| > So your code can go as fast as you like I've been working on an (IMO) sophisticated tactical game with strong AI in Pico-8 for just about two years now, and I can say that this is not true. > which would require some kind of CPU-cycle accounting tracking This is pretty much what it does. Pico-8 tracks an arbitrary "cycle" budget, which is used to calculate how much computation you're allowed to perform per frame. You're absolutely not going to compute at "bare metal" speed. Here's some info in the (community) docs: https://pico-8.fandom.com/wiki/CPU I don't know how this does/does not compare to the 6502, because I unfortunately don't have any experience there. But you're absolutely not going to get bare-metal performance inside of Pico-8. You're right about limiting code-size, though. For my own project, the code size limits have proven far more difficult to work around than the performance limits. Tangent now, but these are some of the Pico-8 limitations: - screen is 128x128 pixels - only 16 colors are available (sort of... there's a "hidden palette" too) - cartridge size may not exceed 32 kb - cartridge may not exceed 65k characters - Lua AST may not exceed 8192 tokens That last one has been the hardest constraint for me to manage, by far. Anyway, Pico-8 is a ton of fun. Try it out if you're inclined :) |