morningtoast [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

I was interviewed in Retro Gamer magazine

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 13:23:12 UTC

I'm proud and honored to have been interviewed in Retro Gamer issue #268 about being a PICO-8 gamedev. Big thanks Andrew Fisher who runs the homebrew section at Retro Gamer for the opportunity to share a little bit of my story. The issue is the one with the Mega Drive on the cover and it just hit shelves here in the US in March (last month in the UK). Barnes & Noble stores carry it but you can also get a subscription online - highly recommended.

Read the full article scan

It's only 4 paragraphs and few screenshots but it's still neat to see yourself a video game magazine...long time reader, first time featured :) I'm not sure if my story or games deserve such a spotlight but I'll take the 15 minutes of nerd fame. And anything to shine some more light on PICO8 is always part of the mission as well...according to the article, I'm an "advocate" lol

And I know it's not the Oscars or anything but I need to thank everyone here on the forum that has shared their brains, snippets, ideas, and feedback as I've been using P8 over the last 9 years. But also would like to shoutout a few that really helped educate and motivate me from the start: @Liquidream @pahammond @enargy @MBoffin @mhughson @freds72 @Felice @dw817 @zep - and many more that I'm surely forgetting.

Here's where I started making games...

...and now more than 30 years later I can show my parents all that time wasn't completely wasted. Look ma, I'm in a magazine!

Slithering snake, need help with cos and sin...?

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 18:06:04 UTC

Maybe it's just Friday burn out but I'm struggling to get a "slithering" action right. I know it needs to make use of cos() and sin() but I don't use them regularly enough to quite know where to plug it in properly or math to give it.

What I'm chasing is to get a snake made of N number of segments move across from the screen from left to right. So the whole thing moves on the X with the wave is on the Y. But I think my hang up is how to get each segment wave on a snake-like path; not all together at the same time - basically alternating waves? I dunno..you know how a snake looks :)

In each segment update loop is:

self.x+=-1
self.y+=cos(t())

And that's certainly making the wave happen but all the segments are moving in unison and not in sequence like I was hoping. I want something like this:

But I'm getting something like this:

Like I said, some of this may be weekly burnout because I swear I've tackled this problem before but don't have anything in my snippet library that suggests so.

Any tips, math help, or snippets is appreciated...

RAM code vs cart code, which is active when?

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 20:18:58 UTC

Hey all...hooked myself up with Picotron to play with over the holidays. I'm planning on porting over some of my PICO8 games as a way to learn.

One thing I don't think I'm quite understanding is the RAM code vs the cart code.

I have a cart saved with simple printing of "Hello world" in it as MYDEMO.p64 and when I double-click it, it runs fine. Yay.

I open the cart contents and open the 'main.lua' to edit in source mode. I change the text to "Hello dog" and then do CTRL+R to reload the cart and there's no change...still shows Hello World. But if I do 'load mydemo' from the terminal and then run, it shows the change. Make another change, reload, no change...gotta do 'load' again. Tedious.

I guess I'm just used to PICO8's reload-to-see-changes instantly...but it seems that's not the case with Picotron?

Does opening cart code not make it the 'active' code that will run instantly when changes are made? Seems like a lot of extra steps just to see quick changes I make in a cart.

I sense I'm missing something simple but not sure what. Still on training wheels with the new UI and architecture.

More questions coming soon! LOL, thanks all...

Best mini handheld for PICO8?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 15:40:15 UTC

Wondering which mini handheld (the ~3" screen variety) people have had good luck with for running PICO8. The fewer hoops to get setup the better. I'm not married to any brand per se but it'd be great if it was hovering around the $50 mark.

Porting games to Steam, Switch with Zepto8? How's it work?

