For the past three years, I have created electronic new year cards using pico-8.

I've posted my card for 2023 before, but I forgot to post my 2024 card! So in this blog you can see the carts for the 2024 and 2025 new year carts.

The code is not pretty at all, but feel free to use it if it helps!

New year 2025: Year of the snake!

caranha_nenga2025

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caranha_nenga2025

by caranha

Cart #caranha_nenga2025-0 | 2025-01-02 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

New year 2024: Year of the dragon!

caranha_nenga2024

by caranha

Cart #caranha_nenga2024-0 | 2025-01-02 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

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Skilled Explorer Creeps 'Round Every Tunnel (S.E.C.R.E.T.)

s_e_c_r_e_t

by lumbar527

Cart #s_e_c_r_e_t-0 | 2025-01-01 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

This was my submission to the 2024 Github Game Off.
You are an explorer in some secret caverns or something.
Itch: https://lumbar527.itch.io/skilled-explorer-creeps-round-every-tunnel

Controls

⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️ to move.
❎ to shoot.
🅾️ to reload.
Tab to switch between gun and torch.

Map Editor

s_e_c_r_e_t_editor

by lumbar527

Cart #s_e_c_r_e_t_editor-0 | 2025-01-01 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

Copy and paste the snippet below into your HTML.

Note: This cartridge's settings do not allow embedded playback. A [Play at lexaloffle] link will be included instead.

<iframe src="https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/widget.php?pid=s_e_c_r_e_t_editor" allowfullscreen width="621" height="513" style="border:none; overflow:hidden"></iframe>

This is the editor I made to create the S.E.C.R.E.T. maps.

How to Use

ESDF move the camera around. Arrows control the player (the red circle with the blue line to determine facing).
NEW POINT adds a new map point in front of the player.
STOP CONNECTING: When you add a new point, it automatically creates a line between the two. If you push
this before adding a new point, it will not connect.
MOUSE toggles between using the map for adding points (right-click) and using player movement+NEW POINT button.
MINIMAP toggles whether to show the map or not. Useful for looking around in your maps.
ENEMY TOGGLE toggles whether or not adding a new point adds an enemy there. Enemies are represented by empty circles.
SAVE MAP lets you copy the map. Below is an example of the copied map.

m={{x=2,y=-22,z1=0,z2=20},{x=15,y=-15,z1=0,z2=20},{x=20,y=-2,z1=0,z2=20},{x=20,y=10,z1=0,z2=20},{x=19,y=26,z1=0,z2=20},{x=16,y=51,z1=0,z2=20},{x=10,y=59,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-6,y=65,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-22,y=64,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-38,y=56,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-41,y=45,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-41,y=45,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-44,y=36,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-47,y=21,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-47,y=7,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-43,y=-5,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-36,y=-12,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-26,y=-17,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-18,y=-20,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-7,y=-21,z1=0,z2=20},{x=2,y=-22,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-9,y=44,z1=0,z2=20},{x=-33,y=22,z1=0,z2=20},}, l={{1,2},{2,3},{3,4},{4,5},{5,6},{6,7},{7,8},{8,9},{9,10},{10,11},{11,12},{12,13},{13,14},{14,15},{15,16},{16,17},{17,18},{18,19},{19,20},{20,21},{22,22},{23,23},}, enemies={{h=0,s=0,d=0,id=22,spd=0},{h=0,s=0,d=0,id=23,spd=0},}

Note: Don't make your walls too long because I don't currently have clipping and they will be hidden if any part of them goes off the screen.

m has all the map points.
l connects the points.
enemies is a list of enemies.

Enemies

h is health (the gun does 1 damage).
s is sprite (2x2).
d is damage to player.
id is the map point the enemy is (do not change).
spd is speed.

The entire copied text, once edited, can be placed inside the lvl list of the game.

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Le Fou du Roi (The Jester)

by drmams

Cart #fouduroi-0 | 2025-01-01 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

10

This is my first game. Pico-8 is awesome. Sorry for my very poor skills in audio. Looking forward for your feedback!

Enjoy!

Controls

Arrows to control the jester.

Rules

You are the king's jester and he needs your help. All 36 stories of the castle are overrun by evil!

