7 ms·

That's one of these ideas I wish I had come up with. It sounds fun to program, fun to use and even potentially useful to make cutesy gifs. I wasn't familiar wi

by simias 6y ago

That's one of these ideas I wish I had come up with. It sounds fun to program, fun to use and even potentially useful to make cutesy gifs. I wasn't familiar with PICO8, it seems to effectively be a faux-retro console emulator that you can use as a sandbox to build programs (that can then be exported to a web player, which is quite nifty): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-8 Unfortunately it's a proprietary platform.

mumblemumble 6y ago
It's $15 to be able to write programs for the platform, but you can export them to html5 to make available for others to play online for free. There's a pretty large library of such games hosted on pico-8's website. There are some open-source alternatives like TIC-80 and PixelVision8. Personally, I'd only recommend them over pico-8 if $15 is a serious barrier or open source is an absolute must. They all have their various strengths and weaknesses, but pico-8 seems to be the best optimized for pure, unadulterated fun.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  One downside of PICO-8's closed source is that it can't easily be ported to different architectures by fans, so you're limited to Windows, Linux (x86) and the Raspberry Pi (and HTML/JS, but just the player). There's no Android port. TIC-80, on the other hand, runs more places (Android!). And someone has ported it to run on OpenDingux portable handhelds, there's a RetroArch core, etc. That said, PICO-8 is super, super polished and absolutely worth the $15.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    Also OS X, it's worth saying.
  - NoodleIncident 6y ago
    In Celeste, there's an easter egg that lets you play the original PICO-8 game on an in-game computer. How was this accomplished, if porting it themselves isn't possible? Did they have to remake the entire game?
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      They might have built their own pico-8 runtime/emulator. Alternatively, porting the game to use another Lua runtime (like LÖVE) would probably not be that hard. Ex, here's a pico-8 runtime in LÖVE: https://github.com/picolove/picolove https://github.com/picolove/picolove
      - Wezl 6y ago
        It's a small game, they could port the entire game to another language or platform pretty easily.
    - jamesgeck0 6y ago
      Yeah, they remade the whole game with some help from the PICO-8 developer. https://twitter.com/MattThorson/status/1032067981600124928 https://twitter.com/MattThorson/status/1032067981600124928
  - neomech 6y ago
    There is a pico8 emulator that lets you play games on some handheld console and I understand that an Android version is in development. https://0xcafed00d.itch.io/tac08-rg350 https://0xcafed00d.itch.io/tac08-rg350
  - kzrdude 6y ago
    I paid for Pico. Mostly to play games on rpi, not making them. Being closed source is still a drag since I'm used to being able to patch and adjust the things I use. That I can't is immediately felt. Yeah and the alternatives like tic have pretty major setup problems on rpi.
t0astbread 6y ago
I haven't tried it out so I can't speak to the quality of it but there's the LIKO-12 as a free alternative: https://liko-12.github.io https://liko-12.github.io
- IanKerr 6y ago
  I've also seen SCRIPT-8 as another FOSS alternative: https://script-8.github.io/ https://script-8.github.io/
  - Wezl 6y ago
    Thank you! I've been looking for a browsser-based fantasy console.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  TIC-80 is also good: https://tic80.com https://tic80.com
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  CHIP-8 is the progenitor of all these platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8
chapium 6y ago
Its worth the money, I wouldn't expect this sort of thing to be free.
- AstroJetson 6y ago
  Yep, slightly under the cost of two decent brews for hours of fun. Lua is easy to learn, there is a ton of Pico-8 info. Give a search for the Pico-8zine, a ton of tips and great ideas. Pico-8 has been talked about here and Hackaday.
- simias 6y ago
  Oh to be clear it's not that that bothers me, it's the fact that it's closed source. That's just personal preference though. I'd be fine with a "source available" paying solution for instance, as long as the terms of the license are reasonable. This way at least I know that if the project goes defunct I'm not stuck with apps that I can't easily run anywhere anymore. See all these Flash games that nobody can easily play anymore. An example of software that works that way is SQLite: they sell extensions as source code with a perpetual (non-open-source) license.
- PrinceKropotkin 6y ago
  You gotta have higher expectations for the world
choo-t 6y ago
>Unfortunately it's a proprietary platform. On the other hand, being closed source help getting the "community" feel where people discover some quirk and secret features of a strange and not-totally documented device. That said, I hope it become open-source when every secrets have been discovered.

