That’s much closer than I was expecting. But validates my current idea for #Zubulus levels

If you fall too far you are stunned (and have a lightly sweary reaction, from a random selection of silly rude words).

This looks frivolous, but behind the scenes I've introduced a state machine for the player, allowing me to easily add more sophisticated behaviour and animation.

Get far enough up the tower and you find a door, which will lead to the end-of-level boss battle.

Side-tracked by making a title screen and start-game transition. #Pico8 #Zubulus

You have to catch the boomerang after you have thrown it. If you don't, it will rotor down to the ground, and you'll have to go back down to pick it up again.  #Pico8 #Zubulus

A monster attacks... but doesn't realise that I have now implemented the boomerang! Take that! #Pico8 #Zubulus

Experimenting with shading the tower by manipulating the draw palette. Not sure if it actually improves things. I might stick with large areas of flatter colours to emphasise the perspective. #Pico8 #Lowrez #Zubulus

Each level will feature a different kind of monster. #Pico8 #Zubulus

Finally some gameplay: the monsters chase you and try to knock you off the discs. You have to out-run and out-jump them to reach the top of the tower. You will be able to temporarily stun them with your boomerang to give yourself some breathing space. #Pico8 #Zubulus

Textures with larger areas of colour and straight lines show the perspective effect on the tower more effectively. I will also add some shading via the draw palette, as suggested by @fsouchu, when more of the gameplay elements are in place. #Pico8 #Zubulus

Monsters now float down from above to stop you climbing the tower. Eventually you will be able to shoot them with a boomerang. But for now, all you can do is run away. #Pico8 #Zubulus

Have implemented vertical scrolling as you climb the tower. #Pico8 #Zubulus

The player can now crouch down. (Well, whatever the equivalent is for a pink worm-like thing). When crouching on a disc, they can move the disc around the tower, so that they can jump to higher discs. #Pico8 #Zubulus

The player can now jump onto platforms. #Pico8 #Zubulus

Different surface patterns on the tower. On each level, the tower will have a different pattern.

I wonder how I can eliminate the visual banding in the texture mapping.

Hand-written texture mapping on the tower to show the 3D rotation as the character walks around it. Plus some jumping. Doesn't look bad for 64x64 pixel resolution!  #Pico8 #Zubulus