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:28:36 UTC

I got a notice about a new game from @NuSan and went to check it out when I see another game for Steam and for the Switch! I tried to dig a little and read about Zepto8??? Found the repo for it but not exactly sure what to do with it, the docs don't say much? Not so smart in that area, I guess...or it's not really meant to be used yet, lol

Bottomline, it looks like they have ported their PICO8 game over to Steam and even the Switch, which is really cool and something I'd love to try but not sure how/where to start. Zepto8 sounds like a thing that does that...maybe...?

I assume there will be some "extra" work to do to the PICO8 code to hook to the SDKs that the consoles require or something like that...BUT...I'm hoping it's not a total rewrite type of thing. If the answer is to just rewrite my game in another language then I might as well just start there, which I'm not too interested in doing at this point.

Zepto8 repo: https://github.com/samhocevar/zepto8

NuSan's ported game to Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/zebulon-a-lost-cat-switch/

If anyone's gone down that road or can point to a how-to or something, I'd appreciate any insight. I put my games up on Itch right now and that's good but making it easier for folks to find/play the game through Steam or even a console would be awesome.

Steel Hunter: Evasion Tactics

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 17:06:52 UTC

Steel Hunter: Evasion Tactics

by morningtoast

[Click to Play]

Speed, skill, luck...high scores

This is a high score companion cart to Steel Hunter. Navigate the minefield to collect as many pickups as you can within 2-minutes, or see how fast you can complete levels as they get more challenging.

2 modes of play
3 difficulty settings
High score tables

Controls

Arrows / D-Pad = Move submarine

Gamepad recommended. Controller mappings may vary.

Modes of play

Challenge mode - You get 2 minutes to collect as many pickups as you can. You get bonus points for lasting the entire time and for each extra sub you have.
Survival mode - Collect all the pickups as quickly as possible to advance to the next level. Bonus points are relative to speed.

Difficulty settings

Easy: Screen wrapping. No oxygen meter. Only grid minefield.
Normal: Screen wrapping. Oxygen meter. Grid and maze minefields.
Hard: No wrapping. Oxygen meter. Only maze minefields.

Collect high scores

High score tables for each mode and each difficulty. Challenge yourself or challenge your friends to get your name etched into history.

Behind the game

I found myself treating the first level of Steel Hunter as a speed challenge, not unlike the original "Sea Chase" game I used for inspiration. That along with some suggestions from the community brings you Steel Hunter: Evasion Tactics!

For more sea battles and a boss fight, play the original Steel Hunter.

It all started with the PocketCHIP...thank you!

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 22:01:07 UTC

Facebook so kindly reminded me that my PICO-8 journey started roughly 8 years ago with the PocketCHIP.

Yeah, yeah...the PocketCHIP didn't turn out to be a keeper but PICO-8 certainly was. Since PICO-8 came pre-installed with the PCHIP, I figured it would have a built-in audience constantly looking at new games (a la Playdate today) and that sounded better/easier to me than throwing games into the void. That dream didn't quite turn out but I'm thankful it brought P8 into my hobby sphere and has continued to be a fun way to fill time and live out some childhood dreams of making games for people to play.

Thanks to @zep for all the effort and making a fun platform to create, play, and share games. But more so to all the people in the P8 community over the years that helped me stay motivated and make games. From code to assets to theory and beyond, THANK YOU.

Will Antstream be a new outlet for our PICO8 games?

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 18:57:29 UTC

Just read about PICO-8 games being supported by the new Antstream service!

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/08/ps1-net-yaroze-and-pico-8-games-are-coming-to-antstream

The PICO-8 part of the announcement in the video starts around 10:25. They talk about how 2 games are part of the service to start so it kinda sounds like Antstream will choose or curate which PICO8 games get onto the service? I dunno...and it's scant on details if it's running PICO8 somehow or if it's just "games that are made with PICO8" and they're using binaries or what. Dunno...hopefully we'll learn more.

But even then it sounds like Antstream will be another outlet where people can easily get to our games. Antstream looks to be a service on Xbox so that instantly lowers the barrier to play more games.

And congrats to Puzzles of Paladin and Manbomber for getting chosen as a launch title for the PICO8 inclusion.

