runs show that the problem is with the Lua GC. I mustn't be unreferencing tables or something similar, so the garbage builds up room after room, and it's never collected.

edit #2:

I fixed it. I was simply calling collectgarbage("collect") in the particle code in Lua, so it would slow the game down to a crawl. It was a remnant from my old tests, and I forgot to remove it. The same goes for a simple lua_gc(LUA_GCCOLLECT, 0) line in Stage.cpp. Now without additive/translucent blending the game runs at around 65 FPS constantly (but less compiled with MSVC... It stops and lags when there's a lot going on...), so I'm going to tinker around with the GC settings.

edit #3:

Yay, it runs at a constant 65-67 FPS for me without any special effects when compiled with MSVC. Download it here.

edit #4:

Actually, it hogs up a ton of memory in the previous versions before releasing it. Change "Content/Lua/Game/Game.lua", and scroll down to line #173. Change the two to a zero or one (zero is my recommended setting) in collectgarbage("steppause", 2) and get rid of line #174. If there's many objects in the stage, the FPS dips to around 40 FPS for me without effects, 60+ otherwise.

There is no point in having more than one item (besides the Windi Book and potions) at the moment, but there will be once I add the first town to the game.

You can enable translucent blending and see the effect then. I forgot to enable it when I released this demo.

There will be a menu that pops up when you press "<modifier key>" + "<use item key>" that will pause the game and let you scroll through your items in the next demo, so this problem is eliminated

I have finished Fixel Demo #3C, which is a minor revision that includes sound effects and music, all synthesized (thanks Bruce Perry!) with Allegro SAMPLE's and a bit of math. All weapons should have a sound effect, along with two songs (a menu song and an actual dungeon song).

Download.