This! But I also suggest Tic80 as a really nice free and open source alternative of Pico-8.
Comment on Advice needed, son wants to learn how to program
0xc0ba17@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I can recommend PICO-8, if you have access to any windows/osx/linux computer.
It’s a “fantasy console”, a self contained gamedev environment that emulates an 8bit retro console (while using Lua, a popular and modern language), is super user friendly, and allows you to get a satisfying and fast feedback loop when learning to code.
There are many resources to learn it and a lively community
tranxuanthang@lemm.ee 1 year ago
0xc0ba17@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Actually I prefer to develop in TIC-80, but the community is way smaller, and TIC-80 games can’t be played on phones without a keyboard. It’s not a 1:1 alternative, tho I’m glad it exists.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 year ago
Pico 8 is super frustrating at times. I wish they’d make a program to be a “Pico 8 dev kit” that has a larger resolution so the IDE is more readable. The IDE being so hard to work with makes me want to use a proper text editor but there are downsides with that too. It could keep the game’s resolution the same and only have a larger resolution for the IDE so the specs don’t change.
0xc0ba17@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I agree with the resolution, and I (almost) never use the built-in code editor.
Most of the time I have a folder per game, with a
somegame.p8whose only code is#include main.p8.lua(+ other includes if needed), and the code itself is insidemain.p8.lua. Since the code is cleanly separated from the other assets, I don’t risk overwriting one with the other while juggling between my IDE and pico8