Pal swapping within an alt color swap? Trying to use secondary colors

Wed, 01 May 2024 14:54:37 UTC

I'm trying to figure out the alternate colors a bit so I can use them in a game. I'm not trying to get all 32 colors available at once. I'm happy with having 16 but just want to adjust which 16 I have. From what I've read, it seems like this is possible.

I put the display pal() swaps at the top of the cart which does switch out colors. And it works when drawing and with sprites. Cool.

pal(3,129,1) -- blue129
pal(5,140,1) -- blue140
pal(6,135,1) -- yellow135
pal(11,137,1) -- orange137
pal(12,132,1) -- brown132
pal(14,128,1) -- brown128

So I have a sprite that is drawn with original blue12 and then on the screen it displays as brown132 because of the swap. I get that and it's working.

But I want to be able to display that same sprite again in a different color.
How do you do a swap on a swap?

-- this sprite is draw in blue12 and displays as brown132 = expected
spr(1,12,96)

-- how do i make the same sprite display as orange137
-- pal(12,137) -- this doesn't work, it swaps both
-- pal(132,137) -- this doesn't work, both still brown

spr(1,62,96)

I'm still looking for the flexibility of easy pal() swaps even after I've swapped for colors in the alt palette. Maybe it's not possible in the way I'm wanting. It's certainly not the end of the world if it won't work like I think. I've found a ton of posts on the alt colors but none of them seem to address swapping within a swap.

Steel Hunter

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 18:47:48 UTC

Steel Hunter

by morningtoast

[Click to Play]

Can you take down the entire fleet?

The enemy has established a naval blockade and you're the only one that can open up supply lines. Use your mini-sub to destroy enemy ships and clear the blockade. Success will depend on a steady hand and perfect timing. But beware! There are also reported sightings of an experimental enemy sub!

Navigate tricky minefields
Tense periscope action!
Avoid depth charges raining from above
Damn the torpedoes!
Top secret submarine boss fight

Classic action

Controls

Arrows / D-Pad = Move submarine
Z / B-button = Action; Shoot forward
X / A-button = Shoot down

Gamepad recommended. Controller mappings will vary.

Credits

Design + code + art: Brian Vaughn
Music: Robby Duguay, Brian Follick
Sound: SFXP

Behind the game

By chance I played Sea Chase by Eddy Fries on the Atari 800 and while it's pretty typical Atari fare, there was enough there to get me thinking, "it would be cool if there was more." Plus, it hit one of my favorite themes that I had yet to venture into: Submarines! Battleships! Underwaterness!

The first level of Steel Hunter borrows straight from Sea Chase with a few changes before heading into a periscope shooting gallery which is my favorite part. Honestly, the periscope thing is what drove this whole project. I wanted to make a game that used that mechanic so I wrapped underwater minefield levels around it to complete the story.

This isn't a long game, it's not a particularly challenging game, and it's not technically impressive. It wasn't really intended to be any of those things and I think that's okay. I was just trying to make a fun little game and scratch my annual itch to make a video game. And FWIW, no magic was used in making this game...just straight, unprocessed code on a single cart.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thanks to everyone that plays and to all that have supported my games over the years. Please report any bugs or crashes.

Tokens don't matter on Itch.io

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 16:39:22 UTC

No duh, right?

I've been making PICO8 games for 7 years now (doesn't feel that long) and the tokens and limits have just been part of the fun. Those restrictions can push our creativity into something better. That's the whole point and I love it.

My focus has always been on making the games for people playing on the P8 console in some fashion, whether on a PC or a handheld or whatever. And that audience is basically other P8 devs and gamers that know and appreciate the limitations.

Until now, Itch.io has mostly been an afterthought for my games. Basically just a nice way for people to play them all via the web...and you get some nice exposure bumps from the platform and so on.

