I made a game in Pico 8
Back before I knew anything about music or instruments, I wanted to be a game designer. Over the years as I got into music and sound design, I slowly forgot about gaming entirely. It wasn’t until just a couple years ago with the release of Dome Keeper and seeing Blasphemous for the first time that I felt a pull to get back into gaming. I really prefer retro 8 and 16 bit style games and really got into puzzle games and roguelikes, especially falling in love with Into the Breach. Last year Balatro and UFO 50 sucked me in, and while I played more than my fair share of Balatro, it was UFO 50 that really sparked my imagination. Many of the games were right up my alley and all seemed “achievable” in their design scope, I also absolutely loved the imaginary console from a parallel universe, and immediately started dreaming up new games.
This is all to set the stage for my discovery of Pico 8, another virtual console with even stricter design restrictions, but most importantly, one you can get into and program yourself. I started watching a couple tutorials and everything felt “achievable” for once. It was full on programming, not game design within the design restrictions of a level editor. I jumped right into a couple tutorials and learned the basics. Just enough tools to get going and build “something”. While I’ll never give up music or sound design, I felt the pull to take a short break for a day and actually make a game for once. I took what I learned and figured out how I could apply it to my own idea. While I still referenced the tutorial, which taught me how to make a top down adventure game, I wanted to deviate and apply this information to an incredibly basic puzzle game.
Over all, it was a fun experience, I had to problem solve and repurpose the little bit I’d learned. I got to draw my own pixel art and even use the built in tracker and sound editor to make sound audio interaction. I guess I should probably touch on the sound editor, I didn’t spend too much time with it, but it was a nifty little sequencer. You got a series of steps, each step could have an entirely different noise. Drawing in pitches and amplitudes while swapping waves could create some neat little retro tones. It’s really nothing special compared to the synths I review, but quite different enough to give me a new perspective on sound design, especially within the limitations. It also had probably the most minimal “reverb” I’ve ever encountered.
My game was nothing original, just a “finish the pipes” style puzzle game. One level, you get 10 placements before your inventory runs out and you lose. Truly more of a test to see if I understood what I learned than a game. The logic was all dead simple, I likely could have utilized arrays or some other more advanced techniques to enhance things. There’s no start screen or reset/game over screen, just text that says “win” or “lose”. I really enjoyed the tile system, being able to retrieve information from a tile and place new tiles down, this worked perfectly for what I had in mind. I’d like to do more in the future, perhaps spend more time on something deeper with more levels and mechanics and maybe some actual puzzle solving. But I did want to write about this first attempt and express my appreciation of this Pico 8 experience.
You can play Pico 8 here: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
and you can try out the engine free here: https://www.pico-8-edu.com/