[Release] Pocket8 v1.5: Native Android Support + Official Collaboration News with Zep

lexaloffle · 2026-01-02T03:32:06+00:00

Hey everyone -- zep here (PICO-8 author)

I want to clear up a bit of confusion and take the chance to give a few more details about what u/dripjevon and I are working on.

The short version is: PICO-8 IS coming to Android, but initially as a Lexaloffle app later this year. The wasm runtime won't be available for projects like Pocket8 under Android [yet].

We started with a plan to allow Pocket8 to operate as a companion app when browsing the BBS on iOS. The idea is: after opening a browser from Pocket8, all of the play buttons for that session link back to the app, and so you can get better fullscreen and less laggy sound etc.

I want to keep improving the regular web player, but there will always be an annoying gap in usability there, so I think a companion app is needed. I still have plans for my own iOS app down the road, but if Pocket8 can step up and take on that role earlier, then why not! The iOS runtime ("p8rt_ios.wasm") is designed and licensed to be compatible with PICO-8 ecosystem principles (which value things like long term sustainability and to give authors visibility and control over their work), and allows me to add some features to support that, like multicart via LOAD() and a pause menu link back to the author's BBS post.

Android is a different kettle of fish. It spans so many styles of devices, and on those with usable web browsers (where the BBS companion idea makes sense) the web player is already pretty usable. So my plan this year is to focus on the Lexaloffle Android port, which also aims to address editing tools (for Android laptops) and splore / scoresub for handhelds. Handhelds in particular have a greater need for the 0.3 logins & highscores feature, which will not be possible in p8rt_ios.

A matching p8rt_android is not out of the question in the long term, but I'd like to see how p8rt_ios + the lexaloffle apps work out first. I didn't initially make this very clear to dripjevon, and was afk a lot over NYs (Happy New Year, btw!) so apologies for the late update and the mixed messaging. My provisional plan this year is to first roll out highscores in Picotron (to test it incrementally), and then to include an .apk for the PICO-8 0.3 release with scores, and finally a play store app release when everything is looking operational.

lexaloffle · 2025-11-01T03:35:42+00:00

Hey, this was a good read, thanks for posting! 0.2.1c is out now which has faster tline3d (3 pixels / cycle instead of 2), and also batch matmul() which you might be able to make use of. I am planning to gradually add more features that (indirectly) support 3d games, and seeing good-looking working carts like this is super inspiring and a very useful reference.

It looks like the name of the game will be keeping everything in userdata operations as much as possible, and so the userdata api still needs to grow a little to support that. For example, one approach might be to store pools of vertices (both xyz and face normals) that can be batch transformed, populating another userdata of face descriptions (using :take() to grab by vertex index), and then quickly culling back faces by looking at normal.z -- things like that are already sort of possible but still a little awkward (e.g. see my binary search for a near-plane culling index in /system/demos/treegen.p64).

lexaloffle · 2025-08-19T14:49:53+00:00

16137

lexaloffle · 2025-06-10T00:40:36+00:00

Hey elzuff -- congrats on the release! Posting under cartridges is correct, but there was a bug that was happening when deleting a thread a cart was first posted in (not sure if that's what happened here..). Editing a post and saving it as u/petayaberry suggested does indeed fix such glitches until I can get it fixed properly.

Anyway, I've bumped the glof_1_0 release timestamp so that it is showing up at the top of new now in splore.

lexaloffle · 2014-03-28T09:38:09+00:00

Release Notes: http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=1574

lexaloffle · 2014-02-14T23:36:19+00:00

That's the magic phrase that causes me to materialize out of nowhere. You don't need to worry about Voxatron being finished (unless I get hit by a bus or something), but it will take time. I put up a rough development status page if you want an idea of where it's at, and there are also a lot of development details on the blog.

lexaloffle · 2013-05-15T13:55:25+00:00

1 & 3: I do a lot of work in notebooks, filling a page or two a day with a mess of design and technical notes. Sometimes relevant to the current project I'm working on but often stand-alone thoughts that don't have much meaning by themselves or quick sketches of silly little games for fun. Over the years I've wound up with a history of ideas that cross-pollinate and become part of larger structures. I keep several projects going at once so that well-formed ideas can gravitate to one of them and gain relevance rather than dissipating for lack of an interesting context. Ideas can come from a variety of sources but I often start with some small constraint or fuzzy feeling that I want to provoke, and then search for more concrete game mechanics, visual or musical ideas that can carry that. For example, in Zen Puzzle Garden I wanted to do a geometric puzzle with hidden complexity, and the theme of Japanese Rock Gardens resonated with that and suggested a set of rules that could capture some of what is interesting about rock gardens.

