Background
This is my homework for the Youtube series "Pico-8 Tutorial - Shmup de Lazy Devs" (shmup:Shoot-em-up)
The course can be followed at:
URL Pico-8 Tutorial - Shmup
At the end of each video there was homework. As a result of doing the exercises, my end program looks and acts a bit different than the one of the teacher. I know I need to refactor the code (it's a mess)
I wrote my game in a way that, I hope, would encourage the players to re-run the game and try to beat their last high-score.
This is the first "game" I wrote. I would be grateful for any remark on graphics, music, game-play and bugs.
1 comment
This is a step by step singleplayer tutorial for the real world card game of Euchre. Play through six levels, where each level introduces a new rule until on level 6 you're playing full blown Euchre. Can you beat all six levels?
Ver 2 changelog:
- fixed bug on level select
- added game speed option in pico8 menu
- changed button prompts to be "X or O" instead of "X and O"
4 comments
The text of pico-8 is fighting!
Have a "friendly" competition with your friends or fight a menacing boss alone!
Controls:
- Dpad/Arrow keys: Movement and directional input
- O Button/Z: Jump or accept
- X Button/X: Attack or go back
Tips:
- Some places are too high to reach with just a normal jump; thankfully, you can wall jump!
[16x16]
2 comments
INFERNO – Fireplace & Timer
by manhill & claude ai
Sit back and relax. INFERNO turns your PICO-8 into a cozy pixel fireplace — complete with flickering flames, glowing embers, drifting smoke, crackling sounds, and a whole mantelpiece full of decorative items.
Or use it as a kitchen timer: set your minutes, watch the fire slowly grow from embers to a roaring blaze, and get an unmistakable alarm when time's up.
Controls
- ⬆️⬇️ Fire intensity
- ⬅️➡️ Ambient glow
- 🅾️+⬆️⬇️ Animation speed
- ❎ Cycle deco items
- 🅾️ Toggle roast pig
- ❎+🅾️ Set/cancel timer
3 comments
Valentines day is coming up and you don't have anything for your partner! Go find something!
[Arrow Keys] Move [X] Run [O] Interact
0 comments
Cover of Toccata and Fugue, by J.S. Bach.
This hit piece was released in the 1700s to be performed on organ.
Can't wait for Bach's next release...
1 comment
Hello Pico-8 community! As my first post on the BBS, I'd like to share a framework I threw together for parallaxes in 2D games.
You're free to use this framework for any of your own games. Credit is appreciated but not required.
Enjoy!
FAQ (also in the cartridge file):
Q: How do I add this to my
project?
A: Paste tab 1 into your
project.
Q: Will using this use a bunch
of tokens?
A: Token count is only based on
actual code tokens, and the
functions in tab 1 are made
to use few tokens. If you do
need more characters or
compressed capacity, delete
the comments in tab 1.
Q: Where is the documentation?
A: All functions in tab 1 have
0 comments
Cavers with a loving family and 6-figure salary when they see the Cave of Doom and Despair with a 0% survival rate
Requires speed tech (https://celesteclassic.github.io/glossary/)
4 comments
Space Toy
A 3D starfield toy that lets you accelerate up to warp speed. Press forward to enable warp mode, and back to slow back down.
Pressing buttons 5, 12, 13 and 14 (picotron buttons, 'x', 'f', 'g', and 'q' respectively) let you change the video mode if you like a pixel-y look. You can also press 4 ('c') to toggle full screen mode on the web version.
Press 4 to toggle fullscreen on and off.
Space Toy is my first picotron program.
Note:
Epilepsy warning! There is a flash when you reach maximum speed.
4 comments
BIRDOIDS! v21
A flocking simulation turned arcade game based on Craig Reynolds' Boids algorithm (1986)
Watch a flock of 40 birds swirl, scatter, and regroup across a handcrafted countryside — then hunt them down as a hungry predator!
About
Birdoids implements the classic three rules of flocking — separation, alignment, and cohesion — with a 270° field of view and nearest-neighbor limits for realistic emergent behavior. The birds react to threats, flee from eagles, and fill the sky with life.
The landscape features a village with a church, windmills, a lake with dock and reeds, farmers' fields, wandering animals, playing children, a kite, butterflies, hay bales, and plenty of ambient countryside sounds — all in pure PICO-8 pixel art.
