PICO-8, an extremely popular fantasy console from developer lexaloffle has been released on itch.io giving you another easy place to grab it.
What is PICO-8? What's a fantasy console? They're a fun way for making, sharing and playing small games and other computer programs. It's a set of limitations and an API for developers, along with a "console" that runs cross-platform across Linux, macOS and Windows to play games. It's really sweet, especially if you love retro games and tech. All the fun of consoles, retro and such without needing dedicated hardware.
To give you a real quick idea, here's a little video demo of the PICO-8 console running on Linux:
Direct Link
Some features:
- Explore 1000s of games and projects with a built-in cart explorer.
- Make your own carts with code, gfx, map, sfx and music editors.
- Save carts in a cute shareable .p8.png format that looks like a cart!
- Export stand-alone carts (HTML, Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspi)
There are some genuinely good games to be found using the built-in online cart explorer too. A lot of developers continue to tinker and tweak their games to improve them and I've already found a lot I want to actually go back and play more of. As someone who grew up with the Amiga, SEGA Mega Drive and a few before that, I find retro stuff like this amazing how it brings in modern convenience yet still keeps it feeling authentic. You could even use it to build an actual retro console with the power of Linux too, since it supports even the Raspberry Pi.
You can now find PICO-8 on itch.io for $15 but it's also in the huge itch.io charity bundle that ends in just less than a week.
It's wonderful to see more developers put their stuff on itch, it's a great store.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I can't recommend it enough. Someone even created a bootable raspberry image that turns into a pico8 arcade machine.
Wow... one more that by itself is a complete steal on that gargantuan bundle their doing.
This. I pitched in thinking of it more as a donation than a purchase. Given the amount of games I've found that I will definitely play, not even including the number that just look like one-fun-hour-throwaways or interesting curios, I'm embarrased at what I paid.
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