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hungariantoast | 7 years ago

Maybe this is a good time to plug PICO-8 which describes itself as a "fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs."

https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

I don't even know the difference between the two programs, but someone interested in TIC might also be interested in PICO.

discuss

order

Lerc|7 years ago

The PICO-8 is where the current trend for fantasy consoles began. There's a growing number of them (I'm making one myself). They all have slightly different areas of focus.

Some are scripting language based, some emulate CPUs. TIC-80 programs are "64KB of Lua or Moonscript or JavaScript". My own is 8-bit AVR (128k rom, 64k ram). Z80 seems a popular base as well.

TimTheTinker|7 years ago

Boy, wouldn’t it be fun if there was a Z80-based retro console with an 8-bit color screen and easy access from modern machines (USB, etc)?

lloeki|7 years ago

To me it seems that trend started somewhere along with Notch's dcpu16 and assorted virtual hardware from 0x10c.

_b8r0|7 years ago

That's interesting. I'm currently building a Chip-8 emulator using an Atmega1284, keypad and SSD1306.

What ram chip are you using? I've been looking at 23K640 but it's proving a nightmare to get running on a breadboard.

tokyodude|7 years ago

PICO-8’s limits are partly tbere to try to ensure all games run on all platforms at full speed including raspberry pi.

it can export a stand alone game for windows, macos, linux, and html5

opencl|7 years ago

They are conceptually very similar and both obviously inspired by the old CHIP-8.

TIC-80 is a bit more 'powerful' in that it's a bit higher resolution with double the sprite count.

The most substantial differences:

>PICO-8 has its own BASIC-like language

>TIC-80 is programmed in Lua or JS

>

>PICO-8 is commercial software, costs $15

>TIC-80 is open source

pull_my_finger|7 years ago

Pico-8 is restrained by design.

> The harsh limitations of PICO-8 are carefully chosen to be fun to work with, encourage small but expressive designs and hopefully to give PICO-8 cartridges their own particular look and feel.

It can be a little frustrating at first, but if you focus on the other important elements of a good game it can be really satisfying.

In addition, there are some people doing some very cool stuff really pushing that limit as far as possible.

- https://twitter.com/paloblancogames/status/97765346516502528...

- https://hackernoon.com/pico-8-lighting-part-1-thin-dark-line...

Just to cherry pick a few. Personally, I like the restraints.

To add to the others, Pico-8 definitely uses a modified version of Lua 5.1/5.2.

binarycrusader|7 years ago

PICO-8 may be commercial software for creators, but players can play PICO-8 games published via the web app for free.

The author, "zep" (of lexaloffle games), is also a wonderful human being that goes out of their way to support people who buy it / play PICO-8 games and deserves every penny for it.

While I hope they some day consider open sourcing PICO-8 so it may live on, for now, it provides them with meaningful income and lets them actively develop it, which I wholeheartedly support.

crashride|7 years ago

PICO-8 uses plain old Lua also; the editor downcases everything on save which is why it seems case-insensitive.

boomlinde|7 years ago

The PICO-8 language is just Lua with some minor syntactic sugar.

It's also worth noting that TIC-80 has a $5 "PRO" version; the free (as in no cost) and open source version is basically shareware.

ungzd|7 years ago

PICO-8 uses Lua too.

Avshalom|7 years ago

pico-8 is a fantasy that probably couldn't have existed with out a whole subsystem below it. Mojang's DCPU-16 is probably closer to a fantasy computer.

kragen|7 years ago

PICO-8 is proprietary; TIC-80 is MIT-licensed free software. There is no reason to consider using PICO-8 now that TIC-80 exists.