Don't Dig Up the Dead it was the first time I put more conscious effort into the Itch.io versions of the game, whether that be the downloadable binaries or even just playing the web version for free. I've also put more effort into spreading the word about the game because I'm just proud of it and very happy with how it turned out. No shame. But with that push comes more feedback, which is always wonderful to receive...

...but this time that feedback hit me a little differently. As people called out frustrations or things they feel the game is missing, I realized I can't just say, "I ran out of tokens, sorry." That obviously doesn't fly if the person on the other end isn't aware of the PICO8 platform and culture, and in the case of Itch.io, they're probably not(?).

I don't know why this never hit me before. It's obvious but I was just so focused on the P8 crowd that I never considered the non-P8 gamer that plays the game through Itch.io by chance. It's made me realize that P8's limitations can quickly be a convenient excuse for excluding things that really should have been in my game. "Sorry, I wanted to add that feature but ran out of space," is all too common in my post-release world but in context of P8 I was fine with it. I don't know if I am anymore.

But I also don't think I want to use PICO8 as "just another" game engine because why deal with the limitations if you're always trying to find elaborate ways to get around them anyway?

How I used AI to support my game

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 16:11:07 UTC

I had only played with the AI-generation stuff without any real thought as to how I can actually benefit from it. But with the release of Don't Dig Up the Dead, I had a happy accident when using AI to generate some supporting art.

Don't Dig Up the Dead uses a mix of borrowed and original in-game assets. Music and sound came from some packs and some of the animation came from other games, but a large part of what you see is my own art and I'm proud that I was able to put something together that felt like it all belonged. There's enough of "me" in what people see that I'm not embarrassed to show it off.

I marched along making my game and got it to a very happy spot that I thought I was ready to release and be done. But then AI showed up. I took the bait like the rest of the world and started playing around with the art generation AI to see what it would do...just for fun without any real intent to use it for anything. But then I thought, "hey, I could use this to make art for my game." My game was done so this wasn't about generating pixels or sprites, just supporting material, like cover art and promotional stuff.

My friend recommended Midjourney so I gave it a shot. I fed it the phrase, "a ghost coming out of a hole in the ground rising above a man standing in a forest holding a shovel as he watches in horror," which is what I imagined the box art for Don't Dig Up the Dead might look like. Much to my surprise, it spit out something pretty spot on:

The colors, the mood, the spooky figure at the top of the hill...it all lined up with what was in my head. Pretty amazing. The guy in the middle wasn't quite right but a few more feeds into the AI machine and I got one that worked, so I combined two AI generated images into one, added some text, and got my box art.

This became my promotional art that looks nothing like the actual game...but that's in the spirit, right? Like every other box art from any pre-2000 game, the art sells the idea and the mood. The game will look totally different but you'll carry that cover image into the game while you play. It's something we have all experienced but for my own PICO8 games was usually out of my grasp due to resource limitations. I'd love to make sweet art for every game but I just don't have the time (or patience, or software, or motivation). But the AI art can kickstart that process and give you some pretty great results that are unique to your game. No more ripping things from Google and hoping no one complains. Even though AI did the work, I'm happy to show it off when telling people about my game.

I haven't tried using AI to generate actual game sprites and I'm not sure I'd really enjoy doing that, but for supplemental content that wouldn't have otherwise been created, why not? I'm in with no shame.

Don't Dig Up the Dead

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:55:21 UTC

Don't Dig Up the Dead v1.1

by morningtoast

[Click to Play]

Every hole digs up a soul

You must find 3 magic relics to help rid the land of evil. Use the Find-O-Meter and your trusty shovel to search the forest. But if you dig up the dead you'll need to fight them off to stay alive, so pay attention to everything you unearth...it might just save your life.

Find more than 30 items scattered throughout a spooky forest
Challenging shmup action as you fight off the dead
Simple and rewarding inventory management
Secrets and riddles abound

Playing the game

For PICO8 owners: Play through Splore or by running load #dontdig from the PICO8 commandline.

Gamepad recommended for best experience.

