Topic: PICO-8

[idolminds]

I made a thread over on the art board mentioning the PICO-8, but since it's really a game thing I figured I should make a thread over here.

Official site

The PICO-8 is a "fantasy console", like a long lost computer system from the 80s. It is not a game in itself, but a platform with somre restrictions that allows you to create and run games. So it's sort of like a game engine for simple low res games. It even has built-in tools!

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Specs

Display                 128x128 16 colours
Cartridge Size          32k
Sound                   4 channel chip blerps
Code         Lua
Sprites 128 8x8 sprites
Map         128x32 cels
Controls 2 6-button joysticks
If you'd like to read the history of its development plus some game examples you can follow along and make yourself, as well as some suggested games to check out, you can download the fanzine that just recently released.

One fun aspect of it is there is web player so you can easily play games in your browser, and games are tiny and fit in a PNG file. You can head over to the BBS and find games people are making and you can play them right there!

To get you started I will link you to some stuff you should check out.

Ennuigi: I don't want to spoil this, just play it. It's really quite special.
Celeste: One of the best games I've played. A challenging platformer with great art.
Dusk Child: Another platformer, this time with a bit more exploration and puzzle solving. Really neat.
Hug Arena: Defeat enemies with hugs. One of the earliest polished games.
Dark Echo: A demake of a game by the same name. The world is dark but when you make a step your "sound waves" help you see where to go. Really tense when enemies show up.
Tempest: No, not that Tempest. This is a survival game. I have not survived long at all...
Picoracer-2048: A demake of sorts for Wipeout 2048. Really smooth playing.
Scorched 8: Remember Scorched Earth? It's that! Don't remember Scorched Earth? It's basically Worms. Don't remember Worms? You poor bastard.
Shodo: Not a game, but a drawing app that mimics Japanese painting. Works surprisingly well.
Across the River: The classic puzzle where you need to get everything across the river but your boat only seats 2 and you can't leave certain things together.
Naughty Painters: Like Splatoon, you want to cover the arena with your color. If you cover more area by the time runs out, you win!
Pico-Man: Pac-Man

Man, thats more than I expected! More are being made all the time, and I know there are several people making PICO-8 games for Ludum Dare right now. If you are interested in making stuff with it yourself, you can buy it stand alone for $15, or it comes with Voxatron for $20. Note that if you happen to be like me and got Voxatron in a bundle then you can register it on the site and gain access to PICO-8.

[Quemaqua]

I'll have to try more of these. Celeste was too choppy for me to successfully play, probably just the web player, but Dusk Child ran great and I played it to the finish. Really cool little game.

[idolminds]

Wanted to add a new game.

Earth Was a Bad Choice: really fun combo-style arcade game. Doesn't take too long to beat, but do try to reach the end. There is a real fun twist.

[idolminds]

Two things popped up today featuring PICO-8.

The first is the C.H.I.P. now gets access to PICO-8 for free. You can read about that here. The C.H.I.P. is a cheap $9 single board computer, so you can get into PICO-8 for pretty cheap. They are also selling a "Console Kit" that has the C.H.I.P., HDMI DIP, power adapter, and a SNES-style game controller for $29 ($36.42 shipped for me, I checked). Considering PICO-8 is $15 normally thats a nice deal and you get some hardware to mess around with.

Alternatively, the newest StoryBundle has a bunch of gaming related ebooks, but if you pay $15 or more you also get a PC PICO-8 license. As I said above $15 is the usual price for it so the ebooks are essentially freebies. If you've been looking to get this it seems like a pretty good time.