PICO-8 Devlog 1: Concept

PICO-8, a fantasy console is entirely My Jam. In theory.

It should transport me back to those perfect summer days of my youth, hunched in front of my 8-bit computer writing BASIC in the dark.

But.

Games is hard

So despite

PICO-8 being deliberately tiny and simple
me being happy to do tiny, simple things
supposedly being a professional developer
my desperation to impress my children

I've never been able to make anything meaningful happen in PICO-8 because making games is really, really hard. As a discipline it feels entirely different than frontend web development.

I am tenacious

I spent $20 on this thing in 2016 and I've got it on my retro handhelds. I know it's capable of great things. The Lazy Devs Youtube channel has incredible playlists. So every year or so I come back to the PICO-8 and I have another go.

And so here I am again in 2025, starting a new project. It's hard know what pulled me back in this time. Probably the fact that I gave my regular handheld to a friend and started using the RG CubeXX again, and it's just so perfect for PICO-8 that the urge to play my own wee game on it is irresistable. I also have a really clear vision for the game I want to make this time, or what feels like one, and I need somewhere to put my programming energy other than my day job.

Elavator pitch

I want to take the incredibly simple, obvious game mechanic of sliding a block around, and make it superficially appealing with a strong visual aesthetic and sound effects.

Stylistically I want to tap into the atmosphere of those mid-to-late-1990s games like Wipeout and Rez that made a cool post pub/club activity. Mechanically it'll be a bit like Fire & Ice, or Zelda block moving puzzles. There must be a really pure, early version of what I have in mind, but I don't want to confuse myself by looking it up.

The key point is that even if I fail to make something with any real challenge or lasting appeal, I'm prioritising style over substance. I just want to make something that feels cool and exciting for a few minutes before you realise how shallow it is 😅.

Progress

It took me longer than I care to admit, but I finally reached my first objective: a block you can move around the screen exactly the way I imagined:

A successful first iteration of the central mechanic (.gif)

The block will slide in any cardinal input direction until obstructed by a wall tile. The log statements on the left the player's X and Y position, whether the adjacent tiles are blocked or not, and how many tiles can be moved in each direction.
In reality the movement is snappier and more satisfying that the gif makes it look, and is accompanied by a sound effect.

Next steps

Having had such a clear idea of my first milestone, I'm now a little overwhelmed by all the different things I could do next. Here are some of my top candidates:

Write out-of-bounds logic and make going off-screen a dynamic.
Graphics spike to get some color schemes
Sprite art.
Music.
Other kinds of tile — hazards, bonuses, single use etc.
Series of tutorial levels.
Win conditions.

This is where my "style over substance" mission statement helps me out: I want to use flashy effects to mask shallow gameplay, so my top objectives are:

Win conditions — an exit block that allows a level to be beaten.
Some levels to establish the gameplay.
Tart it up with jazzy colors, FX and SFX.

END