Lexaloffle Pico-8

Overview

  • A native emulator for the fantasy console Pico-8
  • Emulator/Core: Pico-8 (RaspberryPi Version)
  • Path: /roms/pico-8
  • Supported Extensions: .png .p8

Required Files

  • pico8_64
  • pico8.dat

Setup

  1. Download the Pico-8 binary for Raspberry Pi from https://www.lexaloffle.com/games.php?page=updates
  2. Un-zip that file and copy the following files to /roms/pico-8:
    • pico8_64
    • pico8.dat
  3. Add any manually downloaded Pico-8 carts (aka .png or .p8 files) to /roms/pico-8
    • There are 2 options for this depending on how you prefer things to work
    • If you prefer to start games directly from EmulationStation and don’t need to see them in splore:
      • Add your .png or .p8 files directly to /roms/pico-8
    • If you prefer to be able to start games from ES AND be able to see them in splore
      • Create a folder called roms/pico-8/carts and store your .png or .p8 files there.
  4. Turn on the display of Pico-8 in EmulationStation by doing the following
    • Press start while in EmulationStation to open the main menu
    • Scroll to Game Collection Settings, and press A
    • Select Systems Displayed, and press A
    • Scroll to Pico-8 and press A
    • Press B repeatedly to back out to the main menu and EmulationStation will refresh

After doing the above you will be able to (1) start your Pico-8 games directly from EmulationStation or (2) start Pico-8 splore by selecting “Start Pico-8” (Using option 2 will open Pico-8 without a game loaded which you can use to view your games or download more games directly if you are on wifi)

Controls

PICO-8 Console
X B
O / Z A
Start / Menu Select / Start

Quitting PICO-8

  • To quit PICO-8 and go back to ES:
    • if you started your game directly from ES then press the select button and choose shutdown from the menu
    • if you started PICO-8 through “Start PICO-8” then highlight a game in the splore menu, press the Select button, choose “Options” then choose “Shutdown PICO-8”

Splore

PICO-8 has an online BBS system called Splore that allows you to find games inside of PICO-8. Using Splore requires an internet connection.

You can launch Splore from the Tools menu of AmberELEC. To do so, go into Tools and select Run Pico-8.

If you’d like to run Splore from inside the Pico-8 games menu, you can do so by creating an empty .p8 file. For example, create an empty text file on Windows, rename it to splore.p8, and add it to /roms/pico-8. You can then launch Splore by starting that rom file.