I'll spare the technical details and just drop the link here. Go play it! The game runs in browser, and is open sourced! P8 file can be downloaded for free or pay what you want.
https://darkgriffin.itch.io/infinitroid
Cheap 1 hour promotional material.
Game in action gif to make it look awesome!
One thing I have always loved with longer game jams like this one is how they force a limit of scope, but still allow a lot of freedom for designers to play around. I also love Pico8 for this reason, it has severe memory, graphic colors, sound, and code length/complexity limitations. But it outputs to browsers, is open source by nature, and it's got just the right amount of "play space" to create something fun.
Many coders much more talented at compression/efficiency than me have done some fantastic things with the engine/tool. I highly recommend checking it out if you want to explore what some retro game design concepts are like without the frustration of real crashes, corruptions, and old hardware strangeness. Check out the tool here:
https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
You can also shop around for a few free alternatives, such as tic-80, which has a bit more memory/space while keeping the spirit of the tool. It lacks some of the little quality of life lua coding tricks/commands of pico8, and you'll need a lot more knowledge of lua to get started. But it's still a great contender and is still in development.
https://nesbox.itch.io/tic
Last, while doing the jam, I kept a thread going with some of my development progress. If you are really bored, you can read through it here. https://itch.io/t/268064/lets-rock-that-pico8-thing-oh-dear-what-am-i-even-doing
Last, here is a page for Low Res Jam, with everyone's entries for the jam. Check it out, there's some cool stuff from other people there too!
https://itch.io/jam/lowrezjam-2018
See you later!
