Pico-8

• Emulator: RetroArch
• Core: libretro/retro8
• Folder: /userdata/roms/pico8
• Accepted ROM formats: .p8, .png, .m3u

No Pico-8 emulator included in Batocera requires BIOS to function.

Place your Pico-8 ROMs in /userdata/roms/pico8.

Pico-8 games are distributed as PNG images with the actual code, sprites and sounds embedded in them. Those are actual, real image files, that stands as the cartridge art too. You have to “load” the PNG to run the game. You can download hundreds of carts from the official page, the community is very active! Once you select a game, make sure you click on the “cart” link that downloads a .PNG file.

RetroArch (formerly SSNES), is a ubiquitous frontend that can run multiple “cores”, which are essentially the emulators themselves. The most common cores use the libretro API, so that's why cores run in RetroArch in Batocera are referred to as “libretro/(core name)”. RetroArch aims to unify the feature set of all libretro cores and offer a universal, familiar interface independent of platform.

RetroArch offers a Quick Menu accessed by pressing [HOTKEY] + which can be used to alter various things like RetroArch and core options, and controller mapping. Most RetroArch related settings can be altered from Batocera's EmulationStation.

Standardized features available to all libretro cores: pico8.videomode, pico8.ratio, pico8.smooth, pico8.shaders, pico8.pixel_perfect, pico8.decoration, pico8.game_translation

There is no configuration to set.

Starting with Batocera v32, you can add the official commercial Lexaloffle Pico-8 engine to run all Pico-8 games and explore the Splore universe! In order to do so, you need to do a few manual steps:

1. Buy it from the official Lexaloffle website
2. Download the corresponding Linux (x86_64/64 bits) or Raspberry Pi binary (32bit ELF, not sure if our Rpi1/2/3 are still on 32bits systems, I could test only the PC x86_64 version at the moment and I put a message on their forum to ask for a ARM 64 bit build, like many others). Extract the files from the zip into the /userdata/bios/pico-8/ directory. The files in the archive are:

       lexaloffle-pico8.png
       license.txt
       pico-8.txt
       pico8 (make sure this one is executable via "chmod +x", I assume nobody uses a filesystem for /userdata/ that would be incompatible with this...)
       pico8.dat
       pico8_dyn

3. Copy the following ES system addition into /userdata/system/configs/emulationstation/es_systems_pico8.cfg:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <systemList>
     <system>
           <name>pico8</name>
   	<emulators>
               <emulator name="lexaloffle">
                   <cores>
                       <core default="true">pico8_official</core>
                   </cores>
               </emulator>
               <emulator name="libretro">
                   <cores>
                       <core>retro8</core>
                   </cores>
               </emulator>
           </emulators>
     </system>
   </systemList>

4. Restart ES (or reboot). Then you can select LEXALOFFLE / PICO8 OFFICIAL as a core for Pico-8 games in ES.
5. If you create a file splore.p8 or console.p8 and launch it from Batocera-ES, you'll get access to Pico-8 splore universe with all the games to play and download from inside Pico-8 (a simple touch /userdata/roms/pico8/splore.p8 is sufficient to get access to splore).

Here are the default Pico-8's controls shown on a Batocera Retropad:

Keys inside the emulator: [START] or [HOTKEY] + opens the Pico-8 menu.

For further troubleshooting, refer to the generic support pages.