	[8x8]

Light your way by collecting torches

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pico pirate

by JimboTheGod

Cart #hokatigipa-0 | 2024-12-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

2

This is just a test to see if I can play it on my raspberry pi. This isn't intended to show off any efficient code or anything like that.

constellation maker

by helado

Cart #conmay-0 | 2024-12-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

1

you get your own sky of stars! why not make some pictures in it? i'll name them for you! (i wll not be explaining the glyphs. that's up to you!)

your stars, star names, constellations, and constellation names are not guaranteed to stay the same across revisions. if you're attached to yours, make sure to keep backups of your cdata and the cart itself!

this cart is incomplete. let me know if you run into problems with the presentation, or other bugs! more vfx and sfx are planned, plus music, among other possibilities

a selection of known issues:

• there is no boundary. if you get lost, reset the cart
• you cannot make more than 124 links. if you do, the later ones will get lost

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Platformer Collision Template

by EveMeows

Cart #sepdseku-0 | 2024-12-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

2

Collision Template

This cart is a small template for ground collision!
I struggled with learning collisions for about two years in the past. And I do not want for ANYONE to go through that, EVER!
This is the cart I used to learn. I really hope it will help someone, it sure helped me!

The comments I left in the code try to explain what's happening as best as I could

Quirks

I used table:function() instead of table.function().
What this means is that the function is called with a secret argument, self!

I also used num \ other_num instead of num / other_num.
That is floored division! If either numbers are decimals, they will be floored down.

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gayuyonaja

by roroyobert

Cart #gayuyonaja-1 | 2025-01-12 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

3

Work in progress game...

woop sorry i uploaded without play testing and found there are crashes everywhere...rolling back

gayuyonaja

by roroyobert

Cart #gayuyonaja-2 | 2025-01-26 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

3

Copy and paste the snippet below into your HTML.

Note: This cartridge's settings do not allow embedded playback. A [Play at lexaloffle] link will be included instead.

<iframe src="https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/widget.php?pid=gayuyonaja" allowfullscreen width="621" height="513" style="border:none; overflow:hidden"></iframe>

Verdant Vanguard

Oh no! Your forest has been invaded by nasty creatures!
It is your duty to save it.

Verdant Vanguard is a turn based, endless little game about protecting what's yours, it is a proof of concept. It is also my first pico8 game in more than two years! I hope I improved since last time hehe :3

The game is published under the MIT license and it's cleaned up source is available on my CodeBerg

Verdant Vanguard 1.0

by EveMeows

Cart #verdantvanguard-0 | 2024-12-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

3

fireworks2025

by korshun

Cart #fireworks2025-0 | 2024-12-31 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

8

Happy New Year 2025

It's that time of the year again, 2024 is coming to an end.

The fireworks are a small particle system, 1200 particles at 30 FPS. Although it looks nicer and smoother at 60 FPS, despite optimizations, I couldn't get enough sparks on the screen without having frame drops. I know, it could have been further optimized. Precalculate sine table, etc.

I wish you all a good transition into the New Year (in Germany we say "Guten Rusch!"), a happy New Year, and may your new years resolutions be fulfilled. Wishing you happiness and health.

I was reading the Pico 8 manual and I was surprised to see that the pack() and unpack() functions aren't in the manual. I understand that they are Lua functions and not necessarily a Pico 8 API thing but it still feels like they're important enough to add here, especially since they are a great alternative to use a for loop to manually unpack these elements. Just here to ask if they could be added so more people can be aware of them please !! Especially the small percentage of people who do want to download the manual (hi) haha

I would like to preface this is an issue in version 0.2.6b, both in my downloaded executable of Pico 8 and Pico 8 Education Edition

So I have been reading and re-reading the pico 8 manual for the past weeks now and I have noticed that there is a really big discrepancy in the way that sub() works vs how it is presented. The manual establishes that:

When POS1 is specified, but not a number, a single character at POS0 is returned.
PRINT(SUB(S,5,TRUE)) --> "Q"

This does not seem to be the case, however, as using non-numerical values such as a boolean, nil or a string all still will return a string from the index all the way to the end of the string. I tried looking information about this in the forums and it seems like at some point this behavior was indeed implemented, but in another update it seems to have been removed. I don't know if this was intentional or if this is the product of a bug/oversight but it would be nice if the change was reflected in the manual.

