commands

folder

Opens the current folder in a new window, outside of PICO-8. The default selected folder when you open PICO-8 is the .../pico-8/carts/ folder.

To change the designated location for your saved carts folder, see How to Save Your Game.

You can specify other folders you want to open as well right in the command line:

folder backups = open the ".../pico-8/backup/" folder, to see all backed up .p8 files

folder config =  open the ".../pico-8/" folder, for easy access to the config.txt file.

folder bbs =  open the ".../pico-8/bbs/" folder, to see all splore related files including the games you played from splore, downloaded locally as png carts and their labels.

folder desktop =  open a folder to view your desktop files, this is the default location of saved PICO-8 screenshots and video gifs.

load [game_name]

Loads the game if that game file is in the folder already open. Navigate to the parent folder of the game with the change directory ( cd ) command.

Use Tab on the keyboard to help auto-complete game file names.

You do not need to include the filetype such as.p8 or .p8.png.

load #game_name

(internet connection required) Loads the game from the Lexaloffle BBS library of games. You can find the specific game name by looking under the BBS player on the bottom left.

save [game_name]

saves the loaded game into the folder already open

or anywhere in PICO-8, press:

This shortcut only works after saving the currently loaded game locally at least once using the full command "save".

ls or dir

ls = "list"

dir = "directory" (folder)

shows all files and folders inside the folder currently open

run

run = play the currenty loaded game

or anywhere in PICO-8, press:

If nothing happens, then you do not have a game loaded. An empty game cart is loaded everytime you open PICO-8, so nothing happens when you try to run this.

Stops the running cart.

stop( [message] )

Stop the cart and optionally print a message.

assert( condition, [message] )

If CONDITION is false, stop the program and print MESSAGE if it is given. This can be useful for debugging cartridges, by ASSERT()'ing that things that you expect to be true are indeed true.

reboot

Reboot = "restart"

restarts the whole PICO-8 system, make sure you save first!

reset()

Reset the values in RAM from 0x5f00..0x5f7f to their default values. This includes the palette, camera position, clipping and fill pattern. If you get lost at the command prompt because the draw state makes viewing text impossible, try typing RESET! It can also be called from a running program.

(temporarily copied from manual - to be edited)

info()

Print out some information about the cartridge: Code size, tokens, compressed size

Also displayed:

UNSAVED CHANGES   When the cartridge in memory differs to the one on disk

EXTERNAL CHANGES  When the cartridge on disk has changed since it was loaded

  (e.g. by editing the program using a separate text editor)

Flip the back buffer to screen and wait for next frame. This call is not needed when there is a _DRAW() or _UPDATE() callback defined, as the flip is performed automatically. But when using a custom main loop, a call to FLIP is normally needed:

::_::
CLS()
FOR I=1,100 DO
  A=I/50 - T()
  X=64+COS(A)*I
  Y=64+SIN(A)*I
  CIRCFILL(X,Y,1,8+(I/4)%8)
END
FLIP()GOTO _

If your program does not call FLIP before a frame is up, and a _DRAW() callback is not in progress, the current contents of the back buffer are copied to screen.

(temporarily copied from manual - to be edited)

printh()

Print to the console.

time() or t()

This function returns the number of seconds as a decimal up to ten-thousands of a second since the running your game. This is calculated by counting the number of times _update or _update60 is called.

For _update, which runs 30 times per second, time() increases by .0333.

For _update60, which runs 60 times per second, time() increases by .0167.

If you want to use this as a counter in your game, you should store it once per frame because multiple calls of time() from the same frame will return the same result, wasting tokens.

elapsed_seconds = time()

stat(x)

Get system status where X is:

extcmd( string , [param1], [param2] )

Some of the commands accept parameters (shown as "param1" and "param2" above).

Here are some examples of how to use extcmd() with appropriate parameters.

extcmd("video", 4 , 1)

This will record a .gif, with a scaling factor of 4 (512x512 pixels), and save to the currently opened carts folder (user data).

These are advanced options that you can use inside of print() to change certain settings.

Here are the Control Codes:

Some of the above commands take one or two values (similar to arguments passed to functions) immediately after the code to alter how it affects your print string or other settings.

These values can be given as single digits (0-9). Higher values can be given using letters (similar to hexidecimal code). So a=10, b=11, all the way to z=35.

Examples:

print("print this \0 but don't print this") 
--print this

- This will stop printing at the "\0" in the string.

print("\*5abc") 
--aaaaabc

- This will duplicate the letter A, 5 times.

print("\*a123") 
--111111111123

- This will duplicate the number 1, A times (which is 10).

print("print this\b") 
--print thi

- This will remove the character just before the "\b".

print("start here \n continue here") 
--start here
--continue here

- This will begin printing on the current line, then move the cursor down and continue printing on the next line.

print("start \t continue") 
--start   continue

- This will indent 11 pixels then continue printing the string.

\^

These special commands begin with "^" and then take one or two parameters immediately after.

help

Lists important commands and buttons used to navigate PICO-8 and get started. Type "help" into the command screen and press enter, you will see:

You can also type in a topic or keyword after "help" to get more information immediately.

If you type help and then one of the topics (one of the words in blue above), then you will get a list of keywords and built in functions (again, in blue). After seeing that "math" is a possible topic to ask for help on, we type "help math" and press enter. Then we see that "sqrt" is a math function we can ask about, so then type "help sqrt". Here is that interaction:

You can also directly ask for help about a specific function name. For example, type in help cls or help time and you will get brief description of these functions:

install_demos

This command is used to install the PICO-8 demonstration cartridges, which are pre-made demos that showcase different features and techniques for creating games. When you use this command, a "demos" subfolder is created in the currently opened folder. This subfolder contains a collection of demonstration cartridges that you can explore using the splore or load command.

First time setup:
1) Open PICO-8 and view the welcome screen.
2) Type in "install_demos" (no quotes, no spaces, with underscore) and press Enter.
3) The demo carts have been downloaded, to navigate to them, first type "cd demos" (without quotes, with space) and press enter.
4) You can type "ls" or "dir" and press enter to view the file names in this demos folder.
5) To load a demo cart, type "load [filename]" where filename is the name of the demo cart, listed below.

The demo carts include: