Welcome to Particle Defender!
By pixelsensei | Music by SawwTooth
How to Play
Defend your ship against endless asteroid waves!
Left Click — fire particle stream
Right Click — warp (destroys all enemies, needs full charge)
Between waves, choose an upgrade to improve your build.
Tips
- Don't overheat! Watch the green bar — red means cooldown penalty.
- Warp is free at the start of each wave.
- HP regenerates over time — survive long enough to recover.
- Each wave gets harder. Pick upgrades wisely!
Upgrades
- Cooldown — reduce overheat penalty
- Particles — fire more at once
2 comments
Hey, I feel like I'm having a very basic struggle here but I can't tell where I'm going wrong. I'm currently trying to make an animation of a running lamb, and I want to make it so the speed of the animation increases when the speed of the lamb increases. I was trying here to have an animation timer function that gets fed different values depending on the speed of the lamb. But when I run it nothing is happening. Any help much appreciated!
function _init()
lambsp=1
speed=1
animtimer1=4
animreset1=4
animtimer2=3
animreset2=3
animtimer3=2
animreset3=2
animtimer4=1
animreset4=1
end
function animtimer(o,x)
--o=animtimer
--x=animreset
o-=1
if o<0 then
lambsp+=2
o=x
end
if lambsp>5 then lambsp=1
end
end
function _update()
if speed==1 then
animtimer(animtimer1,animreset1)
elseif
speed==2 then
animtimer(animtimer2,animreset2)
elseif
speed==3 then
animtimer(animtimer3,animreset3)
elseif
speed==4 then
animtimer(animtimer4,animreset4)
end
if speed<1 then speed=1 end
if speed>4 then speed=4 end
--speed testing
if btnp(➡️) then speed+=1 end
if btnp(⬅️) then speed-=1 end
end
function _draw()
cls()
spr(lambsp,63,63,2,2)
end
3 comments
--
For my first Pico-8 game, I've decided to make a fairly faithful remake of one of my favourite childhood games - Galaga. It is a more simplified version of the original. There are only 4 distinct challenging stages and the stage patterns repeat after stage 16. Getting more difficult as the stages move on. Also, some of the later stage enemy ships are not present in this version.
Feel free to let me know of any bugs you find. I'm a pretty hacky coder, so the code will not be elegant and I'm certain there are still bugs to be found.
There is no vibe coding or asset rips in this game. I created the music and sfx from the sheet music for Galaga, which I found on the web and recreated in the Pico editor. And the sprites are 8x8 hand remakes (made in paint.net) of the original 16x16 sprites.
4 comments
Watch other users run around your desktop in real time!
Requires scoresub to run! (Won't work on web yet)
Work in progress!
Pico-Pico Plaza is a work in progress.
I plan on adding customization options for how you appear on other peoples desktops, as well as adding more complex behaviors the characters.
Currently, users never despawn once they've spawned onto your desktop.
Changelog:
4/6/26: - Changed: You can now see yourself on the desktop. - Changed: Added a short delay when polling scoresub 4/5/26: - Added: Users now run away from the cursor. - Added: Made users despawn after 2 minutes. - Fixed: Users walking offscreen. (They can still be chased off-screen) [ [size=16][color=#ffaabb] [ Continue Reading.. ] [/color][/size] ](/bbs/?pid=187237#p) |
1 comment
A Roguelite Evolution of the Classic Arcade Shooter
Picosteroids is a fast-paced arcade shooter that takes the classic "Asteroids" formula and injects it with roguelite progression. Survive endless waves, face off against hostile UFOs, and build the ultimate ship.
Play alone, team up with a friend in Co-op, or prove who's the best pilot in the Versus Mode!
Controls
Player 1:
- Arrows: Move & Rotate
- 🅾️ (Z): Shoot
- ❎ (X): Dash / Teleport
0 comments
Artefacts of Atlantis
Welcome to an open world submarine simulator that is ironically dry~
Explore the ruins of a lost civilization and loot their golden artefacts!
Controls: Keyboard arrow keys + Z + X or Gamepad.
Switch between piloting, sonar scanning, map reading and claw operation on the fly, but beware of running out of oxygen while you do! Part of the challenge is to learn how to operate the submarine with zero training. Don't worry though, simply interact with the submarine using the on-screen buttons. Even a seagull can do it!
