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Interactive Systems Lab

Retro Game Lab

Fantasy consoles like PICO-8 and TIC-80 strip game development down to pure essentials: 128x128 pixels, 16 colors, and tight Lua token budgets. These extreme hardware constraints force creative economy and deliberate state machine design.

Playable Games

One More Thing

Godot • Top-Down RPG
"The main quest is 99% complete. It has been all weekend."

A top-down retro pixel RPG in the spirit of Baldur's Gate 2, set in a living convention world where the entire game is side quests. Currently in active design for Godot: building interactive web-based vertical slices to gut-check base mechanics, balance story beats, and calibrate the Goodwill and fail-forward complication systems.

One More Thing narrative game playable mechanics slice

Lunar Patrol

PICO-8

A Moon Patrol demake—arcade side-scroller where you drive a lunar rover across cratered terrain, dodging obstacles and blasting UFOs. Features 5-layer parallax scrolling, 10 progressively harder levels, and 1/6th gravity physics for satisfying moon jumps.

Lunar Patrol gameplay screenshot
PICO-8 Cartridge View on GitHub ↗

Stackarta

PICO-8

A deck-building tower defense roguelike. Draw cards each wave, then choose to Burn them for resources or Play them as towers. The tension between short-term defense and long-term deck strength drives every decision across 10 escalating waves.

Stackarta gameplay screenshot
PICO-8 Cartridge View on GitHub ↗

Deadlock

TIC-80

Top-down arena survival shooter with vector visuals. Fight through waves of 6 enemy types, grab powerups, and face boss encounters. The wider TIC-80 resolution gives room for frantic dodging and satisfying screen-clearing chain reactions.

Deadlock gameplay screenshot
TIC-80 Cartridge View on GitHub ↗

Last Relay

PICO-8

Atmospheric radio exploration. Drive a rover across a desolate landscape, tune your radio to pick up fading signals, and find dying relay towers before they go silent. A quiet, meditative experience built around discovery and solitude.

Last Relay gameplay screenshot
PICO-8 Cartridge View on GitHub ↗

128x128

Pixels

16

Colors

8,192

Tokens

4

Playable Games