D-Pad/Arrows: Move your character
B Button/Z: Action button. Hold down to dig and shoot.
A Button/X: Inventory
Start/P: Pause and settings
> Read the manual to learn more (PDF)

Explore the forest while paying attention to the Find-O-Meter. When the needle points at red and beeps, hold down the action button to dig and see what you've found. Use the items you find to power up. And keep an eye out for chests and unlock them to get powerful upgrades.

But remember, every hole digs up a soul and sends it into the wild. If you get caught by a ghost, you'll have to defeat it before you can continue on your quest.

When you find a magic relic, take it back to the old man in the village. Find all 3 and you can win the game!

Deluxe edition & strategy guide

You can also purchase the Deluxe Edition Bundle which includes a strategy guide, maps, a special in-game item, and an extra trainer cart.

> See the Itch.io page for details.

Thanks to the community

As usual, thanks to this great community for their support and willingness to share ideas, code, and assets that helped me make this game, especially @pahammond @Gruber @kevinthompson

This game took way longer to make than I had hoped but I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's part shmup and part exploration adventure that I think is pretty accessible overall. Your thoughts and feedback are always appreciated and please report any crashes you experience.

Changelog

v1.1 (2/6/23)
Added: Total stats now show on inventory screen
Added: Any hole dug shown by an "X"
Changed: Balancing & timing adjustments for bullet battles

Is there a CRT filter for binary exports?

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 19:57:45 UTC

I know there are available CRT filters for exporting web carts but is there anything for binary exports?

I have a hunch there isn't but never hurts to ask. :)

RPi v0.2.5e not working Anbernic handhelds?

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 21:22:06 UTC

I have an Anbernic RG351V and it's been running PICO8 wonderfully over the past year. It's my primary PICO8 console.

However, I just updated it to v0.2.5e and now when I launch PICO8 (which boots into Splore) I hear the boot music but no display on the screen. No combination of key presses seems to turn on the screen.

The RG351 uses the Raspberry Pi version of PICO8.

I've followed the same update instructions as I have for the past several versions.
https://retrogamecorps.com/2020/11/12/guide-pico-8-on-retro-handhelds/#351ELEC

Up until now, it's been great and just trying to figure something out...or learn what type of animal needs sacrificed to make it work.

I know this is a very device-specific question but figured I might not be alone. Any thoughts or insight is appreciated.

How should I publish multicarts on the BBS?

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:36:09 UTC

I took a small leap into a multicart game - one cart for the title/intro, another for the main game - so 2 carts in total. I've never tried this before and didn't think much of it until I go to uploading it to the BSS so it will get into Splore any whatnot. This is new territory for me but I know it's something folks do all the time. The docs are not very clear on how to handle it for the BBS.

Here's what I think I have to do...

Export the 2nd cart as a PNG: game_cart2.p8.png
Upload game_cart2 first so it can get an ID from the BBS: #mygame2
Once I have that ID, go into game_cart1 and add the load("#mygame2") call in the proper spot, in this case when the player press a button to start the game.
Export game_cart1 as a PNG and upload that to the BBS as a full release game so it has a thread and everything else. This is the cart that will be the one people see in Splore and on the BBS...right?

So assuming those steps are correct, how do I upload a cart to the BBS without it getting a thread?

Just start a post, upload the cart, then cancel the post? Does the cart still exist and everything even if I don't publish the thread?

...and all this is why I usually try to keep my games within the single cart limit :) It does simplify a lot when it comes to publishing a game, huh?

Exporting multicart for binaries and web is not an issue. I have that working already. However, I have found that another downside to multicart seems to be that you have to have 2 versions of the carts...one that does the load("#bbsid") and then one that does load("cart2.p8") for the non-BBS versions. At least that seems to be the case...maybe not?

Any insight to publishing multicart games is appreciated.

The Last Christmas Tree

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 16:09:06 UTC

The Last Christmas Tree

by morningtoast

[Click to Play]

Game jam entry: This game was created for the 2022 Toy Box Jam. This is game is not feature complete nor was it really playtested. It's a jam entry so take what you get :)

Grinches have destroyed all but one Christmas tree. You must help the elves save the last Christmas tree!

