Getting back to BASICs with Pico-8
When my family got our first computer, I just wanted to play games on it…the last thing I expected to do was to use it make games.
But that’s just what I did.
After I discovered QBasic on my 486SX/25 and I guess never looked back. Most of the games I made back then were text-based RPGs, since that’s what I was really playing on BBSes of the day. Few of my games ever got finished but they were fun to make and fun to share with my friends.
Little did I know that early programming making games would lead to the career in development I have today. It’s not a career making video games, unfortunately, but ever since then, making video games has been an on-again-off-again kind of hobby, usually coinciding with the discovery of a new programming platform.
My first “success” was a game I made using the Game Maker studio. It was a simple arena shooter called Zombie Road. You just walked around shooting zombies and saving humans. I stole all the sprites but in the end it wasn’t a bad game…it had its moments.
But even if the game wasn’t AAA, it served a very important purpose…it taught me a new language and improved my programming skills. I dabbled around with Game Maker in attempt to make another game but life got in the way and it fell to the side (as usual).
I later tried my hand at Unity but found it way over my head for the games I was trying to make…which are really simple, 2D-style arcade games. Ones that hark back to my NES gaming days. So once again, game making fell to side.
Then just a couple weeks ago I saw an article on The Verge about the PocketCHIP, a handheld for the Chip mini-computer. It looked cool to me, very retro but it also hyped its ability to play indie games, and that got my attention.
Through that article I learned about Pico-8, the gaming language that comes pre-installed on the PocketCHIP. After a little research, I quickly decided that Pico-8 was to be my way back into game development. I felt I could use all the game making lessons learned in the past and apply them here to finally make some fun games.
The great thing about Pico-8, which is a flavor of Lua, is that it’s intended to be minimal. It has a very limited memory and other restrictions that require you to really consider what you’re making and how. It wasn’t a totally blank canvas really…you had to design to those limits and that sounded great.
I’m one that gets lost when there are no boundaries. Sure, it’s fun doing whatever you want but it’s very easy for me to jump down the rabbit hole of features, wish lists and other blue sky possibilities, and thus I rarely ever finish anything. Pico-8 has kept me grounded and thus I actually got something done.
And I was able to use previous knowledge from Game Maker and just my career skills to make my first Pico-8 game. It went pretty fast and I found the low-level style programming refreshing yet familiar. It felt a lot like when I discovered QBasic back in 7th grade…like the possibilities were endless and within reach. This was something I could do and do well.
Now I’m not under any illusions that this Pico-8 stuff will lead to anything beyond self satisfaction. It appears to be nearly impossible to monetize the Pico-8 games…which may also be kind of nice because that eliminates the pressure of doing so. It’s a real hobby language, which is exactly what I need.
Of course, the fun of Pico-8 might take away time from other hobbies but that’s a problem I’ll happily take on.
