FREE SOLO
A climbing puzzle game
Years ago I made a solo board game about climbing a rock wall, based on the rock climbing levels of the classic computer game Chamonix Challenge (Final Assault). That game was created for the piecepack system and was called ClimbingMan. Last year I decided to port it to Pico-8 with a few tweaks...
Climb across 14 levels of varying difficulty and create your own climbing boards for extra challenge. You can share your boards with the supplied code (just add those coordinates when editing a new board).
- ARROWS - Move the selected limb. There are limitations to where each limb can move around the body
4 comments
NetAcht is a tiny PICO-8 demake of NetHack. It compresses some of NetHack's core features into a small roguelike for PICO-8: procedural room-and-corridor dungeons, turn-based movement, monsters, traps, hunger, inventory, weapons, armour, potions, scrolls, wands, prayer, gold, levelling, and a Yendor-style objective. I always dreamed of having something like NetHack on my Game Boy-style devices, and this is a step toward that.
Controls:
- Arrow keys / d-pad: move or attack
- O / Z: interact, pick up, use stairs, pray at altars, search
- X / C: inventory
- In inventory: up/down to select, O to use, X to close
UPDATE -- Let's use Git to develop this project further: https://github.com/pminervini/netacht
8 comments
Tightrope Deathmatch
by ShanKa & AbyssLasea
Our first Pico-8 game Tightrope Deathmatch is a game where players must knock their opponents off while maintaining their balance.
Press the left and right keys to adjust the angle of your weapon.You can also press X to charge up a slash, and press Z to raise your weapon for defense.On the start screen, use Up/Down to choose your weapon. Knock enemies off to take their weapons!
Features
- Weapons built from 16x sprites for a cool pseudo-3D look
6 comments
Cairn
The Knight, The Ranger and The Warlock
Three souls have entered the cairn. None have returned.
A short turn-based and grid-based roguelike.
Each floor is a branching map of 7 nodes — combats, elites, mysteries, rests, and a boss gate. Pick your path.
Controls
Arrows to move / attack adjacent
❎ to confirm
A run is short. Death is permanent. Queen Sofia is waiting.
ANY BALANCING SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME. I HAVE HAD A HARD TIME BALANCING THIS GAME :)
Cairn – changelog
v1.3 – enemy behavior fixes
Three enemy/boss abilities were silently dead due to a logic bug at the top of the AI loop — their post-attack effects never ran when adjacent. All now fire as designed:
Void shades retreat one tile after striking. Real hit-and-run skirmishers. Corner them against a wall to deny the flee.
The Hollow (floor 2 boss) teleports a tile in a random direction after each hit. The fight is now chaotic positioning rather than a static trade.
The Dread (floor 4 boss) knocks you back one tile after every adjacent attack. Counter-tactic: fight it cornered — when your back is against an edge or wall, the push fails and you get continuous trades.
Plague hounds now actually double-move toward you. A hound at distance 3 will close two tiles and attack on the same turn. Floors 3–4 just got bitier.
v1.2 – the big balance pass
Warlock — nerfed (was over-corrected in v1.1):
HP 18 → 14, atk 12 → 8 (still one-shots basics but bosses now cost real HP)
Kill-heal scaling pulled back from 0.2 to 0.1 of max HP
The 3× "blood price" identity stays intact
Knight — buffed:
HP 18 → 22, armor 8 → 14
NEW passive: regenerates 1 armor between turns. The tank identity is now "absorbs sustained chip indefinitely" rather than "armor breaks once and you die"
Bosses & enemies:
Boss HP scaling reduced from f²×3 to f²×2 (floor 3 boss: 55 → 46 HP; floor 5 cairn: 111 → 86)
The Sentinel's armor reduced 10 → 6 — melee classes no longer waste two attacks just to chip it down
Archers only retreat from adjacent melee now (used to retreat from 2 tiles, which made them uncatchable on open layouts)
Fury pressure mechanic gentler: builds every 10 turns instead of 8, caps at +4 instead of +5
NEW: wait/defend action (🅾 button) or z button on pc
Skip your turn — useful for letting an archer walk into melee range, waiting for shade to come back, or letting a marked enemy clump with another
Knight bonus: +2 armor on wait (caps at max). Real "guard" / "block" play.
A small 🅾 wait hint sits next to the turn indicator
v1.1 – first bugfix pass
Ranger "infinite diagonal range" fixed. Pressing two arrow keys on the same frame was letting the ranger fire diagonally — and silently letting any class move diagonally too. Targeting and movement are strictly cardinal now.
Warlock kill-heal scales with max HP instead of being a flat +1 that exactly cancelled the −1 attack cost. Lifesteal feels like real sustain. (Re-tuned down in v1.2 — see above.)
8 comments
This makes my third version of this game now, for Picotron here on lexaloffle, for GameBoy on Itch, and back here for Pico-8. This version is based pretty heavily on the GameBoy version, though there are some things that make this one shine, notably the highlights of symmetrical groupings and the new filtered mode, which is more of a standard puzzle that isn't always possible to get a perfect game, but the odds are stacked in your favor and you get a peak at all the pieces coming in order before play starts.
