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In this post I'll try to answer some questions regarding the ❎ and 🅾️ buttons. This is a design decision that came up early when I started making my first PICO-8 game.

I'll consider some well-received PICO-8 games from Nerdy Teachers' 200 Best PICO-8 Games when trying to address these questions. When I do that, I will provide the game's ranking in that list in parethesis, e.g., Celeste (#1).

Glyphs or Letters

  • Question 1: Should I use the ❎ and 🅾️ button glyphs when displaying commands on screen, or should I print letters for the key mappings?

In theory, you should use button glyphs, right? I mean, if you were making a NES game, you would prompt the player to press A or B. You wouldn't try to guess key bindings used by the emulator, even though a NES game released in 2025 has very slim chances of being played on original hardware.

Often, though, reality kicks in. If you upload your game to itch.io, for example, people are playing a browser game. Most may not even know what PICO-8 is or even suspect they need to consider key bindings. They may see "press 🅾️", reach for the O key, nothing happens.

"Let's try another game, then."

Also, you have to consider if the player is on a PC with a keyboard, in which case key letters would be more straightforward, or on a mobile phone, using virtual buttons that match the glyphs.

That's why there is no clear-cut consensus. Celeste (#1) uses key letters, while Terra (#5) uses button glyphs. Birds With Guns (#4) and Picohot (#6) show both: glyph first, then key letter in parenthesis.

Left or Right

  • Question 2: If order matters, which button is the left one and which one is on the right?

My first impression was that 🅾️ should be the button on the left and ❎ should be the one on the right. After all, default key bindings (ZX/CV/NM) are like that. Also, control options in the pause menu show this order as well.

But I think it's best to leave ❎ as the left button and 🅾️ as the right one. The reasons for doing so are compelling...

  1. If you enable mouse with poke(0x5f2d, 2), left click will trigger ❎ and right click will trigger 🅾️.

  2. The joystick image in KEYCONFIG.

  3. The virtual buttons when playing a BBS game on a mobile phone.

"Ok, but if you do that, key mappings (ZX/CV/NM) will be in reverse order!", you may think.

Well, not necessarily. Segway to our next question...

Z or C

  • Question 3: If I decide to show key letters, everyone agrees that I should use X for ❎, for obvious reasons. But what about 🅾️? Should I use Z or C?

I'll cut to the chase: use C.

@krajzeg, author of The Lair (#7) and Dank Tomb (#10), explains why here:

 
XC is stable across international keyboards (at least the ones I'm familiar with, German
and French). I learned my lesson when I released The Lair and got tons of comments saying
that ZX doesn't work well in their country.

Also, using C has an added benefit: you will have ❎ on the left and 🅾️ on the right, which is consistent with the postion of the virtual buttons on mobile phones.

Primary or Secondary

  • Question 4. Which button should be the primary one, used for the main action in the game and to select stuff in menus?

Again, there is no consensus on this one, but I think you should stick to ❎ as your primary button for two reasons:

  1. Western gamers are used to this since the first PlayStation. ❎=select, 🅾️=cancel/back. For the PlayStation 5, Sony unified this configuration globally, so now this is true even in Japan.

    Note: I'm not a PlayStation fanboy... It's just a matter of PICO-8's choice for the button names. If they were named A and B, I would suggest you use Xbox / Nintendo conventions (A=select, B=cancel/back).

  2. The ❎ button is mapped to the X key in keyboards, so the ❎ glyph can be safely used to let the player select an option to show other controls from the title screen / main menu.

My Approach

In Tiny Tactics, my first PICO-8 game, I ask the player if a keyboard is being used.

Note that ❎=yes, so the X key will work. After that, I draw a single pixel on top of the 🅾️ glyph, turning it into a C.

Of course, if the player is not using a keyboad I will simply print the 🅾️ glyph normally.

Also, ❎ is always on the left, responsible for the main action, while 🅾️/C is always on the right, responsible for the secondary action.

I hope this was an interesting read. Maybe it will help you think about how to better communicate controls on your next PICO-8 game!




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