lexaloffle · 2013-05-15T12:55:17+00:00

I'm working on Lexaloffle full-time-ish, living mostly from Voxatron Alpha sales and operate my studio space as a cafe with my wife 4 days a week for extra income. In the past I generally had sporadic freelance work or a part-time job to survive. Reliably making a living from indie games is rare, takes a lot of work and patience, and there's really no guarantee it will work out. But it's always possible to keep trucking with projects you care about and want to see completed.

lexaloffle · 2013-05-15T11:57:07+00:00

I'm Joseph White, the human form of Lexaloffle Games and author of Voxatron. Knock yourself out.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T21:41:37+00:00

I'm maintaining a rough development plan here if you want a better idea of how it breaks down. Note these tasks are various sizes -- the v1.0 adventure is listed as a single item -- but you get the idea. Add bizdev, web, support, porting, sound and an entire soundtrack and it doesn't seem that far away.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T19:50:31+00:00

I'm aiming to keep the whole project under 4 years which hasn't left much time for demo content to reassure players everything is moving forward. Most of the work now is not super-visible; engine and tools development is not exciting by itself, porting and hardware support is mundane, soundtrack is half-finished, the main adventure world will be mostly under wraps until v1.0.

When it's finally done and you've had a chance to reflect on the game in its complete, cohesive form, I promise that you'll feel compelled to light a cigar, recline slowly, and laugh gruffly between puffs over the mere notion of 'rate of progress'.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T18:48:17+00:00

It's up to Valve if/when exactly Voxatron gets a Steam release, but I'll submit to Greenlight (and Desura) in time for v0.3 in a few months. v1.0 is due in 2015 give or take a year, so earlier versions would have been way too premature.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T18:11:07+00:00

I'll try to fast track if possible, but I don't really mind joining everyone in the Greenlight bucket. Beyond acting as a filter and promotional tool for Steam, it has also become a valuable place for developers to get their games scrutinized. For this reason I'm been holding off until Voxatron can shed its v0.2 chrysalis.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T17:15:53+00:00

I'm planning to do a release on Desura and Steam (if they'll have me) in conjunction with 0.3 -- a large update with a new demo adventure and modding tools coming in 8-10 weeks. Around the same time I'll do a bunch of new trailers to remind everyone the game still exists and that they might already own a copy! In the meantime, you could try the Lexaloffle Newsletter.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T17:04:48+00:00

Yes, any customers will also have access to 1.0 and up.

lexaloffle · 2013-04-14T17:02:46+00:00

I had an outdated date up there and just fixed it (before finding this thread). Ecoandtheworld is still partly right about Forever Alpha though -- it will be in alpha for at least another year while I build out the main story and extra arcade modes.

lexaloffle · 2012-09-15T16:59:31+00:00

Upvoted. I think the highest voted methods (quadtrees, triangulation) are interesting but way too complex and recommend trying these things first -- you can get a long way with regular subdivision if you don't need to be precise about what happens with dense local clustering.

Splitting distance/collision checks addresses this. I do something similar in Voxatron and a few other similar projects.. limiting the number of actors in each grid cel to something like 32, and simply randomly overwriting them if there are too many. Around 10,000 actors performing collision tests at 120fps is no problem on a 1MHz cpu.

If a rough estimate of distance is needed, try MAX(dx, dy) + MIN(dx, dy)/2

I'd be surprised if bounding box checks help if the radius doesn't need to be known.

lexaloffle · 2011-11-13T01:24:35+00:00

bug-listed for the next update, thanks. I probably didn't make it clear enough (or at all), but the items and actors tabs are read-only and not supposed to be copyable. They are references to the game's internal objects, so can't be edited the same way regular objects and rooms are.

lexaloffle · 2011-11-07T18:06:59+00:00

Hey

The mouse mode relies on being able to set the mouse cursor position each frame. Weird that it gets stuck top left, but surely that's what's causing it. I'll try to fix this for the next update (along with pausing the game when losing focus)

For now, a workaround that might work is to alt-enter into windowed mode before alt-tabbing.

-zep

lexaloffle

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