Tiny Code Christmas - Day 1⌗

Welcome to Day 1 of Tiny Code Christmas! We’re glad that you’re joining us on this festive journey into the world of sizecoding. If you haven’t already, read the overview to find out what Tiny Code Christmas is all about!

We have designed these challenges so that they can be completed by both new and experienced coders, take the challenges at your own pace, there’s no limits and no competition but there will be an opportunity at the end to showcase your creations to a wider audience!

If you’re an experienced coder, read the docs, skim the video, and apply your advanced knowledge to get the most out of the challenge. If you’re new to programming watch the videos, hang out on the discord, ask questions, and enjoy the process!

If you’re reading this on the 11th, check out the Field-FX Monday Night Bytes twitch stream at 9pm GMT, you can watch 4 sizecoders program TIC-80 along to an awesome soundtrack! It’s a non-competitive jam and the size limits aren’t enforced but it should give you a good idea of the possibilities of what you can achieve!

We are going to dive into sizecoding with Lua based Fantasy Consoles, take your pic of either the TIC-80 or the PICO-8. In both cases the downloadable version is preferable but the web-based education version of PICO-8 will get you through most of the day’s challenges. In either case we would recommend supporting the development of both of these consoles by purchasing a copy.

The Challenge: Making Shapes⌗

The first challenge is to make a Christmas scene out of the basic shapes that the fantasy consoles provide: maybe draw a Christmas Tree out of triangles or a Snow Man out of circles? Why not both?

You can read the documentation on these shapes for TIC-80 and PICO-8, and you can watch our Day-1 video above that gives an overview of using both Fantasy Consoles and these shape functions they provide!

The second challenge is to keep your code to a maximum of 256 characters!

The Expert Challenge!⌗

These expert challenges will push your sizecoding knowledge to the limit!

• centered tree with ragged edges
• blue background
• red/brown trunk
• 64 characters or less!

Sharing is Caring!⌗

If you feel like it, why not share what you’ve done with us on the LoveByte Discord, #lovebyte on IRCnet, or share on Twitter and Mastodon using the hashtag #lovebytetcc

TIC-80 Note:⌗

It’s covered in the video but it’s worth repeating here: Turn on Developer mode! It will make coding much easier. When you run your code in TIC-80 and hit escape, it brings you to a menu in which you have to select “Close Game” in order to return to the command line or editor. You can turn this menu off, when it appears next, select Options, and then turn Dev Move to On. This will bypass the menu allowing you to switch between running your code and editing it much quicker.