XTRIS is an arcade-style dexterity game all about catching that elusive green X as many times as you can within 60 seconds. Try the level editor!

Do you own a Playdate device? If so, try out the new and improved version of XTRIS on Playdate!

Goal

Use the arrow keys to move the white tile toward the green tile! When you collect the green tile, it will move again, so you have to keep chasing it! You have 60 seconds to accumulate as many points as you can! The browser (or downloaded file) will keep track of your highest scores on each level.

Controls

Menus:

• left / right arrow keys - navigate menu
• Z - enter level
• X (on title screen) - mute SFX

Within a level:

• all arrow keys - move white square
• Z (once level has ended) - exit level, return to menu

CTRL + R will reset the cartridge back to the title screen at any time.

Holiday Update

If you're playing one of the XMAS versions of XTRIS, or playing in your browser during the 2023 holiday season, the game is different in the following ways:

• collect stars instead of x's
• high scores reset
• light snowfall in the background
• christmas colors

Credits

• programming - fletch
• background music - leaf let

About

The original concept for XTRIS was created in 1 week for the TweetTweetJam 8! If you'd like to play the original game jam version, click here.

TweetTweetJam is a game jam focused on making a small game with a big constraint: its code must be 500 characters or less! This makes the developer get very creative with how they interact with the PICO-8 engine to try to squeeze as much game as possible into such a small limitation. My code for the jam used 479 characters:

poke(0x5f2c,3)a={18,28,38,28}b={22,22,22,32}p=0g=4i=1l=0c=color q=btnp
::_::c(0)for j=0,4096do
if(rnd()>.7)pset(j\64,j%64)end
c(7)l=t()?p,0,0
line(0,63,l,63)for j=1,4do c(5)
if(j==g)c(3)?"x",a[j]+3,b[j]+2
if(j==i)c(7)
if(l>63)c(8)
rect(a[j],b[j],a[j]+8,b[j]+8)end if(l<63)then
if(q(0) and i%4>1)i-=1
if(q(1) and i<3)i+=1
if(q(2) and i>3)i=2
if(q(3) and i==2)i=4
if(g==i)p+=1 g=rnd(4)\1+1 rectfill(a[i],b[i],a[i]+8,b[i]+8,3)
if(g==i)g+=1 g%=4 g+=1
end flip()goto _

I have since overhauled the game into a more complete version with levels, sound effects, high scores, and even a level editor!

Links

• Play or find on PICO-8's BBS system
• Create your own levels
• Play the game jam version
• Find me on Twitter!