Howdy everyone!
I am brand new to coding video games but have been designing and publishing tabletop games for almost 15 years. So, I thought an "easy" project to learn on would be to convert a simple dice game I published 5 years ago. However, I am now absolutely stuck.
The idea is that the player would select one of the 3 dice in hand (the 3 dice on the left side of the screen). Then, they would choose whether to use that die to fill a space in the colored columns corresponding to the die number OR add the die's value to the pie at the top of the column. The white dice are wonky because they can only be used for the pies at the top. Unfortunately, I just can't get the game to move the selector between the two valid options, let alone pick one. Here's what the game looks like:
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I just bought a TrimUI Brick with the goal of using it exclusively for pico 8 games.
I installed MinUI immediately and followed a few tutorials to get everything set up. My one issue has been getting splore up and running - I put in a blank text file titled 'splore', per one tutorial I saw, and that doesn't work (gives me an error).
If I literally just want to use this thing for pico 8 (and I guess I'd prefer to use native pico vs. emulation, all things being equal) what are your recommendations? I'm not married to MinUI or anything - I just want a pure pico experience, including splore (and the ability to search using splore also).
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The Picotron Fennel Functional/Lisp Programming Language Template!
Ever wanted to write a Picotron cart in the functional programming language supported by lua? Well now you can! In this all new never been seen before (Actually has been seen before in the discord for PT and Pico-8) cartridge template for Picotron carts.
This cart include the fennel bootstrap compiler and was taken on 2025/11/02, any additions or updates to the language post that date will not be present til the cart is updated again.
Credit to @abledbody for the quick sort algo and @kimiyoribaka for making it work like table sort.
Source is here: https://github.com/MauriceElliott/picotron-fennel-template
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This works by getting the distance between the two circles using a modified version of the Pythagorean Theorem.
The Math
- dx,dy,r=x2-x1,y2-y1,r1+r2+1
- if dx*dx+dy*dy<=r*r then the circles have collided!
As you can see, GPI and freds72 basically made this in my place! Thanks, you guys :D
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SuperChomp is a fast paced platformer where you rack up as many kills as you can throwing your ball at enemies. Dash, wall climb and "cheat" your way to your highest kill count.
CONTROLS
[X] to Dash or Pickup ball
[0] to Jump
Hitting a wall sticks to it, jump and dash to climb a wall
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Tiny reaction game done in an hour. The idea is simple . Press the button when the slider reaches the red square. The further you go, the faster and more difficult it gets.
This is my first project so I don't think to develop it further. I created this game just to understand the basics of Pico-8.
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Left Shift Games presents...
Cats and Birds!
One hungry cat. Many hungry birds. Who will eat, and who will be eaten?
See how many points you can rack up fighting off the birds who want to eat you. Use the arrow keys and X button to jump. You can bounce off of birds - use that to your advantage!
Post your high scores here in the comments since we can't have a leader board yet!
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Performant, customizable, scientific plots inside Picotron. Create a plot with
P = plot{x_series = {series1 [, series2, ...]}, y_series = {series1 [, series2, ...]}, [key=val, ...]}
Render it with
buf = render(P)
Then blit that buf wherever you want. If you update the plot, just call P = plot(P) and re-render. It's fast enough to do this every frame if you want.
The plots.lua file is standalone and can be placed as a dependency in other carts, or in your picotron library.
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Move up, move down... Shoot!
This is Zap, a quite boringly named arcade game I made. Move up and down along the columns and shoot enemies that spawn at the right side of the screen by pressing Z while on the same column as them. If an enemy moves past you, you lose one life. Once you run out of lives, you lose. See if you can score 100 points!
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Controls:
- (C) Hold to turn and decelerate, release to accelerate.
- If you can see a red line in front of the player, slow down.
- (X) Press to go to the center and decelerate (costs 10 points).
This is my first game made on PICO-8!
I decided to avoid sprites for this one, with the single exception of a star sprite to mark a new high score. I will be updating this game, so look forward to it!
Versions
- vX.# (Major Updates)
- v#.X (Minor Updates)
v1.2 - Arcade Mode!
- Upon death, press X to return to the main menu.
- Press X in the main menu to switch between Normal and Arcade mode!
- Arcade mode makes the walls teleport you to the opposite side of the screen, whereas normal mode's walls just kill you.
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There seems to be a bug when using :take() with span_len > 1. It seems to always miss/skip the final value (off-by-one error?). See attached cart for example!
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I have been living under a rock, 3 of them actually, Playstation, Nintendo & Xbox.
I just discovered Pico 8 two days ago through an app called Google Gemini. It pitched to me this insane idea that there was a console that doesnt exist, hiding games in a thumbnail image. My mind exploded and peices of it have yet to return.
But low and behold, it gives me a link to this imaginary power! And here I am, an Android user absolutely flabbergasted.
Its real, a really real thing and I cant have it (for now) because Im an Android user...
Gemini told me it was ok, I can always emulate it, which I did, using an app called Infinity.
However, this does not give access to the actual pico 8 tools or anything. But I can, somehow, play the pretty thumbnail and BAM! The game works, yay.
However, I want the real Pico 8 experience without the emulator.
So whats my best option? Is there a console or handheld I dont know about for Pico 8?
Do I really have to go out and buy a laptop?
How many Wizards are there practising this magik?
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Rock Paper Scissors with stats, health, and level ups.
This is my first Pico-8 game after following a few small tutorials. I'm considering it a prototype and a learning exercise, but I'm posting it hoping to get some feedback, which is appreciated! The code is a mess, I know. I'm willing to clean it up, fix bugs, add polish or new features if enough people are interested. Otherwise, I'm on to my next game to continue learning and hopefully make something good someday.
Thanks!
Controls:
Mobile: Use on screen controls
Desktop: Arrow keys to select menus, 'z' or 'c' or 'n' for action button
Issues I'm already aware of:
- Even if you put all 9 level ups into Con, it still doesn't fill the health bar. The health should just always fill the bar at max hp, showing a percentage not actual heath in pixels.
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My first cart submission! I have been making games with too big of a scope for about a decade, I always burn out about 70-80% of the way through. Hopefully PICO-8 will help me finish some games. Working on a few other original ideas, but I wanted to do something that I could finish in one sitting, so I decide to do (another) game of life implementation.
- Arrow keys to move the cursor
- Z to flip the state of cell
- X to step to next generation (you can hold it down!)
- Menu has options to load other patterns, a blank canvas, and copy your current pattern
- CTRL/CMD+V to paste your pattern
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runShmup8
runShmup8 started as an idea to create a game within the Pico-8 interface itself. It is a shoot 'em up where you try to eliminate as many "Error" enemies as possible. As a shoot 'em up, the game is pretty barebones but it is fun to blast those pesky "Error" messages.
How to Play
You'll need a mouse or trackpad to play.
Click on "False" to start or restart the game.
Left-click to shoot.
Try to get as highest score.
Don't forget to send your best scores as a screenshot!
Good luck!
Credits
Design/Art/Music/Code: ArenaLlanura
Inspired by Pico-8 interface.
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