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PICO-8 - General Guide

Pico 8 logo

PICO-8 is a 8-bit fantasy console emulator.

Resource Link
Itch.io - Pico-8 Link
Pico-8 FAQ Link
Pico-8 Resources Link
Pico-8 Website Link

Where to put the games?

PICO-8 games should be put under the retrodeck/roms/pico8/ directory.

What file formats are supported?

File Format Description
.png PICO-8 game file

Does Pico-8 require BIOS or Firmware?

Yes, it requires the Pico-8 software.

You can purchase it from the official Pico-8 website or on Itch.io.

Where to put the BIOS / Firmware files?

  1. Download the Linux version of Pico-8: pico-8_*.*.**_amd64.zip from where you bought it.
  2. Extract the archive and place its contents in retrodeck/bios/pico-8/.
    Make sure the pico8 binary resides directly in that directory.
    The final path should look like this: retrodeck/bios/pico-8/pico8
  3. Ensure the pico8 binary has executable permissions (refer to the Wiki FAQ for instructions, if you don't know how).

Directory structure

Type Directory Comment
BIOS retrodeck/bios/pico-8/
ROMs retrodeck/roms/pico8/
Saves retrodeck/saves/pico-8/

Downloading Games from the Pico-8 Webpage

  1. Visit Pico-8 Carts.
  2. Open the desired game’s page.
  3. In the bottom-left corner of the game view, click the Cart icon (see image).
  4. A static cartridge image will be displayed.
  5. Right-click the image and select Save Image As.
  6. Name the file to match the game (e.g. Vampire vs Pope Army.png).
  7. Save the file to retrodeck/roms/pico8/.

The game can now be launched from the ES-DE gamelist.

Launching only Splore from the ES-DE Gamelist

  1. Navigate to retrodeck/roms/pico8/.
  2. Create an empty file named Splore.png.
  3. Launch RetroDECK.
  4. Open the Pico-8 system and locate the Splore entry.
  5. In ES-DE, select Edit this game's metadata.
  6. Set Alternative Emulator to Pico-8 Splore and save.

Splore can now be launched directly from the ES-DE gamelist.

TIP: Pico-8 Covers in ES-DE

Pico-8 cartridges are image files, allowing them to be used directly as cover art. Copy all contents from:

retrodeck/roms/pico8/

to:

retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/pico8/covers/

This enables the original cartridge images to appear in the ES-DE interface, this can be useful since many Pico-8 titles lack metadata on scraping services.