Popular games built on game engine PICO-8
A hardcore platform game for the PICO-8 fantasy console.
Tutankham is a combination of the maze, action and shoot 'em up genres. Taking on the role of an explorer grave robbing Tutankhamun's tomb, the player is chased by creatures such as asps, vultures, parrots, bats, dragons, and even curses, all that kill the player on contact. The explorer can fight back by firing lasers at the creatures, but he can only cover the left and right directions. The player is also endowed with a single screen-clearing "flash bomb" per level or life. Finally, each level has warp zones that teleport the player around the level, which enemies cannot use. To progress, the player collects keys open locked doors throughout the levels, searching for the large exit door. Optional treasures can be picked-up for bonus points. Each level has a timer; when it reaches zero the explorer can no longer fire lasers, and once a level is cleared the remaining time is converted to bonus points.
A short, Sokoban-style puzzle game with many doors, but only one key.
Partake in what seems like a normal golf tournament. But watch out! Your competitors will stop at nothing to win.
This is a mouse controlled real-time inventory management game, think of it as Attache Case from Resident Evil but things are happening at the same time as you're trying organize it. It is a demake of the original game by Alex Sian aka Shoutscion.
Dodge bullets and fight off the militarized police force defending a corporate toxic sludge pipeline.
In this 2D platformer with golf controls, you must aim, charge, then launch yourself around a dangerous abandoned power plant in order to save the worms!
Climb the tower of archeos and kill the evil sorcerer. An enhanced version was later released for itch.io and Steam.
Gather resources and build a cosy little town!
A turn-based asteroids / snake / roguelike for LD41. VYPERSPACE is an asteroids game, you shoot asteroids to break them into smaller chunks before you can destroy them. Sometimes there is ore inside. VYPERSPACE is a snake game, you eat ore to grow longer and need to avoid running into your own tail. VYPERSPACE is a roguelike, it is a keyboard-driven turn-based tile-grid game of delaying permadeath by emergent hazards that only move when you do.
A PICO-8 demake of the classic Konami arcade game Time Pilot (1982).
What's at the bottom of the pit? Could be anything! Could be everything! I have to find out!
For 2019 I ran two prototyping classes – one in Pico-8 for the undergraduates and a graduate version with no platform constraint (which generally means they work in Unity). So this year I hid the same prompt in two different interpretations of the same idea. I tuned the Pico-8 game for the youthful reflexes of the undergraduate class, but I did not count on the fact that none of them would have ever played a bullet-hell game, and as a result, only one of them was able to reach the end and find out what the assignment was. I instructed that person that they could keep it a secret if they wanted to.
Astra is the smallest star in Constellation Station. Tired of being picked on, she sets off an adventure to build a new constellation of her own! Run, jump, slide, and float across the galaxy while collecting stardust to build your new home in this retro-inspired Pico-8 platformer.
Firefrost is a turn-based combat game about snow clearing. Use your flamethrower to burn through the snow, your enemies, and reach soup. Upgrade your flamethrower to unlock new tactical options. If you die, just get up again, no progress lost. Chase the SSoup rank, unlock more upgrades.
When you shoot rock, gem fall out. Get gem. More gem got without shoot = more combo point. Get 10000 point to become master of shoot rock. This was an entry for PICO-1K Jam 2022. The whole game fits in exactly 1024 bytes of compressed PICO-8 code.
"From Rust To Ash" is roguelike auto battler where your items are your build. Fight, Loot, Scavenge. Arrange your items to benefit from each other, store items in your backpack for future synergies, scrap what you don't need to increase your health. Do all that you need to survive the encounters before you.
A little puzzle game with a little puzzle twist.
Infinimoes is a space filling puzzle game (like tangrams) involving a variety of polyominoes and sometimes an infinitely repeating space.
You are a blob bunny. Your goal? Touch every tile! Enjoy 60 bite sized puzzles across 5 different worlds in this casual puzzle game.
In 2021, the last time I taught the class, I didn’t want to hide the homework in the games. Instead I used the games as ways of presenting ideas. I made several, but I like this one, a reinterpretation of the fortune-telling minigame from Ultima IV.
PicoCross is a nonogram puzzle game for the Pico-8 Fantasy Console.
Pröng is a mutant game of pong. Also a techno-thriller dating sim.
A PICO-8 demake of of the PSP game Every Extend Extra, an arcade game about detonating your ship, causing colourful chain reactions in the enemies, granting you points.