Wonderland of PICO-8

PICO-8 Startup Screen.

We're always learning something new and that's pretty great. Being able to discover something you've never really seen before can drastically change our lives for better or worse. From a specific game and hardware to new activities and people, there's something new waiting for us on daily bases. Although sometimes it's more about learning more about that thing or person you've heard about before at some point in the past. Latter has been one of recurring themes in my life the last couple of months and there're many topics I could pick from that.

Deeper you go into your favorite hobby, the more you start to learn. Even despite your wishes, but it's not to say that's a bad thing. On the contrary, sometimes it allows you to stumble across some of the smallest, niche and beautiful things there is and PICO-8 is one of those wonders. What is so special about it, you might ask? Well, I would like to try my best to answer that question with pleasure.

Fantasy Console.

First of all, what is a PICO-8? It is a "fantasy console" that's being actively developed by Lexaloffle Games and currently is in Beta. PICO-8 isn't an actual console in a sense that there's no definitive physical version of it, but you can easily make one if you purchase it. As described in its FAQ, it "is like a regular console, but without the inconvenience of actual hardware" and it follows pretty strict specifications, such as 16 color palette and 128x128 display. All in the name of almighty expression and fun.

The history of how PICO-8 came to be is an interesting one, described by zep in PICO-8 Fanzine #1. It started off as a resurrection of his previous project LEX500 in order to gain a proper experience with scripting that could've been used for Voxatron, but over time grew into its own thing alongside it that share a thing or two. Although originally PICO-8 was more of a "fantasy home computer" likely due to its origins, that didn't seem right for zep and eventually he turned it into console.

It's really hard to pick up a specific reason why PICO-8 attracted so many people, but it's safe to say that its approach to the community is one of the pillars that makes this fantasy console so special. Limitations presented by it means that games are very easy to share when it comes to their storage size since all the cartridges are limited to 32 kilobytes, but the means of distribution are impressive. Built-in SPLORE browser makes it easier for enthusiast to look at huge library of games. On top of that, you can just take your game and either send it to others via PNG format or export your work into an app for Windows and other operating systems. Damn, you can get away with HTML5 and let everyone to play your PICO-8 in a browser, so you don't even need to own PICO-8 to enjoy its games.

Hello, PICO World.

That leads me directly to the next major segment of this post: games and creators. What titles were made for PICO-8? How far its limits were pushed and who are those mad lads with the passion to achieve some fantastic results? I'm not sure I would be able to truly make justice to its community, but I would try to mention both popular project and some random neat titles I've stumbled upon during my "professional research".

One of, if not the most, popular PICO-8 game has to be Celeste - the original version of this indie platform beloved by many speedrunners and typical players alike was initially made for this fantasy console during a game jam in four days. Now named Celeste Classic (because of course), it's pretty similar to the standalone version (I didn't get far, but I haven't tried as much as I could) and I think it can be a good alternative to its demo version you can easily try out before buying the game. But in case you can't get enough of Celeste Classic, there's no need to fear as a sequel for it was released as a part of celebration of Celeste's 3rd Anniversary.

Many PICO-8 demakes attracted broader attention from gaming community. Primary examples of that has to be port of Wolfenstein 3D with just one level from hungrybutterfly and POOM, a version of DOOM for this fantasy console made by freds72 and Paranoid Cactus. There're many more reimagined versions of already existing games though: from Pico Zombie Garden (a demake of Plants vs. Zombies made in 30 days) to FUZ (demake of FEZ) and much more. Seriously, there are a lot of demakes of various older games and it's hard to pick up anything specific.

Despite this, PICO-8 has a wide selection of original titles for everyone to enjoy. Trial of Sorcerer is a first-person shooter with full procedural generator inspired by Catacomb Abyss with (to me) slightly clunky controls and fine gameplay that consists of fighting evil creatures, collecting keys for further progression and gathering that sweet loot on your way to defeat evil demon. Plays really well, so make sure to give it a try if that type of FPS are right up your alley. Another great game I would like to highlight is Crowded Dungeon Crawler, which is a puzzle game and, well, a dungeon crawler. Solve each level by defeating required number of enemies to progress further, but make sure you properly use your inventory and resources or you would have to reset the level and try again.

I've played too much of Pico Tetris.
This happened when I was close to beating Garbage mode.

What could be better than one game? Game compilations... or launchers for various games! Enter PICO ARCADE: a collection of (currently) 36 familiar and yet different arcade titles from multiple developers. All put together in one place by thattomhall... Yes, that Tom Hall! The one and only creator of Dopefish and game designer that worked on many games, including Commander Keen series and original Rise of the Triad. If you want to play a PICO-8 game made by him, then I recommend checking out Waiting for Good Dot. It is a quickly done reimagining of one of the first Tom's games called WALK INTO THE DOT and it pretty much described the whole game: walk into good dot and avoid the bad ones. That's pretty it, but this little title can be surprisingly addicting.

Conclusion.

I just scratched the surface of PICO-8's fantastic world and all it has to offer. When I decided to write about this console, I definitely wasn't prepared for that. Like, I forgot to mention that you can easily look into the actual code of all PICO-8 games in order to study or just change it a bit for yourself. This dedication to creation and sharing your work on gaming platform is just fascinating. I also haven't covered the actual development process simply because I don't actually have PICO-8: you need to buy it in order to join an amazing community of talented developers.

However, there're tutorials and other materials that cover that topic. I would recommend taking a look at Delightful Game Development with PICO-8 if you want to get more proper introduction to this fantasy console in video format. You can also grab Game Development with PICO-8 for a more in-depth coverage of development side of things. But if this isn't exactly your thing or you can't afford time and/or money for virtual console like me, then you can go to its page on Lexaloffle's website from time to time and just play some carts.