Controls
- ❎ — flap / start game
- ⬅️ ➡️ — steer
- 🅾️ — toggle range visualization
- ⬆️ ⬇️ — toggle screen-wrap (intro)
- ⬅️ ➡️ — toggle attract mode sound (intro)
Game Modes
Attract Mode — sit back and watch the flock in action with optional sound
Arcade Mode — press ❎ to start! Flap, steer, and catch as many birds as you can before time runs out. Watch out for the eagle — it steals 4 seconds on contact! Score enough to earn extended play.
Under the Hood
- Boids algorithm with all three Reynolds rules: separation, alignment, and cohesion
- 270° field of view (0.42 turn) per boid — they don't react to what's behind them
- Nearest-neighbor limit (7) to keep flock behavior realistic and save CPU cycles
- Eagle AI with three states: circling, diving, and leaving — it tracks the predator and swoops in for time-stealing attacks
- Procedural landscape — terrain, clouds, houses, trees, fields, flowers, bushes, brook, and lake are all generated at init from seeded randomness
- Ambient life — farm animals graze and turn, kids play and wave, walkers stroll, butterflies drift on sine waves, chimney smoke rises, windmill blades spin, and a kite bobs in the wind
- AI demo mode — the predator hunts autonomously in attract mode, chasing the nearest boid
- Screen-wrap toggle — boids and predator can wrap around or bounce off edges
- 19 SFX — flap, catch, crunch, countdown tick, ambient bird calls, eagle cries, frog croaks, cricket chirps, owl hoots, and more
Built entirely within PICO-8's constraints — no sprites used, everything is drawn with pset, line, rect, circ, and oval primitives.
Credits
Made by manhill and Claude AI (2025)
Boids algorithm: Craig Reynolds, "Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model" (SIGGRAPH 1987)
6 comments
Hi! This is my first project in PICO-8, and I barely knew anything about coding when I started. It took me several days to finish, but it was worth it because it’s mainly a gift for my boyfriend.
It’s a very short game since it’s not meant to go any deeper. I know you might find a few bugs, but I was basically racing against the clock, haha.
I love my boyfriend very much, and I hope he likes it.
Story.
You are a hopeless cat who feels misunderstood by everyone. Life has become monotonous, yet there is still a need to keep moving forward through the forest in search of a reason, and of a life companion.
The environment changes as positive messages appear on the signs around the map, reflecting the new perspective of our protagonist.
3 comments
Batty
This game was made for the 2025 New Mexico Game Jam. You are a mother bat. Your babies are hungry! You must get food. Each night you must hunt, using your batty sonar to both find and stun your prey. This is my first Pico-8 game.
Gameplay
You must stun the bugs with your pulse in order to harvest them. Hit each bug with two pulses to stun it. A bug that's been hit once will have a small dot above it. One that's been hit twice will be stunned and slow and disoriented. Perfect prey for you! Then simply fly into them. Bugs that haven't been stunned are not edible.
Some bugs (red) are invisible to you until your echolocation reveals them.
Credits
Music from here, courtesy of snabisch on itch.io.
3 comments
Release 0.2.2 added the following:
Added: processes receive window gui messages at the top level: click, doubleclick, tap, doubletap, drag, release, hover
Out of these events, all work at the Window level except for 'drag' and 'release'. (Note that all of these events work as expected when applied to a GUI element, just not to the Window)
Minimal code to test and show the bug as follows:
on_event("release", function(msg)
cls()
print(pod(msg))
end)
function _draw()
end |
This should print the event message to the screen, but nothing happens. If you change "release" above to "click" (for example), then you will see the event message printed. Both "release" and "drag" produce nothing, all the other events listed above produce output as expected.
For anyone running into this issue, you can replicate most of the functionality using the "mouse" event which captures every mouse event. But this workaround requires more manual work.
0 comments
squirt
Hi I'm new to Pico 8 and this is my first game. I've tried to make games before on other engines but didn't get far. this is almost a completed game.
The game is heavily inspired by the ZX Spectrum game PSST! which was one of the first games I ever played sometime in the mid 1980s.
Pick up cans and spray the bugs to protect your plant. Different can colors work on different bugs. you must put the can back on an empty shelf before picking up another color.
8 comments
