We are holding our next big PICO-8 giveaway event in April!
This time we are holding a Game Design Jam on itch where participants can win a PICO-8 license just by planning and designing the game they want to make!
Starting April 1st and running the whole month, we will provide a template document to make it easy to write down the game ideas and plan it out in detail. Open to all ages and experience levels!
Itch.io Jam Page
I know most people here already own PICO-8, but you can help us spread the word!
You're also welcome to join too if you just want to try out the Game Design Doc template we made and see if it helps you work out the details of your game. When you submit, there will be a checkbox to opt-out of winning a reward.
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Side Quest 2 is broken down into 4 requests from the same villager. You first come across this Side Quest in "Lesson 6: Print to the Screen" and are encouraged to revisit it after learning how to use variables in "Lesson 7: Variables & Data Types". You are free to submit both examples under this post, but you should make it clear whether you made them with or without variables.
2-1
"Hi, I have a clothing store and I need a sign that shows people our fabric color options. Can you print the numbers 1 through 15 but in those exact colors for me?"
2-2
"I also do custom jobs where I can design someone's name into the fabric. Can you give me some ideas by printing your name, one letter at a time, in a really cool pattern?"
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Community Shared Pixel Art Canvas!
We invite everyone to add sprites from your own games or from PICO-8 games you love.
It will even be used as the r/PICO8 subreddit's banner!
It is on EveryoneDraw.com, an infinite canvas that is shared globally for free. It uses the full PICO-8 palette, and has minimal UI which is nice to just get started without needing to learn how to use it. However there are no drawing tools, so everyone is forced to place one pixel at a time, making the drawings that much more impressive.
Draw in a Browser: 🔗link
When drawing in a browser, it sometimes forces you to pause because of the timeout feature to cut down on bot attacks most likely. Understandable but it can get frustrating.
It also has a limited color palette, just the 16 default PICO-8 colors.
Draw in the App: 🔗link
I highly recommend downloading the app if you plan on contributing to the mural. You will get short ad breaks, but not often. The real benefit is you'll be able to paint pixels quickly and access all 32 PICO-8 colors. It works especially well on tablets with a touch pen for maximum pixel arting comfort!
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Cover Art by @Werxzy
This is the 15th issue of Pico-View that covers the latest news, tips and tricks from developers, and looks back on the entire year of 2024 to reveal the best games that came out this year, and more you may have missed!
Read the full issue here: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/15
Contents:
- Shadowbox Pixel Art
- PICO-8 on Antstream Arcade
- Extended Maps and Palettes of Samurise
- Everyone Draw Interview
- Everyone Draw PICO-8 Mural
- Featured Game Review
- Christmas Past, Present & Future
- Top 10 Games of 2024
- Top Rated Games on Itch.io
- Updated Top 200
- Data Packing for Picodex Dual
- Lookback Pico Playtime
- New Debugging Resource
- Picotron Textmode editor
- December Event Winners!
- Pixel Art Gallery
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Made for the 2024 Advent Calendar collection of holiday games, toys, and fun tools made in PICO-8.
How to Play
Move around with the arrow keys.
Press X to perform actions.
Win Goal:
- Survive and protect gifts long enough (?)
Lose Conditions:
- Health at zero
- Gifts < 5
Highscore & Speedrun
You can rate your quality of success by the number of gifts you protect by the end, as well as the amount of time it takes to reach the end. You can take a screenshot with Ctrl+6 during the win scene to share and compare.
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"Good day to you! I am a tapestry weaver, specializing in the embroidery of emblems of noble houses, which they often request on banners and such to hang on their castle walls. However, I'm not so good at the design side of things, and with many adventurers finding their fortunes and elevating themselves to noble rank, they come to me asking for new emblems for their families.
So I'd love to have many many banners on display in my shop walls for them to choose from. I have made 3 blank banners already for you to design house emblems on. Emblems can be anything. Some people prefer minimalism, while others are looking for familiar recognizable items such as weaponry, the sun, moon, flowers or animals.
What do you say? Can I count on your good graces to lend me a hand in this? Just imagine my shop walls filled with a variety of banners, vibrant colors and symbols everywhere you look. Thank you for helping make my dream come true."
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"I'm an enchantress, focusing on spells of arcane geometry. I believe each of us possess a natural understanding of magic and it's only a matter of focusing on it and allowing the creative spirit of the natural world to guide your hand.
To test my theory of everyone's inner arcane knowledge, I'm collecting sigils, magical symbols, drawn from natural born creativity, not the white tower wizards with all their years of study, but raw potential ability that I sense in you.
