Version 0.0.2 - This time you can tell what it's doing

Not sure how version numbers are actually supposed to work. I figure V1.0 is full release, V0.1 is the first real prototype, and V0.0.1 is the first commit. Correct me please if there's a real official way that works! 

V0.0.1 was a simulator conserving momentum (but not mass), where the player, a green square, throws masses (purple squares) in one of eight directions, and gains velocity as a result. I learned from sharing it with friends that it was only obvious to me what was going on. The first question I got about it was "Are the purple lines tracking where you've been?"

New in V0.0.2

Scattering of projectiles:

The direction vector of each projectile is now scattered, so that a projectile thrown in the direction (1,0), or right, will have a direction of (1+/-scatter, +/-scatter). The current build uses a scatter of 0.25. Excitingly (for me), when the player presses a direction and gains velocity in the opposite direction, the game is, in fact, simulating the effect of each scattered projectile, not just the expected result. An added benefit is that the scatter makes it much clearer what the function of the purple dots is.

Tether/player location history:

Every time the player's location changes by more than a pixel, it's saved to a history table. This is then drawn as individual pixels using pset(). By setting the pixel color to the index of the entry modulo 16, the color of the tether cycles through the 16 colors of the PICO-8 palette. Eventually, this will not only visually represent where the player has been, but be a limiting factor in how far the player can travel at a time. 

Next up:

The next thing to do is to give the player a supply of projectiles that contribute to the player's mass, so that mass is conserved along with momentum and the player's space walk is limited by their supply. 

Along with a limited supply of tether and projectiles, the player will need a display, either subscreen or HUD style, that lets them know how far they can still travel before needing to be reeled back in.