8 comments
Artefacts of Atlantis Dev-Log and Post-Mortem
(Special thanks to the trees that gave their lives for me to work things out)
Introduction
A project born from hubris and caffeine.
Not so much a "Can this be done", as I'm confident that smarter people could have easily done it better, but "Am -I- personally able to do this within PICO-8's limits?". Many mistakes were made and some dodgy code was written as I'm new to LUA, but as a learning process it was very enjoyable.
Personal Limitations
Only work within PICO-8. No external tools other than paper/Aseprite for planning work to make sure the pixels made sense. Avoid expanding the default palette or do stuff with multi-carts, also no imported artwork.
The Goal
The goal was to make a low-intensity submarine simulator where you interact with a variety of onboard systems while being subjected to time pressure resulting in a risk vs reward style of gameplay as you explored an open world. I wanted lots of cockpit instrumentation and feedback to help the player understand what was going on even with a limited view distance. I wanted to focus on returning to the surface regularly and buying upgrades to progress rather than having power-ups or oxygen refills found underwater. Although the latter was considered for a while.
0 comments
This is a little hack on the #FONT_SNIPPET custom font generator.
It implements automatic width adjustments based on scanning the font pixels, which makes it much easier to make variable-width fonts. I used a little code from the LazyDevs implementation of manual width adjustments.
Characters are given one pixel of space on the right side.
- "But what if I want more?" - Red pixels count for width purposes but cleared before the bitmap is scanned.
- "But what if I want LESS?" - Pink pixels are not counted for width but still show in the font.
EXAMPLE:
|
[32x32] |
Here the space character has been narrowed (by being defined as narrower than the usual full width); the '1' and '!' characters are given a little right padding; the lower-case 'r' is set to draw past its width.
3 comments
As the title says, it would be nice to allow Picotron to capture and consume os/sdl media keys, to make apps like standalone media players possible, or to be used in custom sfx tools.
Not an important feature, but a "nice to have" one.
The keys I would like to see supported:
- SDLK_MEDIA_PLAY
- SDLK_MEDIA_PAUSE
- SDLK_MEDIA_PLAY_PAUSE
- SDLK_MEDIA_NEXT_TRACK
- SDLK_MEDIA_PREVIOUS_TRACK
Taken from https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL3/SDL_Keycode
0 comments
S T A R D U S T
Greetings Commander! Your task is to gather as much stardust as you can find. Use your laser cannon to break up asteroids and suck up nearby dust. But beware of pirates.
Controls
- ⬅️ ➡️ rotate your ship
- ⬆️ apply thrust
- ❎ fire cannon
- ⭕️ activate shield
About
I made a reddit post where I outlined how I setup PICO-8 on my PicoCalc. At the end I promised to develop a cart using only the PicoCalc, so thats what I did here. Everyting, code, artwork, sfx, music and playtesting was done exclusively on the PicoCalc. I wrote
1 comment
Mate in 2, Vol 6 -- 3 Strikes and you are OUT!
Randomly selects from over 300 mate in 2 puzzles. Get 5 points per right move.
Busted after 3 strikes (wrong moves).
Saves highscore for you to beat next time.
Right mouse button = show/hide infographics
Left mouse button = continue/move pieces
1 comment
just a simple display calculator of %chance
up/down will change the win/lose amount. left/right will change winrate/rolls. pressing O(z) will switch between the setting type and X will run the calculation once per press
Development
This project was created through an iterative, experimental workflow using an AI coding assistant as a tool for prototyping and implementation.
Design was created by me, with the assistant helping translate ideas into code step by step.
The game evolved from a single procedural prototype into a more complete experience through continuous refinement and expansion.
0 comments
A full recreation of the enhanced Duck Pond simulation from the Strong Bad Email, Duck Pond (https://homestarrunner.com/sbemails/14-duck-pond). Feed two whole ducks as they swim around a pond. Keep track of how much the ducks have been fed using the counters at the top. Truly, This is the greatest thing in the world!
Testimonial:
"Whoa, man, these graphics are state-of-the-art...graphics..." - Strong Bad
2 comments
LMB to paint cells
RMB to erase cells
X to start simulation
You have to reset the cart to paint again
Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton where you have a grid of cells and a list of rules:
An alive cell with fewer than 2 neighbors dies
An alive cell with 2 or 3 neighbors lives
An alive cell with more than 3 neighbors dies
A dead cell with exactly 3 neighbors dies
1 comment