Here's a blank page from my collection, draw whatever comes to mind in the square here, and let that guide your decisions of naming and describing what you think it does.
Enjoy the process and I so look forward to adding yours to my collection."
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"I'm a cartographer, a map maker that is. And I've heard you're quite the adventurer. I'm collecting maps of dungeons from all over the kingdom to help other adventurer's survive. I have all the supplies, scrolls, pens, and ink. I just need you to draw what you remember from any dungeons you've explored.
All I need is an outline of rooms and corridors. Oh and it would be extra helpful if you could label the map either with words or symbols.
Please make it as detailed as your memory allows. I'll accept any map by the way, even if it's not a dungeon! Maybe you've explored a magical forest or a dragon's den.
I love maps so much, I can't wait to see what you draw for me. Thank you!"
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"Hi, I am the local alchemist, and I've had a stall in the market, but I'm upgrading to a full shop in town and I need shelves to display all 16 of my potions! I've got my shop sign already and all the potions are ready to go, I just need you to help decorate the shop and display them nicely.
This is how the shop is prepared for you, and I've cast a levitation spell on the potions you see. You can move them around yourself, or just leave them be and build something like a bookshelf like this for me to place them on.
You can change the floor design, the wall color, and make the display as fancy as you'd like. Just make sure I still have my sign and all 16 potions on display.
Thank you! I can't believe I'm going to have my own potion shop!"
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( Cover Art by @thesailor )
PICO-VIEW 2024 Quarter 2 & 3 Issue 14 is released!
It's another big one, and covers a lot that has happened since the last issue, as well as some very recent exciting news!
Read it here: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=14
Here's the Lineup:
- Tutorial Game Variants
- PICO-8 at 2D Con
- Useful Tidbits
- Dedicated PICO-8 Handheld
- Making Combat Interesting with Combos
- Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode
- Extreme Token Saving
- New and Featured Games
- Diving into Picotron
- P8GO Mobile App
- Featured Game Review
- Game Recommendations
- Super World of Goo
- Beginner's Course Roadmap
- Gaming History: Final Fantasy 8
- Pixel Art Gallery
- Global Table of Contents
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Controls
Story
A young hero, fueled by dreams of becoming a revered paladin, embarks on a quest that will test his strength and intelligence. Inspired by tales of the Sunforged Knights, he eagerly undertakes the arduous trials that they administer and judge. Success promises not only rank among their esteemed order but also the rewards of riches and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
How to Play
There are 62 rooms. Use the items in each room to kill the monsters and exit as efficiently as possible. Resources are tight, but you may be surprised at how you can use them to make your heroic escape.
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(Cover Art by Zep)
This December issue is the twelfth in the series. 12 issues in 12 months for the entire 2023 year! Because of that, this issue will be a little different, as we don't just look back on the month of December, but the entire year! What a year it has been!
Contents:
-Playing with Visual Effects - Tubeman
-December Games Rapid-fire Reviews - Achie
-Top 10 Games of 2023 - NerdyTeachers
-Developer Interview - LouieChapm
-Developer Interview - LokiStriker
-Apskeppet: Year in Review - Johan Peitz
-Curated Games Library - NerdyTeachers
-Outstanding Outliers - KumaKhan22
-Pixel Art Gallery and Interview - SaKo
-The Past and Future of Pico-View - Nerdy Teachers
-Closing Remarks
Read it here:
https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=12
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Cover Art by Mikesta
Pico-View November 2023 Issue #11 is here!
We have had a some amazing releases this month and this Pico-View issue has some incredible insights to learn all about them! There's also a couple special announcements and reveals that we've been keeping hush hush, so I hope you enjoy!
Here's the lineup of Content:
-Interviewing the PICO-8 Community - Pico-8 Gamer
-PICO-8 HTML Templates - Fletch
-Featured Game Review: Vial Varmits - Achie
-BAS: Birds and Saws Demake - Yokoboko
-Introduction to 3D - Tubeman
-The Best PICO-8 Games? - Nerdy Teachers
-The Spectre of Game Design - Pancelor
-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations
-Advanced Token Saving - Lokistriker
-Outstanding Outliers: To Hell & Back in 30 Years - KumaKhan22
-The Spatial Audio of Demi Daggers - RidgeK
-Toy Box Jam 2023 - ThatTomHall
-Pico-8 Advent Calendar - TheTomster
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This prototype was made for Pico-View, a monthly web-zine hosted on NerdyTeachers.com.
This month's prototype is named "Simon's Skull". It is a template for building your own game similar to the original Simon game/toy.
