The console is aimed at game programmers, and thus includes everything needed for game programming right out of the box, including editors for code, graphics, and sound. The machine specifications are intentionally limited, both as a way to reproduce the 8-bit feel and also as a way to encourage expression and ingenuity: it has only a 128x128 pixel, 16-color display, a sound chip with only a basic set of oscillators, and 32KB of data per cartridge.
One clever feature of the PICO-8 is that because its data carts are so small, the data can be steganographically encoded into the cart's image file - that is to say, the picture of the cart actually is the cart itself.
A 16-bit successor
, Picotron, is currently in Beta, with plenty of carts already available.
Its website can be found here.
Games:
- Blobun Mini
- Celeste (prototype and Lani's Trek sequel)
- Dodge
- Keineged an nor
- Moon Patrol
- ORBSORT
- Nanoman
- Pico Night Punkin'
- Uchu Mega Fight