You can get 1 bit transparency with 24 bit colour by simply picking a colour and using it as a mask - back in the day, I'd usually use pink - 255,0,255.
The fog could be done via greyscale, with something like:
col = 0,0,0,clamp(inp.r + sin(time) * 0.5,0,1)
The glow worm additive sprite could just be distance based in the shader.
(I didn't look at the code itself if it's available, so this is just my impression based on the supplied screenshot gif).
The submitted title was "Pygame game won best graphics in Ludum Dare 53". That's probably pretty cool and interesting, but... Submitters: If you want to say what you think is important about an article, please do so by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Fortunately "Moonrabbit Collection" is a cool title in its own right, so we can leave this up unmolested.