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yarncat

by lisska

Cart #yarncat-1 | 2024-12-30 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

13

Through 66 levels across 8 worlds, your goal is use your body and the yarn tail you leave behind to interact with buttons, fairies, and frogs in just the right sequence to magically awaken a sleeping cat and give them a nuzzle. But your tail might also get in the way and block your path, so experiment, mess around, and maybe try to think ahead!

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mountainmines

by NotThatCoop

Cart #mountainmines-2 | 2025-01-04 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

Next steps -

• Code to spawn enemies with basic patrolling behavior and fireball projecties

• Code to interact with NPCs for text box info

• player health and health bar

• Borrowing key/lock code from another project to use a shovel as a "key" to dig out an opening

• design platforming sections using empty upper corner map space

• design sound effects for jumps, NPC speech, enemies

• music

mountainmines

by NotThatCoop

Cart #mountainmines-0 | 2024-12-29 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

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A slightly outdated animation of a skill unlock in an old relaxed and exploration-based platformer I have never finished. I implemented that as I was learning the existence of bitplane manipulation and redesigned the whole game's palette around it (4 color ramps of four colors: white, red, green and blue).

Retro Pong Remake

by MikelSpikel

Cart #retro_pong_remake_01-2 | 2024-12-28 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

3

Pong! The early days of gaming. Before my time, for sure. Pico-8 feels like the right platform to channel creativity with all things retro. I'm glad I picked up a copy of it.

This is the first of my retro game remakes. To help me improve my skills as a coder, artist, musician, and game designer, I started a little personal challenge to recreate these old games of the past.

NICE 1.0 Freestyle Chess

by camp39

Cart #nicev1freestyle-0 | 2024-12-28 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA

3

NICE: Nice Is Camp39's Engine

The Good

• pass n play and board flip option
• clean interface & themes
• play against computer
• opening book for standard chess
• endless openings with Freestyle Chess (press up while on chess960 to view positions)
• all rules, including 50 move and 3-fold repetition

The Bad

• my first engine ever... its a little slow
• my first engine ever... its a little dumb
• maybe 2.0 will be better!

About NICE

[hidden]
This was a real accomplishment for me and is my first engine. The move generation follows the tutorial of Bluefever Software video series on Youtube: Programming a Chess Engine in Pure Javascript.

When it came to the search functions I learned a ton by following the book: Chess Algorithms by Noah Caplinger.

The limitations of Pico-8 though make for a challenging adaptation of these types of tutorials. (translating from zero-based arrays can give some crazy nasty bugs). The speed limitations make some variation strategies useless e.g. "killer moves" only make sense with a depth of at least 4. It was a really cool experience and gave me more insight into the game.

I liked the board layout from cart #quickchessyness-4 by @Adam_Howell so much that I copied it :)

This cart will need some updates however. I was unable to get quiesence to work without a move taking FOREVER. Maybe due to my move ordering, maybe due to the evaluation function, maybe due to lots of things. Its all very complicated and hurts my brain since it is recursive at iterative depths. Hard to pinpoint problems like that. If any kind soul wants to offer tips, I'm all ears!

@Krystman of course released the fabulous Pico Checkmate, cart #54038 6 years ago. I definitely looked through his code for clues but couldn't manage to find a way to cut off a search if time got too long. But I did follow his lead and purge illegal moves right off the bat instead of making and taking them. Without a full quiesence search though, I don't think NICE will stand a chance against Pico Checkmate.

This cart, while not having the best engine still has some nice features. Chess960 is chess but with almost random starting positions. Its just like standard chess with the exception that castling can be a little weird. Just remember that king and rook end up in the same ending positions as in regular chess, regardless of where they started. Otherwise, same rules apply. This eliminates the same opening every time you play against the computer. Also, to prevent that from happening in standard chess, I coded in a small opening book with response options being chosen randomly so that you can get different responses even if you play the same.

I hope this cart is popular with hand-held users (I don't personally own one). The pass n play is not something I've seen on other chess carts and I imagine a game of chess on a long flight or bus ride would be cool, but playing upside down is a bit awkward.

Crazy idea: what if there was a cart with the move generation and graphics already on it (and optimized to the max) and then two different users could put in a tiny engine each and let them battle. Maybe more realistic on picotron?

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