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.
Reach the finish if you can, there's a lot of gold before it!
Picopicotron is a toy desktop environment built with PICO-8. Use the mouse to control it like a standard computer from the nineties. Includes a Pyramid card game and a version of minesweeper.
To take root Among the Stars is a short narrative platformer. Play as Mei Hashimoto, one of the colonists send to an exoplanet to prepare it for the arrival of the rest of humanity. Explore the colony and its surrounding flora and fauna. Talk to your fellow colonists and send a message to earth via the relay station at the top of the nearby mountain.
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.
How far will you go? Take a roadtrip along peaceful country roads, as you fly through an ever changing sky, in this cosy, atmospheric, arcade game, with a retro aesthetic and soundtrack to match.
A precision puzzle-platformer aimed at speedrunners that turns one of the oldest videogame tropes on its head. In other games, dying is bad, and your remaining lives are just chances to try again... right? No, not on Harold's Bad Day. Finish as quickly as possible, while trying to save as many Harolds as you can for a perfect run.
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.
Play solo or together in a mashup of tennis, volleyball, squash, and wallball where the only rule is: two bounces on one side is a point for the other.
In Astropocalypse you take control of a hotshot meteor bent on destroying the galaxy. Use your directional pad to steer your meteor buddy and ram it into nearby planets in the current solar system. Once all planets are destroyed, it's time to go for the finishing blow... destroy the sun!
Ever wonder what Devil May Cry would be like if the entire game was in the air? Climb as high as you can while making sure to be stylish! Rack up kills and altitude while avoiding falling to your death!
Build a big automated factory on an isolated asteroid, sell your products and send rockets into space.
A fan game heavily inspired by the early Mega Man series.
Totally original RTS about bossing around plant people
Sokoblox is a hybrid of two classic puzzle games: Sokoban (the push puzzle) and Bloxorz (the rolling block puzzle).
A PICO-8 demake of iii, a little "catroidvania" about a one-eyed cat leaving his comfort zone. Explore underground caverns, gain vision of other dimensions, help the inhabitants, and expand your horizons.
Foreverred is a mod of Celeste Classic developed in over a year. Starting as an update to the developer's first mod, Everred, it grew into a full sequel, and eventually into the biggest CELESTE Classic mod ever released (and possibly one of the biggest PICO-8 projects). The mod is over three times the size of the original game, and features brand new levels, mechanics, sprites, and music.
Crashed on a desolate but mysterious planet you find yourself eye to eye with an ancient civilisation. Explore the planet, find powerful upgrades, and uncover its secrets.
A Top-down dungeon crawler bullet-hell shmup.
For my very final prompt, I wanted to leave the students with one lasting idea: that I make games for enjoyment and want to do it as much as I can, even when I’m limited to a day or two’s work and 8192 Pico8 tokens. I hope that came across in this little game.