Cattle Crisis
How to Play
Cattle Crisis is an arcade shoot 'em up game (Shmup). Pilot your fighter jet to defeat evil aliens and save our precious cows! Cattle Crisis is a short game and currently features one level.
- Arrow keys - Move the jet
- X or M or V - Shoot
- Z or N or C - Hyper / Bomb
- You can also use a controller
System
As you shoot enemies or collect 🐄, your meter will fill. Once it passes the halfway point, you can activate Hyper Mode by pressing the Hyper button. While in Hyper Mode, the meter gradually depletes. Taking a hit will end Hyper Mode, but you won’t lose a life. Pressing the Hyper button again during Hyper Mode unleashes a devastating bomb, which consumes half of the remaining meter—if any is left.
Scoring
- Shooting enemies at close range increases your score (up to 4×) and causes more 🐄 to drop, allowing you to charge the meter faster.
- While in Hyper Mode, enemies drop ⭐ instead of 🐄, which grant extra points. The value of each ⭐ is shown in the top-right corner during Hyper Mode.
- Each enemy defeated in Hyper Mode increases the ⭐ value.
- Activating a bomb turns all nearby bullets into additional ⭐.
Video Series
Cattle Crisis was created as part of a tutorial series on how to make an Advanced Shmup from scratch. If you also want to make a game like this check out the Lazy Devs Academy YouTube Channel!
Credits
This game was written and designed by Krystian Majewski, an Independent Developer and the host of the Lazy Devs Academy video channel.
The music was composed by Sebastian Haßler, a music composer for film, TV and videogames.
The cover illustration was created by Mag Draws.
This project would have not been possible without the generous donations from my supporters on Ko-fi. Thank you!
Special thanks also to all of the playtesters including: Aktane, Boghog, Indra_S, MasterCoding101, LokiStriker, Barend, TheGacko, SquidLight, Buster Ermy, mg1399, BrainOnOxygen, SkullDragger, Blixten, middleclassjoe, Chaz, otto: A Mush Man and others.
Cattle Crisis was written entirely in Pico-8.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 110 days ago
Comments
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I'm willing to pay much more than $5 for the game, if the controller support is exclusive to Xbox and PlayStation controllers, and is not generic.
:3
This is incredibly good! I like how it is hard, but quite forgiving.
your score systems are too good! there’s like 2 extra games hidden here under the surface. the scoring is deliciously spikey; my best is 1,605,710 but I think with some more practice I could get 2-2.5M. great game (and great tutorial too!)
This is an awesome shmup! Very fast and frantic, plays great! However, it pushes pico-8 to its limits and it kind of shows. The resolution is just too small and it's sometimes hard to discern what's going on, the ship is huge compared to the size of the play area, and it stutters when there's too many bullets on the screen. I find that pico-8 games are at their best when they play well with its limitations instead of struggling against them - like Mai Chan's Sweet Buns, Porklike or High Stakes (my personal favorite, even though I hate gambling). So maybe for a project like this it would be better to use something less limiting? I don't know, I'm thinking about watching the tutorial, but following along in something like Love2D or Monogame.
Such a great game, and great tutorial. Massive amount of content for those into game development and Pico-8. Huge thanks for creating and sharing! Well done!
A fresh, addictive Pico-8 shoot 'em up with a genius scoring system.
Polished, creative, and full of heart — huge thanks to you Krystian, and your awesome tutorials! ヽ(〃＾-＾)/★*☆Congratulations～
I never made to the end of the cherrybomb tutorial, though it’s one of my most played pico8 games. I’ve been checking in on the advanced shmup series even though it’s way beyond me. Super excited to play this! It made me bust out that RGCUBEXX I bought but never used and it looks and feels amazing. Thanks for seeing this through, it’s incredible work!
1,025,830 B^)
cool game, was very happy to see controller support
Got my full clear no hit, about 892,000 and I don't feel like pushing that any further. Game seems alright, trying to micrododge on keyboard without a slow down button feels very twitchy and uncomfortable and I feel like a lot of healthier enemies have a smiiidge bit too much health otherwise it was a pleasant little experience.
just finished the basic shmup tutorial. i know what i have to do now! :)
Ooh, it's so addictive!
looking forward for a tic80 version! ;)
Congrats on the release!! The game looks amazing <3
I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's intense and super fun! No high scores to post, but I've survived over a minute. Visible hitbox seems to help.😅
Great music too!
This was a ton of fun! I also really appreciate the Advanced Shmup Tutorial, as well as your other PICO-8 tutorials!
An udder delight!
But seriously, soo good. 5 out of 5 milk churns.
you are a PICO hero !
Amazing! Very fast paced and absolutely love the visuals and music!
Itch page is charming as always.
Can't wait to check it the video series for the advanced shump, the increase in quality is superb!
This is the highscore I got:
Was not yet able to defeat the whole game in one go. Boss is proper hard :)