This is tower defense game where you can move blue tosser elves into any position while you also have to use the red scout elf to dig up snow and keep the tossers stocked with snowballs.

Controls

D-pad to move the red scout elf and blue tosser elves
When red scout, hold X button to move quicker under the snow
When red scout, press O button to dig up snow. When your snow is full, return it to the North Pole so it can be made into snowballs.
When scout, press X button when you're near a blue tosser elf to take control of the tosser. Move the tosser into position and press X again to place him and switch back to the scout elf.

Tosser elves will attack automatically when the grinches are in range. The squares you dig up will slow the grinches down but those grass spots will get covered with snow after some time.

Green grinches are faster but weak. Red grinches are slower but stronger.

If a grinch reaches the Christmas tree it will attack until he dies. The Christmas tree has 100 health points. If it reaches zero, Christmas is lost forever.

There are 10 waves and that's about it. I didn't have time to add any sort of final boss or anything like that...I might go back. I also would have liked to add in more upgrades and things that would have made the strategy a little more...uh...strategic. But I'm happy and surprised I was able to get something this playable in a very short amount of time. All in all, I probably spent about a week on this one, and that was over holidays with lots of distractions :)

Overall, the concept of snow and snowballs for a tower defense game I thought was interesting. Since the snow can be the obstacle AND the ammo, that seemed like something to have fun with as far as resource management is concerned.

Web site Forum link doesn't go to the right forum??

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:24:13 UTC

I've been hitting the PICO8 website for years now but just recently I noticed that the "Forum" link in the PICO8 site menu takes you to the Cartridges/Releases sub-forum and NOT the main forum...and that's not good.

Shouldn't the main menu link take you to the forum landing page?

I've just assumed that clicking the main menu link takes me to the starting point and I drill down from there...not that it has done some drilling for me already.

Now that I've paid attention to this, I'm seeing A TON of threads I never saw before that I'm interested in. One challenge forums have is duplicate and buried posts but if the site makes it hard to see all posts in the first place, it doesn't help.

This is the forum start page: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?cat=7

This is the where the "Forum" main menu link goes: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?cat=7#sub=2

How do you manage actor timelines?

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:14:34 UTC

This might be too broad of a question...but how do you create and manage timelines for actors in your game?

A lot of my games involve waves of enemies coming onto the screen, a la shmups and runners. I've made several games at this point that need these types of timelines but I feel like I have to create a new system each game. I haven't come up with a method/process/flow that I feel is reusable and that bothers me :)

A common pattern I use is a delimited string that gets parsed into an array that outlines which actors should appear and when based on timing (spawn after X seconds). It works okay but that giant string often requires external tools to create and often ends being very specific for the game - which isn't bad per se, just clunky.

I guess I don't have a problem to solve here...just looking for insight as to how others handle it or have dealt with it in their own games.

Default gamepad button mappings

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 21:16:20 UTC

I've found that even with my small collection of gamepad/controllers being hooked up to various devices, that the default mappings on gamepads differ widely. It made it hard to me to know which button to label as which in my games.

So if you just plug in your gamepad and boot up PICO8, which buttons map to which keys?

Naturally, it's gonna vary but based on my own controllers and a very unscientific survey on Twitter, I've come to accept that the B button on a gamepad maps to Z on keyboard, and A button maps to X on keyboard.

Like so:

Obviously, you can remap the buttons and all that jazz but out of the box, this seems to be the common config. This is how my Buffalo gamepad is when plugged into my Windows machine...and gotta say, it makes sense. The B button is left of the A button, just like the Z key is left of the X key on my keyboard.

What have you found with your various controllers and gamepads? Maybe this thread can serve as an index of controllers and how they map to PICO8 by default. Just make sure to outline the brand of controller and the device you're using it with.