The Mole Game
When the family was all staying together, I was on the sofa-bed, which meant there was sometimes a sofa covered in bedding. While I was sitting at the end of the sofa, my nephew was playing at being a mole by burying himself in the bedding. I was drafted in to play the role of a mountain, near the mole’s house. I’d ask him what he had in his house, make conversation, and then he’d go back into his home and try to completely cover him. Then we’d talk a bit more, until I shouted “avalanche!” and started throwing more and more cushions down onto the quilt that formed the roof of his house. He’d dig his way out, and we’d talk, and I’d assure him there’d certainly be no more avalanches.
The videogame version of it simulates that by creating a maze of rocks above the mole’s house, forcing the mole to solve the maze to escape. In hindsight I think a random maze algorithm was probably not really something I needed to build that Christmas, but oh well, it’s a cute game.
This game has a bug in it which my nephew found: there is supposed to be a solid column of rocks off either side of the screen, and while the left hand side of the screen works correctly, you can go off the right hand side of the screen and there just… aren’t any rocks there. If you can get off the right hand side of the screen, you can just push up until you get to the surface. He has forbidden me from fixing this bug and often refuses to play the game the intended way, even when it’s easier.
I can’t believe a five-year-old found a sequence-breaking speedrunning strat in my Pico-8 game.