by simias 6y ago

mumblemumble 6y ago

It's $15 to be able to write programs for the platform, but you can export them to html5 to make available for others to play online for free. There's a pretty large library of such games hosted on pico-8's website. There are some open-source alternatives like TIC-80 and PixelVision8. Personally, I'd only recommend them over pico-8 if $15 is a serious barrier or open source is an absolute must. They all have their various strengths and weaknesses, but pico-8 seems to be the best optimized for pure, unadulterated fun.

roywiggins 6y ago
One downside of PICO-8's closed source is that it can't easily be ported to different architectures by fans, so you're limited to Windows, Linux (x86) and the Raspberry Pi (and HTML/JS, but just the player). There's no Android port. TIC-80, on the other hand, runs more places (Android!). And someone has ported it to run on OpenDingux portable handhelds, there's a RetroArch core, etc. That said, PICO-8 is super, super polished and absolutely worth the $15.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Also OS X, it's worth saying.
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  In Celeste, there's an easter egg that lets you play the original PICO-8 game on an in-game computer. How was this accomplished, if porting it themselves isn't possible? Did they have to remake the entire game?
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    They might have built their own pico-8 runtime/emulator. Alternatively, porting the game to use another Lua runtime (like LÖVE) would probably not be that hard. Ex, here's a pico-8 runtime in LÖVE: https://github.com/picolove/picolove https://github.com/picolove/picolove
    - Wezl 6y ago
      It's a small game, they could port the entire game to another language or platform pretty easily.
  - jamesgeck0 6y ago
    Yeah, they remade the whole game with some help from the PICO-8 developer. https://twitter.com/MattThorson/status/1032067981600124928 https://twitter.com/MattThorson/status/1032067981600124928
- neomech 6y ago
  There is a pico8 emulator that lets you play games on some handheld console and I understand that an Android version is in development. https://0xcafed00d.itch.io/tac08-rg350 https://0xcafed00d.itch.io/tac08-rg350
- kzrdude 6y ago
  I paid for Pico. Mostly to play games on rpi, not making them. Being closed source is still a drag since I'm used to being able to patch and adjust the things I use. That I can't is immediately felt. Yeah and the alternatives like tic have pretty major setup problems on rpi.

t0astbread 6y ago

I haven't tried it out so I can't speak to the quality of it but there's the LIKO-12 as a free alternative: https://liko-12.github.io https://liko-12.github.io

IanKerr 6y ago
I've also seen SCRIPT-8 as another FOSS alternative: https://script-8.github.io/ https://script-8.github.io/
- Wezl 6y ago
  Thank you! I've been looking for a browsser-based fantasy console.
roywiggins 6y ago
TIC-80 is also good: https://tic80.com https://tic80.com
tomjakubowski 6y ago
CHIP-8 is the progenitor of all these platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8

chapium 6y ago

Its worth the money, I wouldn't expect this sort of thing to be free.

AstroJetson 6y ago
Yep, slightly under the cost of two decent brews for hours of fun. Lua is easy to learn, there is a ton of Pico-8 info. Give a search for the Pico-8zine, a ton of tips and great ideas. Pico-8 has been talked about here and Hackaday.
simias 6y ago
Oh to be clear it's not that that bothers me, it's the fact that it's closed source. That's just personal preference though. I'd be fine with a "source available" paying solution for instance, as long as the terms of the license are reasonable. This way at least I know that if the project goes defunct I'm not stuck with apps that I can't easily run anywhere anymore. See all these Flash games that nobody can easily play anymore. An example of software that works that way is SQLite: they sell extensions as source code with a perpetual (non-open-source) license.
PrinceKropotkin 6y ago
You gotta have higher expectations for the world

choo-t 6y ago

>Unfortunately it's a proprietary platform. On the other hand, being closed source help getting the "community" feel where people discover some quirk and secret features of a strange and not-totally documented device. That said, I hope it become open-source when every secrets have been discovered.