Title font is Maple by Chevy Ray
0 comments
BOBO JUMP
a tiny pico-8 platformer about collecting coins,
avoiding lava,
and jumping very badly.
controls:
⬅️➡️ move
❎ jump
features:
- sarcastic death messages
- terrible platforming skills
- tiny speedrun timer
- emotional damage
made in pico-8 by daniel gabela
itch.io:
danielgabela.itch.io/bobo-jump
3 comments
Pico Backrooms
These hallways seem to extend forever -- branching endlessly and impossibly. I think I see glinting teeth when I stray too far away from the elevator and into the dark, and then ... well I always end up back here. But I think there might be something in these journal pages -- if I can just find them.
Features:
Explore 5 unique, infinite, procedurally generated levels, including: Level 0, the Poolrooms, Level Fun, and an endless office.
Collect journal pages to reveal the story
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How to Play:
Use the arrow keys to move. Z shoots forward, X shoots backwards. Avoid enemies for 120 seconds to win. If enemies collide with each other or you shoot them, they will be destroyed. Health and/or Bullets will spawn periodically for you to collect.
About:
Made this game to build off of my previous one, Death Delay. I wanted to focus on something slightly more complex with multiple enemy behaviors, somewhat more complex music, and some updated collision functions that felt slightly more readable to me and were more flexible.
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If you upload a cart to the bbs, it is allowed to write to "podnet://user_id/appdata/bbs/cart_id"
However...
It is not allowed to chooser() that address, nor ls() it. You can't even use cp() on it.
You cannot list the contents of any podnet folder from sandbox, not even the one you can write to.
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How do I polish Pico-8 games? I am working on a game about catching snakes and creating a collection, but it just doesn't feel right to play. Any tips?
How to play:
arrow keys to move
If your center cursor is on a snake, press X to open the catch menu (selling does not do anything currently)
In the catch menu, pressing O adds the snake to your terrarium
Press O to go to your terrarium
1 comment
I love racquetball sports so I decided to make this. Use your mouse to aim and click the ball to hit it. Holding the hit button will provide more power!
How to hit the ball: Aim your cursor to the right of the ball to hit the ball left, Aim your cursor to the left of the ball to hit right.
Aim above the ball to hit it downwards and below the ball to hit it upwards. Easy enough! oh and hit the ball dead center to hit it forwards...
There are a couple modes to play here, don't be surprised if I add more in the future or even multiplayer(?) could be fun.
2 comments
In this puzzle adventure inspired by classic tile-based logic games, you guide Peeble through a world filled with strange machines, dangerous traps, and clever challenges. Each level is a handcrafted puzzle where observation, planning, and experimentation are the keys to success.
Inspired by an old computer game from Dexterity Software
-
Walls
Solid structures that block movement and shape the maze-like puzzles. Some walls can hide secrets, while others must be destroyed or bypassed using special tools. -
Water Bucket
A useful item that soaks Peeble in water. While wet, Peeble can safely survive passing through a laser beam one time before drying off. - Heat Floors
1 comment
Controls
←, → Walk
↓ Crouch
X Knife
Z Jump
Tiger Wong
TIGER WONG is truly AWESOME! Armed with throwing knives, this rad dude and kung-fu master is out to avenge his brother by vanquishing the Demon Princess!
Try to achieve a Perfect Game by collecting all 100 coins while losing 0 lives.
Changelog
1.0 Release
1.1 Fixed coin total to 100
6 comments
Inspired by the flash game Globetrotter, now with a rotating globe!
Press X to start.
Use arrow keys and X to point to the city's location on the globe.
You can change Earth's rotation and speed in the menu.
6 comments
Hello! This was my first game done for pico8, and first gamedev experience. It's a very mean open-ended platformer full of devious traps and secrets.
Controls:
Movement: left and right arrow keys
Jump: X or M or V
Sword: Z or N or C
Switching items: up arrow key
Using items: hold Sword key to ready item, then release to activate. Beware, bomb’s fuse starts as soon as you prepare it!
Recall: Use RECALL option in menu to return to last scroll – if you’re willing to pay the price.
15 comments
Controls
You move with the curser with directional keys. x is menu. z is using. the P(pause menu) has more settings for zoom, max population per empire, max tree cap and turn off music.
Progression/Gameplay loop
you make kingdoms and play around with them as they build and go to war. they cut down trees to build more houses, defeating the enemy king acquires their empire and a road is built to it, the npc will sometimes use the road to the other empire, they try and stick within a range from the empire they are currently in.
right now there is significant slowdown when zoomed all the way out, zooming into 5x or more is better run speed, this is because of all the trees and other things happening all over the map that is rendered when zoomed out farther. im going to try and optimize this so the runspeed is smoother when zoomed out. I have no issues with speed when population is around 20 or less with multiple empires.
Development
This project was created through an iterative, experimental workflow using an AI coding assistant as a tool for prototyping and implementation.
All gameplay design, in game art, and music were 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.
(Translation: This wasn't made in a single prompt. It took over a week, I had to learn and understand some coding, and all the art and music were made by me.)
Future plans
most likely will optimize the script and add more.
Outro
I hope you guys find the game fun. I hope more worldbox type games come to the console. if theres anything you want added just let me know and ill try to get it put in.
2 comments
Cool! My first uploaded cartridge!
Use this as a screensaver to scare you when you sleep on your sofa.
0 comments