Introduction to Lo-Fi Interactive Art and Games with PICO-8

In 2015 the PICO-8 ‘fantasy console’ emerged as an all-in-one game creation tool with serious constraints: a 128×128 resolution, 16 colors, and max 32k of memory. PICO-8’s suite includes everything one could have asked for on the dream home computer of the 80s: a code editor, a sprite editor, a sound editor and even a mini-command line are all included and integrated.

Some of the games and sketches created by PICO-8 developers illustrate that the challenge of constraints, rather than hampering developers, can be liberating, and in some cases can produce focused transcendent work. The best part? PICO-8 creations can run on the web or on minimal hardware such as the $9 C.H.I.P. computer or the Raspberry Pi Zero.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to use PICO-8 to create their own interactive sketches and games and get them running on the web. 

Although no prior experience is necessary, students would benefit greatly from having some programming experience, ideally with a scripting language such as Javascript. PICO-8 uses the Lua scripting language.