I took the retro space game aspect in a different direction by looking towards space invaders but simplified the concept to having the enemies coming at you, like Galaga. The game uses a few states, the title, the game, and the game over state. It will cycle through all three, with the game over state triggering if the player reaches zero health, and the title retriggering after the game over state while also showing your high score so far. I tried to emulate the drift-esque movement of a space ship, by having the values of one direction go up as you push one direction and then go down as time goes on or goes faster if the opposite direction is pushed. It didn’t quite work the way I wanted and is the thing that I think needs the most revision.

If anyone else is reading this and is getting started with Pico 8, I would definitely try something like this or any simple top down game first. Platformers have a lot more physics elements to balance when making them, and something like pong will have some intimidating math for the ball bouncing (as silly as that sounds). I also would say to not use rectfill for your sprites, I was coming off p5js and that was the easier option for me there. It was also easier to focus on the game that way, but it actually strains the engine more and can cause flickering. I would definitely just make super simple sprites to start off with, or just get some online as there are a lot of free packs to choose from.

[ Continue Reading.. ]

pico8 debugprint cartridge

to use:

n main cart:

#include debugprint.p8

in _draw function after cls():

x is topleft x , y is topleft y

drawprint(x,y)

at lines to add and update variables of:

name is display label of value, value is the value displayed
addprint(name,value)

debugprintexample

Cart File | Forum Post |

	More cartridges by northbot

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debugprintexample

by northbot

Cart #debugprintexample-1 | 2025-11-09 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

example
tab displays debug info
left key adds to x0

Rail Shooter 0.1

by petayaberry

Cart #zajayayehu-0 | 2025-11-09 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

2

Thought of this today while I was on a hike

I thought it might be cool to teach a class on making games with PICO-8

The first theme I thought of was "making games with math" and this was the result

My record is 5.9667

It started off fun and what I think could be accessible to even newbie programmers, but things got a little too complicated when I needed the "aimer" to "shoot"

The bullet (yes, singular bullet, that never despawns, just hides) and the targets might be a bit too advanced. I tried using simple syntax but that ended up being confusing (and I kept getting way too many syntax errors grrrr). If I were to stuff this into an intro course, I would probably just do it the advanced way or dumb the game down

tvt_grubs

by thomasvt81

Cart #tvt_grubs-0 | 2025-11-08 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

Due to the complexity of the game's controls, it was hard to do with PICO's 6 buttons but:

• < and > to move your worm
• ^ and v to change weapon
• X: jump
• hold X for 1 second to toggle zoomed-out view for overview
• while holding Z you're in shooting mode:
  • ^ and v to aim your current weapon
  • hold X to build up shooting power, let go at the desired power to shoot

Only the 1st level is made, you can make up to 8 in the level editor if you want. I probably intended to generate them, but I never got to that, apparently.

enjoy

This is my first finished prototype. i had forgotten about it for a while, but then i found it in my carts folder and decided to finish it. I forgot to add comments for most of the project too, so its quite messy. Im open to feedback

yetiyetiyeti

by Levi_roy

Cart #yetiyetiyeti-0 | 2025-11-07 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

really I've been playing games. pico 8 is my fav gaming site

I am wondering: Are you allowed to take music from a game and put it in one of yours, as long as you put the creator of the music in the credits?

circadian_bells

by CZ75

Cart #circadian_bells-2 | 2025-11-06 | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

1

My first Picotron cartridge, exploring the excellent sound engine and trying some entry-level physics modeling :)

Hi im new in PICO 8 and in game dev, I have the basic of C++, and python, but I know PICO 8 uses LUA does any one recommend a proyect to start learning the basis

Thanks

coinsort

by sirearle

Cart #coinsort-0 | 2025-10-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

1

Here's my first upload! I mostly want this just in the Splore to test.

space_xplorer

by Nedim

Cart #space_xplorer-0 | 2025-10-13 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

Little procedural space exploration game I made in a day. There isn't much to do except try to find all the planets in the game. The radar is a bit janky but it helps find them.

I found this rare port of the ill-conceived movie tie-in video game for the infamous flop "Halloween III: Season of the Witch." Definitely feels like the programmer (I doubt there was more than one) had to finish this on a deadline. An interesting oddity, albeit not a very fun one. Perhaps I'll wear my Silver Shamrock mask during my next playthru (as the instructions strongly urge you to do)...

Distributed by LJN games.

halloweeniii

by thebrianbonelli

Cart #halloweeniii-1 | 2025-10-29 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

1