Introduction:
This project started its lifecycle right before Lovebyte Battlegrounds in 2021, where the byte battle contestants were given a whole list of words that would appear on the spinning-wheel before each match. Then right before the match the wheel would spin and you would be given a specific word for your bytebattle.
On that large list of words was the keyword "Tarot", which was an interesting keyword to get some creative juices flowing. As it was impossible to prepare ideas for every keyword on that wheel, I looked into 2 or 3 keywords for myself and Blossom took a few other words from that list to play around with.
Development:
To my pleasant surprise, she came up with what was more-or-less the intro that would become House of Mojo years later. The only elements that were added after the fact where the showing of the words at the bottom part of the screen, a few minor tweaks to the background color and effect and the intro title itself (which is ofcourse a reference to the "International House of Mojo" from the Monkey Island game series).
The intro basically draws a small polar-distort effect in the background, and then plots a series of circles and ellipses on top of that for the floating crystal ball and the drapes on the sides all in a single for-loop (something Blossom likes to do often). Lastly it cyles between 3 different text strings to be displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Here is the code for the TIC-80 version
function TIC()t=t+.1p=t//64s=math.sin(t/7)*q-q
for I=0,32640 do y=I//240-q x=I%240-120z=(y*y+x*x)/240poke4(I,y*t<2240-t and(x//z&(y/z-t)//1)%p%-9or y/12-y%2.5)end
circ(120,148-s/4,48,0)for I=0,48 do circ(120-I/4,q-I/4+s/4,48-I,(t+I/7)%-9)circ(I%2>0 and 32+240-s+I or s-I-32,0,q*1.5,I/9%3)end
print(({" wait","I sense"," . . ."})[p%3+1],102,130,t)end
q=82.5t=0
And here for the PICO-8 port
c=circfill function _draw()n=t()*8p=n/32s=sin(n/9)*32
for i=0,8192do x=i%64-32y=i/64-52z=(y*y/3+x*x)/128poke(6^13+i,y<48and x/z&y/z-n&p%2or z/5&2)end
for i=0,12do c(64-i,72-i+s/4,36-i*2,(n+i/5)%2+6)c(i%2>0and 208-s+i*4or s-i*4-80,0,99,i&2)end
?p%2<1and" wait"or"i sense",50,123,5+n%3
The intro was finally released 2 years later at @party 2023 where it won the tiny intro competition.
Conclusion:
What I really enjoy about Blossom's approach to intro making is that it is almost always settled into something more concrete and tangible rather than some abstract moving shapes, and this intro is no different.
For more information, you can check out the intro at demozoo: House of Mojo (2023)