I have a handheld device (RG351V) that runs Pico 8 and Splore. I like to browse Splore at home while connected to Wi-Fi and Favorite games that I like. When I do that, some games are playable even offline, but some are not and give the error "could not connect to BBS."

I am not doing any special steps like downloading the cart manually. Some just seem to randomly work offline without me doing anything. Can anyone help me figure out what's going on? I'd like to play them all offline as easily as possible.

I'm not at my PC right now so I can't double-check, but I believe SPLORE downloads every game you play once. Every time after, SPLORE loads the downloaded cart rather than connecting to the BBS
If you never played a BBS cart while on WiFi, SPLORE won't be able to run it offline.
I hope that makes sense!