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.
CrossGunr is a bullet hell inspired caravan shmup for the pico-8, made for the Lazy Devs Basic Shmup Game Jam, and with the help of Lazy Devs Academy Tutorials.
Sybil's Tail is a tiny, 15-30 minute long platformer made for PICO-8. Run, jump, slide, grab, and toss your way through 6 bite-sized areas as you search for a mysterious meteorite that fell nearby!
The 2025 PICO-8 Advent Calendar is here! Busy little devs elves have been hard at work these past couple of months crafting you some holiday cheer. Please enjoy a new game, toy, or demo each day.
A two-player competitive pong rpg! In addition to playing pong, both players also gain XP/gold that can be used to level up, spawn units, make buildings, cast spells, etc.
PICO-8 port of the iconic SEGA title
This is 2018’s assignment, a diabolical puzzle. You’re a monk who has forgotten where his cell is in the monastery, and who must walk the labyrinth in order to remember it. If you can find his room, you’ll find out what the assignment prompt is. I was a bit worried the students would be unable to find the prompt hidden in this one, but about half of them got there eventually. (The rest were expelled from the university.) 2018’s class was 100% Pico-8 so it seemed appropriate that the prompt game should be in Pico-8 too. Pico-8 is so great for prototyping — as a case in point, it builds to a single JS and HTML file which loads quite happily in the browser from a local file, so you don’t get annoying permissions or crossdomain problems.
A gardening roguelike made in PICO-8 for PROCJAM 2020. The player takes the role of a gardener trapped within Father Time's watchtower, who must both tend the plants on each floor and escape the tower before illness claims their life.
Journey from the Upper Atmosphere through futuristic dystopian cyberscapes, as a Rain Drop.
Harvest fish daily to keep the baby penguins fed. Be careful, the fish won’t go without a fight! Move toward a fish while adjacent to it to attack it. Mola Molas (the large fish) take two hits to capture, while everything else only needs one. Carefully plan your route in this turn-based dungeon crawler to out-maneuver the fish- how many fish can you harvest?
The Land of Miskatonia needs a hero to save it from the evil Faxon and its minions. Can you be that hero? Explore Miskatonia and its settlements, talk to its residents, build up your skills, and finally challenge Faxon in its secret lair. Minima is an adventure RPG in the style of the older Ultima games (Ultima I, Ultima II, Ultima III, Ultima IV, & Ultima V) as played on the Commodore 64 and 128 computers. Just like the original Ultima games, it includes a world view, enterable towns, and 3D dungeon displays. It also features graphics, sound effects, and music that should help one recollect those classics. More importantly, it is a fully playable (and winnable) game with its own backstory, plot, setting, and characters.
Driftmania is an arcade time trial racing game. Your goal is to get the fastest possible time on each of the 15 challenging tracks
Reach the finish if you can, there's a lot of gold before it!
Get back to your nest and finish your nap in this retro-inspired platformer! Pip is a baby pelican that is startled from its sleep during a storm and must find its way back home. Collect the feathers scattered around the island until you have enough strength to flap back to your nest
Snacks and spikes are falling from the sky! You, Aspen, must run around dodging the falling spike balls and scoffing the delectable foodstuffs.
Move a worm to carve the object across 17 thrilling levels!!
PiColumns is a port of the classic puzzle game Columns to Pico-8.
Picopolis is a SimCity demake / idle game in which you place roads, residental/industrial/commercial zoning, schools, police departments, hospitals, and various other things. The city will grow depending on housing, jobs, pollution, and crime ratings, and the bigger it gets the more money you make.
A doomed cowboy runs through the desert, pursued by a mystic worm.
A first-person grid-based oldschool mini dungeon crawler inspired by Wizardry/Ultima, created in PICO-8.
Nobody knows why - it's just always been this way. Our chance of survival is to absorb all the Green Orbs floating around, while avoiding certain death by touching the Lava - all before the time runs out!
A fan-made, fun-sized version of Samurai GUNN 2.
Can you bring the wolf, the goat, the cabbage, the hunter, the gun, the monkey and the washing machine on the other side!?