TIC-80

TIC-80 is a tiny pretend computer for making and playing small retro-style games. It copies the limits of an 1980s home computer, with a 240 by 136 pixel screen, 16 colours and four sound channels. Everything you need to build a game is built in, and you can also just play games other people have made.

The built-in editors cover code, sprites, maps, sound effects and music. You can write games in Lua, JavaScript, Python and several other languages. A finished game is a single cartridge file that you can share and play on other devices running TIC-80. A built-in cart browser (the surf command) lets you look through local carts and the ones on the tic80.com website, and games can use game controllers, a mouse or a keyboard.

Making a game means writing code, and the project wiki has documentation and tutorials. A paid PRO version on itch.io adds saving carts as plain text, eight memory banks instead of one, and exporting a game without the editors. The source is open, so you can build the PRO version yourself. Browsing online carts needs an internet connection.