Pico-8 Prototypes
Overview
PICO-8 is a virtual machine and game engine that emulates the 8-bit systems of the 1980s. I was introduced to it in the Pixel Prototype class, taught by Gabe Cuzzillo, creator of Ape Out.
A new prototype every week across the semester — an exercise in compressing ideas into the smallest possible shape before they get precious.
Contributions
- Cell Cell Cell — cellular automata as a metaphor for humanity and nature.
- VK Test — Voight-Kampff interrogation, Blade Runner lineage.
- Elysium — a cellular-automata-driven landscape generator.
- Steam Train Simulator — throttle, brakes, water, coal.
Cell Cell Cell
Conway as metaphor
Cellular automata as a metaphor for humanity and nature — the simulation runs on its own rules, and the player's only real lever is where to seed the first cell. The result reads more like gardening than playing.
VK Test
Blade Runner lineage
A Voight-Kampff interrogation — Blade Runner lineage. The player reads micro-reactions and decides whether the subject across the table is human. The answer is never clean, and that's the whole point.
Elysium
Landscape generator
A cellular-automata-driven landscape generator. Same substrate as Cell Cell Cell, different fiction — rules that look like erosion, tides, and weather, producing terrain that feels found rather than authored.
Steam Train
Throttle · brakes · water · coal
Four interlocking systems — throttle, brakes, water, coal — and a player who has to keep all of them alive while the landscape rolls past. An exercise in how very few verbs can build a satisfying rhythm.
Design Notes
Weekly prototypes · one semester
Constraint as method
PICO-8's cartridge limits — 128×128 pixels, a 16-colour palette, a single tokenized source file — force every idea into its essential shape. Most of these prototypes were written in a single sitting; the restraint is the point.
The exercise taught me to ship before polish — a habit I've carried into every larger project since.