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PICO-8 Resources

A topic by irdumb created Jan 04, 2018 Views: 1,811 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 3
Submitted (2 edits)

I noticed there were a number of people using PICO-8 that were new to it, so I compiled a list of resources that might be helpful :)

What is PICO-8?



There's a large PICO-8 community making content everywhere! Pick n choose what you like :)

General community resources:

  • The main resource for PICO-8 is its bulletin board system/forum. People ask questions, post their games, etc up on the bbs, and you can play the games there directly in your browser! (in fact, the splore command pulls its games from here)
  • Speaking of the splore command, I definitely recommend looking at some simple or juicy games there and take little bits from them you like. for example, Trasevol_dog does some awesome screenshake and sprite outlines in his games
  • PICO-8 has a really active Twitter community. There is a treasure trove of info and content available on there.
  • PICO-8 has a Discord server too!
  • The community has published some FanZines! [originals] [new one] (there are some good programming tips n tricks here too)
  • The creator of the new zine ^ is part of a twitch group that does PICO-8 tutorials often

General info and resources:

Programming tutorials, tips, n tricks:

  • PICO-8 HERO ^
  • PICO-8 Spaceshooter game in 16 gifs!
  • My local group hosted a PICO-8 bootcamp. Here's some of the resources we made

Music tutorials n such:

  • gruber_99 is the rockstar of PICO-8. He does amazing pico-8 music that you should all check out. Some of his music is on PICO-8's BBS too (as in on splore!)

Art tips:

Game Feel tips:

  • Trasevol_dog has awesome games w/ great game feel. He also made a video about it ^ (I like his Gar's Den and One Room Dungeon game in particular)
  • Game Feel transfers to any platform! see these awesome vids to get a feel for game feel: 
Submitted (4 edits)

Here's some others:

Walking simulator in 1 minute: https://twitter.com/lexaloffle/status/871048334525341697

PocketChip refs. A separate handheld device, but it has PICO-8 on it from the getgo. There's some good stuff in here for teachers as well: 

Hopefully soon, this workbook will be completed: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bumblebee/how-to-make-games-with-pico-8-eng...
It has a itch page https://tassilo.itch.io/howtomakegames but only part 1 is complete 

Guess I should put the official FAQ and manual (which is btw included with each copy of PICO-8)

(1 edit)

When I first started with Pico-8, I started with two tutorial series regarding the code, one a lot simpler than the other. I don't see either of these linked in those posts so here they are:


First start with this video. It's only two parts, and it teaches everything through good habits. Specifically, it talks about states, about functions, and also goes over generally how to actually operate the Pico-8 program a little bit.


Then go through this tutorial series. It's a lot longer and goes into greater depth. It goes into instance creation, tables, the sfx editor and other more advanced things that you'll need to know.


In addition to code, there's also the SFX editor and music tracker. Matt Tuttle made four very helpful videos on the subject. Here is the first, and you should be able to find the other three videos in his series.