Lina: Suika Hunt - Coloring Combo Strings in PICO-8

coloring_the_combo_strings.p8

 -- color table to define which direction should have
    -- which color during the printing
    local colorTable = {
        ⬅️ = 9,
        ⬇️ = 10,
        ⬆️ = 11,
        ➡️ = 12      
    } 

    -- iterate through all elemenets in the fruitCollection
    -- and put them into fruit one by one
    for fruit in all(fruitCollection) do 
        -- draw the fruit on the screen  
        spr(fruit.type, fruit.x, fruit.y)
        -- debug draw the type
        print(fruit.type, fruit.x+8, fruit.y, 8)
        -- under each fruit we want to list
        -- the buttons needed for their combo
        for i=1,#fruit.comboString do
            -- we grab the combo string letter by letter with this
            -- for cycle and the comboString[i]
            -- then we find the needed spot for it on the screen in the x axis
            -- this is a bit ugly, but we offset from the start to be in the middle in the end,
            -- then we just add an offset for each letter by their needed space with ((i-1)*6)
            -- after that we grab the needed color from the table, by using the direction
            -- as an index
            print(fruit.comboString[i],  fruit.x-#fruit.comboString*4+4+((i-1)*6), fruit.y+8, colorTable[fruit.comboString[i]])
        end
        -- this is the old plain print
        -- print(fruit.comboString, fruit.x-#fruit.comboString*4+4, fruit.y+8, 7)
    end

    -- combo string text on the screen
    local comboText = "Current Combo:"
    print(comboText, 2, 110, 12)

    -- doing the color play for the player combo string as well
    for i=1,#playerComboString do
        print(playerComboString[i],  2+#comboText*4 + ((i-1)*6), 110, colorTable[playerComboString[i]])
    end