Was playing around with my old pico8 3D renderer since I've been doing more matrix math at school. It's probably a bit more performant now and definitely easier to use. I can now add some different 3D meshs to the renderer and have it work, though I might have some issues with 3D wrapping & winding.
1 comment
[April 5 2026]
Work in progress
Just wanted to learn a little about using sine waves to create fake fluid simulation -- Added some foaming on the top too!
Also added a fun way to start pouring using the left and right keys. This is inspired by the root beer game for the PlayDate.
4 comments
Beware All Ye Who Enter Here!
Mr Stephen has been trapped inside Castle Toonightfaw by his even nemesis (who we haven't got the budget to invent yet). The only way to open the doors is through a ritual using various items from around the castle:
- A Lit Candle
- A Silver Crucifix
- A Golden Key
- An Ancient Tome
The only problem is, once night descends, the evil denizens of the castle awake and prowl the rooms. If Mr Stephen touches one, it will give him a heart attack. And, with the amount of processed sugar this man has consumed, he can only sustain 3 heart attacks before he becomes the newest member of the castle's ghostly entourage.
Your only aid is a bag of salt! Throwing salt at your spooky adversaries temporarily puts them out of phase with the universe (a feeling we have all experienced when we wake up not knowing what day it is). This allows you to walk right through them for a short time before they pull themselves together and start to prowl again.
Can you collect all of the items and make your way back to the door?
And WILL YOU DO IT QUICKLY....
Have you made it out of the castle before? Why not challenge yourself to do it again and beat your previous time? Your time is concealed until the end of the game, and the fastest time will become the score to beat on subsequent playthroughs.
Controls
Keyboard
Arrow keys — move
Z or C — jump
X or V — action
Controller
D-pad — move
O button — jump
X button — action
About The Author
I am a YouTuber and content creator, although this is my first foray into creating Pico-8 games. Having said that, I'm not new to making games, as it's something I've been interested in since I was a child, starting on the Commodore 64 with the Shoot-'em-up Construction Kit, before moving on to AMOS on the Amiga, and then DarkBASIC on the PC.
I've also programmed games in both Flash ActionScript, PHP, JavaScript, and HTML5 for various companies whilst working in web development.
Mr Stephen's Dead End was a fun foray into creating my first PICO-8 game. It is as complete as it will ever be, but it's really only just for a bit of fun, so I hope you enjoy it. It's not meant to be too taxing.
You can find my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@mrstephensretrocorner/
About The Game
I've been getting into Pico-8 because it's something that I like to run on the retro handhelds that I review on YouTube. But I've recently been talking with Retro Fun Tech, who invited me on her channel to talk about Pico-8, play some games, and have some fun. Before that event, I wanted to create a little game that I could challenge her to play during the stream. Mr Stephen's Dead End, in its very simple form, was a part of that.
This has been a little bit revised, had a few corners knocked off, and some pretty basic music and sound effects added in to make it a bit more finished. You can see a replay of the livestream below:
[youtube]8HPRk7WMsy8
6 comments
The problem
Have you ever run into the issue of Picotron becoming very slow with a lot of applications open?
This is because Picotron still runs your _update() and _draw() functions, even when the window is not in focus. I figured I could save some CPU usage (and cut down on lag in the process) by checking if the application is actually in focus and if the mouse is on the window.
For this I created a simple application to demonstrate how it's done. Feel free to copy this if you like!
The sample
To start, I created a simple application to draw the current mouse X and Y positions to the screen. Here's the code:
function _init()
mouse_x = 0
mouse_y = 0
window {
title = "pause when not in focus example",
width = 350,
height = 150
}
end
function _update()
mx, my, _, __, ___, ____ = mouse()
mouse_x = mx
mouse_y = my
end
function _draw()
cls()
print("X: " .. mouse_x .. " Y: " .. mouse_y)
[ [size=16][color=#ffaabb] [ Continue Reading.. ] [/color][/size] ](/bbs/?pid=187280#p) |
4 comments
Hey everyone! This is my first time sharing a project here on the Lexaloffle forums.
Astro: Demake is a fast-paced retro shoot’em up built in PICO-8 — a compact reimagining of a previous project, now focused on minimalist arcade gameplay.
⚡ Dive forward. Collect energy. Get stronger. Lose it all if you get hit. ⚡
This update (v0.2.0-alpha) was mainly about shaping the core gameplay loop.
You’ll face structured enemy waves with simple but distinct behaviors, encouraging you to stay engaged and play aggressively rather than just survive.
It’s still early, but it’s starting to feel like a real game, and I’d really appreciate any feedback!
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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
