Hey everyone. I'm iivii, founder of iivii.games. Currently, I'm working on a course which I hope to publish to the Skillshare platform which will serve as am introduction and eventually an in depth examination and structured learning resource on the Pico-8 platform. I have an extensive, privately cultivated wiki dedicated to all things Pico 8 which will likely be released publicly at some point.
Pico-8 A-Z: A Pretty API Browser for You and Me
> A Tool by ★ iiviigames
Follow on Twitch!
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How to Use the Api Browser 1.0
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> Save this bad boy to the local unit for optimum effectiveness...
Simply 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 t𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘱𝘪.
- ➡️ / ⬇️ to move forward
- ⬅️ / ⬆️ moves backwards
> NOTE: This cart saves a log to the desktop for your ♥
Featurez
T𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘹 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, saving directly to the desktop for easy access!
T𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳, 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘣, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘵 writeapi 𝘵𝘰 false.
A𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮'𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴...
- I'𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦.
- B𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨
itemsperpage𝘵𝘰1, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 P𝘪𝘤𝘰-8 API as a whole.
Why I Made This
This tool was created to quickly scan through the pico-8 api, & has many use cases for myself, as I'm the fella' who maintains the stylish though unofficial API site at:
It needed to be updated but so did some other things: things like sublime text's miserably ancient pico-8 syntax and highlighter. I've made drastic, very useful changes to its language lexer, regexes, theme settings, syntax highlighter, and snippets, among other things too.
I haven't made that public yet, as i'm not quite done, but this tool is something i'd been doing for a while, and i kept on needing to see the api in its full context for different reasons - this is just v1.0
I intend to make a few updates which will enable this to work like an interactive help tool, selecting individual functions and getting their help page displayed, and making it all very pretty and user-friendly.
Look forward to that in 2.0.
Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen
I hope this tool, if nothing else, allows you to discover a useful function you didn't even know was there! newbies
should browse the code too - there's some good stuff in here to repurpose for other things!
> ♥ always,
>
>> ~ Vee
>> ~ aka: iiviigames
>> ~ aka: u/corenerd, friendly neighborhood mod over at r/pico8
0 comments
This is something I made for a request on reddit a while ago, and thought I'd share it here.
The timing objects are excellent for using in any game that needs precise timing actions. The timer bars are something I added later, and are not perfect.
> Hope this helps somebody! Timing can be a real headache. But this is very user friendly. There's a full section of notes in the cartridge!
This is a simple way to browse the internal pico-8 api, which I posted about on Twitter a while back.
The Pico-8 BBS Download Link-inator!
Are you 😪 of tedious right-click, save-as routines?
Well, with this script, life just got a bit less tedious!
Where to get it?
Usage
This is a userscript written in javascript , that adds a nice, big download link right under the cart player on the Pico-8 Bulletin Board System. Does literally what it says on the tin.
To use this, you need something like TamperMonkey installed in your browser. (I'm using Firefox Developer ATM.)
Notes
Is this necessary? Nope, but I got sick of clicking the link, then right click save as...you know the deal. This just makes a big fat link on the page, in a bright blue color, right beneath the player for the game itself.
Thanks!
Check out my website, my Github, or follow me on Twitter @odd_codes.
I've also been updating a new version of the unofficial PICO-8 API, so check that out too!
ENJOY!
The New and Improved Pico-8 API Documentation!
Alternatively, here's the link in text form: https://iiviigames.github.io/pico8-api
Why is it new?
I've been making a version of my own for some time now, just as I have updated the Sublime Text syntax for Pico-8. Since it's been 9 months since the original maintainer has updated it, I thought it was time to share my version. This work is based on the forked original API made by Neko250.
- Clear version number and more intuitively located information
- New and more specific tabs for content
- Reformatted & rearranged the existing data
- Heavily modified aesthetics, now more like PICO-8 itself
- Many (not all) new functions have been added
- Clear and concise annotations in code blocks
- Pico-8 built-ins highlight,just like they would in the IDE
- Keyboard shortcuts added
- this section needs the most work
- including 1 never found or documented previously, as far as I know
...and lots of love!
The future
I am writing a book, a bible, for Pico-8 at the moment. I needed a reference that was up to date just for this reason alone, as that book has its own (more in depth) reference for the entire API. That said, I will maintain this bad boy for the foreseeable future very, very quickly after Pico 8 updates.
When the day comes I can't or don't wish to, or someone more skilled than myself or Neko250 in the making of API cheatsheets comes along - I will pass it on to a new maintainer. Hell, anyone can fork this and do what they wish, as this project is licensed under creative commons.
Thank you,and please bookmark the API for future use!
Sincerely,
Vee
A Quick Example
Use the arrow/action keys to move through values and show the outcomes of the new functions:
chr() ord()
Printing Without Linebreaks
A redditor posted on the PICO-8 subreddit, and I spent 30 minutes trying to solve his/her problem.
They said:
I have a function that prints several numbers, but with each iteration there's a linebreak (\n)
when I print.
How do I make the printouts come right after each other, instead of on separate lines?My solution, was the above. It's not perfect, but I didn't have a lot of time to work on it.
I'd like to see anyone fix my code, or come up with a better way, as I found this an interesting
problem!
IT DOESN'T WORK YET ON PURPOSE, BUT WILL BE FIXED SOON!
Today, while playing with the 
default settings on the CLI on Windows, I found a series of colors that I started to really like. So, what does that have to do with this?
Basically, when this cartridge is done, it's going to be a lot of things: but PICO-8 is going to serve as the first star, and from then on, sadly, I believe I will have to write a program of my own. Unless I find a way to display more than the 16 colors - and that's the only reason why.
I have written a program in python that allows one to select any color they see, from anywhere at any time, or simply play around with them til the find one on their own. Then I pipe that on over to a modified form of lua - the Aseprite variety actually.
(I'M ALSO WRITING A SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTER FOR THE ASEPRITE API AND I WOULD LOVE SOME ASSISTANCE IF ANYONE OUT THERE WANTS TO HELP OUT! Its for ST3!)
The aseprite script I have allows one to load a palette from existing .gpl or .pal (which aren't technically supported anymore) files and make use of them in a project, or export them in a wizard-like manner for easy sharing and storage. (IE, it will ask how large you want each square to be, then the max width and length and try its best to make it work within your parameters, if it can't it will suggest the next best thing.) The script can also make a single sprite strip from nothing, and it can be initialized from many places in many ways. Aseprite, Python, Lua, and even Pico-8 with some AHK in there.
In any case, I would love to work on this with a single partner, 2 at the most. If interested, please get back to me! You can reach me here or at my home in Merveilles.
The Growing Collection of Raspberry's...
And I Made One Into a Pi-Co
Except the only problem is...
I can't seem to figure out how to use get it online. It boots right into Pico 8, and was the simplest process I've ever followed for a Pi project. Not even any image writing, just pasting files onto the SD card, which was a first for me. The image/process I followed is here and it works amazingly otherwise. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to alter the boot code (which is open source and listed on Guillermo's github, link is on the same site I already linked to), I'd really appreciate the help!
(Ps, the history of magic book is my attempt at researching "real magic" to help bring some authenticity into an alternate history DND style campaign I'm working on. It is...actually pretty much a very dull book honestly, I was hoping it would be a bit different than it is.)
