Fantasy Console Station: Make and Play Games with PICO-8 and TIC-80
Turn a Pi into a tiny retro console where you can play thousands of community games — and write your own in Lua.
Fantasy consoles are made-up retro machines with tiny screens, built-in editors for code, sprites and music, and big game communities. PICO-8 is a paid program that includes a Raspberry Pi version; TIC-80 is free and open source.
Mission steps
Set up the Pi
Install Raspberry Pi OS with desktop, connect it to the TV and plug in a USB controller.
Install TIC-80
Download the Raspberry Pi build from TIC-80's official releases, or build it from source following its instructions.
Add PICO-8 (optional)
If you buy PICO-8, download the Raspberry Pi version from your account and run it from its folder.
Play community carts
Use SPLORE in PICO-8 or the 'surf' command in TIC-80 to browse and play free community games.
Make your first game
Open the code editor, draw a sprite, and move it with the controller using a few lines of Lua.
Questions
Is this a good first programming project for kids?
Yes. The limits (tiny screen, few colors, small code size) keep games simple and finishable, and everything — art, sound and code — is in one place.