The reasoning behind this is rather simplistic. I have only published games for Windows and Mac (and these days I struggle with even getting out for windows) and so I inherently don't get many plays on any of my games. HOWEVER, Pico-8 allows for easy export to Windows, Mac, Linux, and best of all, Web! So my jam games will get max exposure. I also find it hard to work on a blank canvas with no constraints, but Pico-8 has a lot of constraints that could help get my creative juices flowing. It is also a far more code based creation platform than anything I've ever used before, so it'll teach me some ins and outs of how a language works than a standard engine, and maybe with the few inbuilt tools and easy to learn language it provides (Lua) I could use as a stepping stone to use frameworks and code engines like HaxeFlixel or Pygame. I never intend to use it outside of game jams, as my engine (GMS2) is very much good, and not the reason I am thinking of picking up this tool, other than when learning the engine (or maybe I will learn it for a game jam, who knows , not me, that's for certain) Anyway thanks for reading my ramble, I'll post more here when I start actually using Pico-8! Peace out for now :)



My son had some trouble with the controls so I made it only need the arrows. I also slowed the ship down, it was too fast for his little fingers.
I am working on a Pico game with some Backyard Baseball-esque mechanics. However, I would like to work in Twine for some more advanced dialogue options.
So the question: Is it possible for a Pico game to communicate with other embedded HTML games in the same webpage. Specifically, I am hoping to embed a Twine game, side by side with the Pico game and have the gameplay switch back and forth.
Would I be able to accomplish this via GPIO? I have found the documentation to be confusing and a little thin, focused mainly Raspberry Pi implementation. I think I would need to send a message to the embedding website (a page on my own website) and then send it to the other game? Is that even possible in HTML5.
Alternatively, I have considered the games to somehow "call" each other from inside their respective HTML/JS code, replacing the other game temporarily. Again, I am not quite familiar enough with HTML/JS/CSS to know where to begin here. Thanks in advance for any help


It's a joke.
KUMAMINE(https://twitter.com/kumamine) created the original character Denwa Neko (電話猫)/Shigoto Neko (仕事猫).
Ok so this is extremely minor, but it's weird.
The pico-8 homepage always pulls up some random starred games on the left and right of a main little screen right? ok, so without selecting a game, when you press play it goes to SlipWays. I have no idea why.
Just thought I'd say something. Hoping for an explanation maybe?



I have created a marching line of invaders that move and animate left and right, dropping down a few rows each time they reach the opposite edge of the screen, It's working great!
So then I added a function that will fire a shot from one of the aliens but when I iterate through the table I always get the last one in the table for my x, y starting position of the invaders shot.
Is there a way to iterate through a table picking a random entry to generate some variables from? I have tried several things but can't seem to figure out how to do this as we only have: add, all, count, del, foreach and pairs.
Thanks,
Brian


I don't have the ability to make games but I have some ideas.
1: Dad Jokes. The game would give you random dad jokes and whoever knows the most gets the high score! Basic game but still a fun concept.
2: this one will either sound dumb or stupid or both, but ill shoot. A squirrel simulator? it's always funny to watch them miserably fail or succeed in raiding bird feeders. So why not make a game where u are the squirrel? Birdfeeders could be levels or something... again idk how this sounds.
Just some ideas. thnx.
