PICO-8 is a "fantasy console". What is a fantasy console? Usually we have a real-world console (e.g. Playstation or Super Nintendo) and then smart developers implement "emulators", so you can play the old games ("ROMs") on your PC/phone/TV/handheld. PICO-8 is different. Joseph White created PICO-8 as "emulator" for non existing console and he made sure that this emulator runs on your phone, web browser, etc. Why? Because restricted environment breeds creativity. Hundreds of devs created thousands of new fun games on this console with a thriwing community.

Console Specs

• Display: 128x128 16 colours
• Cartridge Size: 32k
• Sound: 4 channel chip blerps
• Code: P8 Lua
• CPU: 4M vm insts/sec
• Sprites: 256 8x8 sprites
• Map: 128x32 tiles

The fun part is that the game carts are stored inside of regular .png images. So you can just send someone that png image and it has the game in it! The cartridge-looking images below are not just images of the game cart - THESE ARE THE ACTUAL GAMES!

Top PICO-8 GamesTop PICO-8 Games

(i.e. the best pico8 games that nout@ enjoys actually playing - I like platformers, deal with it)

Captain Neat-O in the Time NexusCaptain Neat-O in the Time Nexus

While the graphics may look a bit plain, Captain Neat-O has quite long gameplay with a lot of smaller puzzles and tricky bosses in the style of Commander Keen. This is surprisingly fun and puts a lot of content into a single Cart.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=107459#p

Golf SundayGolf Sunday

A low resolution golf, but you can also jump on the cart. There's now a paid version "Golf Monday", which lets you run over other players.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=96338#p
• Check out Golf Monday: https://johanpeitz.itch.io/golf-monday

Air DeliveryAir Delivery

A fun and chill paltformer with a cool story. And gliding!

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=129275#p

Combo PoolCombo Pool

Combination of pool and candy crush. Interesting mechanics game that is somehow quite a lot of fun.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=21515#p

Harold's Bad DayHarold's Bad Day

Harold has a bad day. As you walk him through a series of fun puzzles, Harold always ends up being inevitably hurt, burnt, drowned, arrowed to the chest, etc. Pay attention to the hints on the bottom!

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=100973#p

P.CraftP.Craft

Creating a flat "clone" of Minecraft in pico8 is a stupid ide... 20 mins in... ok, now let's get gold so I can build the ship.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3200
• Game with couple adjustments: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=125304#p

Scrap BoyScrap Boy

This is probably the best looking platformer on PICO-8. The visual effects are squeezing PICO-8 to its limits and it's fun too.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=82518#p

NEMONEMO

If you like little Sudoku-like puzzles, you will have fun with this one. The controls are smooth and NEMO fits the spots in the day when there's nothing else to do.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=105731#p
• Game pack 2 (NEMO Puzzle Pack II): https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=109965#p

UFO Swamp OdysseyUFO Swamp Odyssey

This is a really smooth & chill platformer game that has some fun mechanics. The only con is that it's very short.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=77254#p

Pico TennisPico Tennis

Great implementation of tennis that's actually quite challenging, but you can get a hang of it. Also the graphics has nice 3d models of the players.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=53753

Dank TombDank Tomb

Solving lighting of environment with only 16 colors (!!) is a major feat! The different puzzles are quite fun.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=42784#p

AscentAscent

For people that think that PICO-8 has too high resolution, this game reduces the resultion to half (quarter?), but it still makes for a fun platformer where you gradually gain more skills and follow the story.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=116846#p

Link's AscentLink's Ascent

This is quite basic game, but I like the mechanics that result in interesting puzzles, where you have to plan your movements carefully. This specific game is a graphics mode on top of Alpine descent, but I like the theme with Link's Ascent more.

• Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=138505#p

CelesteCeleste

This is the most famous game made on PICO-8, it's hard and you need to get your timing right, but it's fun to figure out the levels.

Since PICO-8 makes it so easy to see and modify the sourcecodes there are many mods and variants. The 2 I'd recommend are Violet and Celeste 2.

• Celeste: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=11722#p
• Celeste 2: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=86783#p
• Violet: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=105950#p

If you would like to see more ideas, then check out this link