p8

👾 PICO-8 dependency manager

Import lua/moonscript modules, spritesheets, and automatically reload your carts as you code.

Features:

• Share code and sprites (via github or any file host)
• Use require() to use modules in your own carts
• Code in any IDE you want
• Auto-reload carts on save

Installation

Download the executable

You can grab the executable for your platform from releases page →

<sup>- On macOS or linux, you may want to copy the executable into /usr/bin.
- On windows, you may want to add the executable to your PATH.</sup>

NPM

Or you can use good old npm

npm i -g p8

Getting Started

You can be up-and-running in a few quick steps.

1. Initialize your project

Create and/or adds basic fields to p8.json.

p8 init

2. Add Dependencies

Add .lua, .moon, .png, .jpg, or .gif files.

p8 add [file|url...]

3. Run your cartridge

Use the --watch flag to automatically reload whenever the entry-point is saved. This command will automatically install and build if you haven't already.

p8 run

Usage

Usage: p8 <command> [options]

Commands:
  p8 add [file|url...]  add modules as "dependencies" or "gfxDependencies" in p8.json.
  p8 build              outputs a cart (.p8 file)
  p8 init               initialize the project
  p8 install            install dependencies listed in p8.json to ./pico_modules
  p8 run                runs a .p8 cartridge (PICO-8 switches can be passed after a trailing --)
Options:
  --version  Show version number
  --help     Show help

If you want a detailed walkthrough, read Getting Started with p8 →.

If you want more examples, check out the examples →