I've learned a lot from this, poke(0x5f36,0b10) to allow even sized circles (would have saved me so many issues/space with other games if I had known this). n&4 == n%5 and n<<7 == n*128, which I *think* is slightly faster to run.

I had thought about using quadtree, and was going to see about having a go at implementing that after I got the globe in and first idea of chunking tested and then compare the two for speed. First the globe, then a shake to disturb the snow!

I am already doing some simple filtering (mostly moving static pixels to the spritesheet), but yes at the moment it is checking every pixel (skips empty elements). Eventually I would like to split it up into 3x3 to 5x5 chunks and only check the chunks that have had an update in the previous frame.

I got this completing the first level

Liked what you did with it!

Yes, most people tag posts with #pico8, i know someone has a starter pack with a bunch of pico8 developers (forgot who though...). There is also a pico8 discord which people use.

Thank you

Thank you, first time I've tried to actually use some of my more traditional art skills. I could do better but the amount of hours I'd need to pour into it in order to improve the quality won't match my goals here. I'm very happy with the outcome though.