A Pico-8 story: How the fantasy console unlocked Frédéric Souchu’s dreams | by Kevin Kuipers | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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A Pico-8 story: How the fantasy console unlocked Frédéric Souchu’s dreams

Kevin Kuipers

10 min read·<br>Nov 8, 2020

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Pico-8 and the retro-gaming trend<br>From a neophyte perspective, it must be quite puzzling to observe the console manufacturers investing billions of dollars to battle over super high tech specs while Minecraft and its rough pixelated blocks are holding the best-selling game title. Surprisingly, the big pixels have never been so popular and both gamers and programmers are responsible for that unwavering trend. Indeed retro-looking games are cute and nostalgic to play with, but they also are fun to make and they offer plenty of advantages. It takes a huge weight off the designing process and helps focus on the concept, which is valuable for hobbyists game creators.<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

Megaman (1987) running sequence in only 3 framesWhen it comes to program a retroish game, there are many options available depending on your goals, skills and commitment.<br>The hardcore path is to build it the way it was done, no cheating. You could code directly for an existing game system from the 80s and fit in its tiny 40k memory. But, let’s face it: writing a game for the 1983 Nintendo is a trick that not everyone can pull off.<br>Alternatively, you could create a retro-looking game using a modern engine (like Unity). It’s easy and fun, the result can be amazing but the constraints are imagination and self-discipline. It’s literally like using Photoshop and deciding to work on a 16x16 canvas with 4 colors. It’s very tempting to change the rules as you go.<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

The Pico-8 — Fantasy console — and some virtual cartridgesBetween the two, sits Pico-8, a “fantasy console” created by Zep. Pico-8 provides both strict limitations and straight forward creation allowing you to easily make amazing playable creations in a few hours. Alongside the all-in-one suite, Pico-8 also provides a platform to share your creations with the community and a forum to meet other Pico-8 enthusiasts. As you would expect, some of them are insanely skilled.<br>This is how I met Freds72.<br>Fred, the computer hobbyist<br>Freds72 goes by the name of Frédéric Souchu during the daytime. His username gives a hint about his birthdate. He’s a senior software architect working in a payment solutions company. He likes his job and lives a peaceful life in the Paris region with his wife and kids (15, 19 and 21).<br>At almost 50 year old, Fred has lived through the very dynamic and messy early computer era in France, before the PC became the only option available. “I owned an Amstrad CPC then an Atari ST, quickly sold to buy an Amiga. Neither I nor my friends were into game consoles.” At that time, dozens of computers competed with different shapes, systems, strengths and weaknesses, but all shared the same trait: they were proprietary and seldom customizable.<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

TILT Microloisirs — 1982–1994 — The reference for any micro-computer enthusiast in the 80sThe most famous magazine dedicated to this activity was TILT — Microloisirs (“micro-leisures”), it focused on anything that could be done with a computer: tools for text, graphics and sounds, games of course and also programming.<br>“From the very beginning I took notice of the creation aspects of those computers. I was attracted to it right away. This is when I tried to program in assembly, copying entire pages of code from magazines. But I never got very far doing so. I realize now how difficult it was to gather information. All I had was the hardware guide for my Amiga,” said Fred.<br>In the pre-internet era, when you didn’t know something, you basically had to live with your ignorance. Especially being raised in Le Mans, a 150,000-soul city in France.<br>“It’s very humbling when you know that some kids at the time, such as Eric Chahi, released complete games on ZX Spectrum or Amstrad. That was out of reach for me. I can’t imagine the dedication required to achieve their goal. I don’t want to diss present game developers by saying that, but these guys were real pioneers, it was way harder back then.”<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

Eric Chahi is the creator of Another World (1991 — Amiga, Atari ST)Fred also tried to take advantage of the graphical capabilities of his Amiga. “I was not a talented designer, but I spent hours modeling objects with Sculpt 4D, letting my computer render [calculate] for whole nights, sometimes resulting in an ugly bad poorly lighted pixel,” he said laughing while remembering it.<br>Fred definitely had a thing for computers, but he was not ready to dedicate his whole life to create video games. At 19, he moved to Paris to study math and computer science at Dauphine — a very...