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.
Dodge, evolve, survive in this survival shmup. Help vampire hunter Liz Belmont to survive until dawn. Except dawn will never come.
What happened? Where are you? And more importantly, how are you going to get out?
make shaved ice for animals at the festival! (there's no ending! you just make shaved ice forever.)
Steps is a small Minit-like game where instead of dying from time, you die after a certain amount of steps. Explore the cursed island, solve puzzles, and find the hidden coins. Try to run away from the island by finding the Icarus wings as it is the only way to escape the cursed island.
a 8bit Space shooter in Pico 8
Pico Racer is a new and exciting racing game for your Pico-8 console. Overtake opponents and avoid obstacles! Drive through the night! Race your way through three continents! Enjoy geography that makes no sense!
A little puzzle game with a little puzzle twist.
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.
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.
Pico Valley is a Stardew Valley demake for PICO-8.
The world is overflowing with Poop! You are summoned to help and collect it all! This game has 32 levels, each one has a countdown of only few seconds to clear and collect all of the scat laying around. A simple platformer made with PICO-8 where all you need to do is move left and right and jump from the start point to the exit door after everything is collected.
Experience a nostalgic throwback with this Pico-8 demake of the classic iOS game Birds and Saws. Dive into the retro charm and challenge yourself as you guide a bird, skillfully avoiding menacing circular saws to rack up high scores.
Portal Golf is a physics puzzle game with portals. Place portals around the level in order to get the ball to collect every gold bar. You have no control over the movement of the ball and can only place portals before you start the run. Try to use as few portals as possible to earn medals, or just fill the whole level with portals and have fun!
This is a small game, that asks the important question... Are you a pro enough gamer to defeat the God of rock paper scissors?
In dreams, there are people you often meet, towns you often visit, and places you often die. Wake up in the morning and repeat.
Put a golf ball in your vagina and kegel it out! Neo Pussy Masters is a golfing game about transfemininity. Only on the PICO-8!
A Touhou fangame made with the PICO-8 fantasy console.
Pico Snail is a Pico-8 game inspired by the musician Snail's House You play as Snail-Chan, and are tasked with defending the Dream castle! You can run, jump, thwack enemies, and use stars you collect for special powers!
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.
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!
The evil Chiro Empire has captured all of the other Dragon Eggs! It's your job to save them!
This is a tiny adventure based directly on Fez, by Polytron Corporation. It is a fan work, and was not made in collaboration with or endorsed by them. Fuz features a total of 8 distinct areas. Its visuals, mechanics, and puzzles are all based off those in the original.