We’ve recently been pondering fantasy consoles and what draws people to them – that lead to a chat with programmer Mohin Miah about his game Mazeborn and the PICO-8 fantasy system it runs on
Mazeborn runs on a PICO-8, can you tell our readers what that is?
PICO-8 is a modern 8-bit fantasy retro console, very similar to a C64, but it only exists as a virtual machine on Windows/mac – there is no hardware for it! It has all the colour, resolution, memory, sound and processing limitations of an Eighties home computer but you code for it using LUA rather than assembly language. You develop and run games in the virtual machine itself, but you can also share your games through HTML and Windows/ Mac binaries.
PICO-8 was created by a company called Lexaloffle as a tool for hobbyists to easily create 8-bit games, as well as to help focus on core gameplay due to the memory and space restrictions. PICO-8 has gained a lot of popularity in the indie game jam scene due to its accessibility. And what initially drew you to developing on a fantasy retro console?
I rediscovered my love for old-school gaming through Retro Gamer and have always wanted to write my own games ever since I had an Atari 130XE, but coding assembly language was just too daunting as a kid. With PICO-8 I’ve got a second chance to write retro 8-bit games and reach a wider audience through the internet. I can use techniques like palette swapping and writing directly to memory without having to break a sweat, unlike writing homebrew for real consoles.
What were the inspirations for the game itself?
I wanted to demake a popular game while using contemporary game design and see how it would fare on an 8-bit console. I love games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, so I thought I would recreate a procedurally generated C64-style version of the PS4 classic. I think I got as close to a Souls-like as you can get on an 8-bit machine!
How long did Mazeborn take to develop and who was involved?
I developed it all by myself, with help from my wife and family for playtesting. It took about two weeks overall, including the time to learn
LUA, as well as looking up some old-school coding techniques on Youtube from legendary developers like Jon Burton (Sonic 3D Blast).
And what kind of feedback have you had so far?
I’ve had great feedback from people as well as requests for more content, for which I have released a bunch of updates. I’ve even had a let’s play video created for the game by a kind Youtuber.
Can you tell us what you’re currently working on? Thanks to the success of the PICO-8 version, I’m making Mazeborn 3D for modern systems, in order to implement more features and reach a broader audience. I’m also developing a Punch-out!! clone for the PICO-8, just to see if I can!
You’ll be able to find these at Gymcrash.itch.io along with other PICO-8 games that I have made.