This prototype has a couple interesting features to learn from:
1) Custom Color Palette; using a mix of the default and hidden colors.
2) Game States; A clear separation of the computer's turn and the player's turn.
The game has the same rules as the original, where you listen and watch the buttons being played by Simon (the computer) and then you have to repeat them back in the same order. Use the arrow keys to play the pattern. We added our own theme to the game by making it look like a skull and crossbones and that can be taken farther such as using this as a minigame for unlocking chests in a main pirate themed game.
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN Pico-8ers!!!!
We have had a busy busy busy October in our community and this Pico-View issue really reflects that! It is absolutely full this month with content, thanks to you all!
Here's the lineup of Content:
-PICO-8 Hardware Tutorials
-Asynchronous Multiplayer
-A Tool for Isometric Games
-Judge Reviews of the Cre8 Jam Results
-The Importance of Playtesting
-New Community Stars
-Featured Game Review - Redash
-Featured Interview - Pico Life
-PCM Recorded Samples
-Retro Game Icons of Horror
-2 Upcoming Jams
-New Release Recommendations
-Hardware Gallery from the Community
-Halloween Themed Prototype
Read it here:
https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=10
Cover Art and Illustrations by @Werxzy
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This month's prototype is named "Candlelight Graveyard". It is a lot more developed than I usually make these prototypes because I wanted to add that Halloween theme, and probably got carried away. I try to just pick one style, mechanic, or function and focus on that each month, but this game has a few:
- lighting of the map using pal() swap and clip()
- sin() and cos() for rotation of candles
- fillp() for drawing the grass light effect
- vertical levels using the full map for easy editing
I also challenged myself to use only 2 buttons in preparation for the 2-Button Jam happening next month. So for controls you only move left and right, with either arrow keys or O and X. The right button is also the action button to move on to the next level.
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Pico-View webzine for August 2023 is out now!
Here's the lineup:
-Cover Art and Gallery by PJBGamer
-What is a Lerp - Fletch
-Making Music with Loops - c.diffin
-Game Jam Interviews & Lineups - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Interview: Canyon Crisis Team ft. Marina
-Featured Game Review: Occult Gunner - Achie
-PICO-1k Jam Announcement - Liquidream
-Cre8 Jam Announcement - Pico-8 Gamer
-The Death of a Frog - Marina
-New Release Recommendations
-Prototype Party - Color Combo
Once again thank you to everyone who participates, contributes, and reads the zine! I hope you all had a wonderful month of August, and here's to an even better September!
Happy Reading 🤓
https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=8
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You are a geneticist isolated from the world on an island rich with specialized genetic material, perfect for crafting the ultimate being, whether that means for good or evil is up to you.
In order to grow your homunculus and tailor its traits of virtues or vices you must complete 3 phases of the game several times.
Phase 1 - Gathering
Explore the island and gather the plants that you want. Each plant provides the genes connected to a specific virtue. Find the clipboard in Laboratory Room 1 to learn which plants hold the key to which virtues.
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Month 7 of Pico View brings us a great lineup of tips, code, art, and games. If you missed what has happened recently in the community, catch up here!
Contents:
-Cover Art by SaKo
-PSA to All those Trying to Learn to Code - archonic
-How Structured Iteration Helped Me Overcome My Lack of Art Skills - Pedro Machado
-Featured Interview - Vlad ft. Marina
-New Community Stars - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Game Review: Kalikan - Achie
-Tokenomics 101 - Josiah Winslow
-Function Showcase
-Pixel Art Gallery - Mierdinsky
-Prototype Party - Vertical Jumper
Read it here: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Pico-View/?issue=7
Enjoy! =D
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It's the last day of June 2023 and the new issue of Pico-View is here! Get ready to learn a lot, not just about PICO-8 but also about each other! 🧐 🤓
Here's the lineup:
-Cover art by Jammigans
-My PICO-8 Learning Journey - Ruvalolowa
-How to Write a Hit Song in 30 Minutes - RidgeK
-Featured Game Review 1: Porter - Achie
-Featured Game Review 2: 'Til the Gods Devour Us - Achie
-Finding Unity in the PICO-8 Community - Nerdy Teachers
-Featured Interview - Jammigans ft. Marina
-Let's Jam in July! - Nerdy Teachers
-Random Reviews - New Release Recommendations
-Pixel Art Gallery - Ben Canfield
-Prototype Party - Sokolike
Thanks once again to everyone, especially in our Discord Server, who participated in all the helpful ways we prepared this zine throughout the month. And special thanks to all the extra contributors who welcomed me warmly as I jumped in the DMs.
Love this community!
Happy reading!
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