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> Picotron apps can be made with built-in tools, and shared with other users in a special 256k png cartridge format.

I’m noticing a trend of newer indie software distributing assets in png files, what’s with that?



Aside from the fun factor of an image containing a runnable game/program, the PNG format is lossless, uses the same compression algorithm as ZIP, with encode/decode libraries in various languages. That makes it a good candidate for an application data format.


Picotron is by the same person as PICO-8 which is, to my knowledge, what made fantasy consoles popular.


it's fun and easy to share :)


In a world full of SERIOUS BUSINESS ALL THE TIME it’s nice to see something decide to be fun for the sake of it. It’s a cool digital homage to cartridges, which are basically also rectangles with cool graphics on them that run a game.


I would be fun to be able to take a picture of the png and have it load up the application. I know it’s more of desktop thing.

But even emailing scripts for work got flagged. This png format would probably avoid that.

Also good thing it’s lossless. Other wise those multiple save jpg artifacts could cause interesting bugs.


Other wise those multiple save jpg artifacts could cause interesting bugs.

There's a whole subculture that embraces glitches in gaming, graphics, etc. Folks run around collecting screenshots and videos of these ephemeral artifacts. It's fairly complementary to speedrunning gaming culture.


> I would be fun to be able to take a picture of the png and have it load up the application.

Reminds me of the time they would distribute tape deck based software via the radio.


It’s fun, mostly. Also, PNG has a handy alpha channel you can use to store data. I believe the previous console from this developer, PICO-8, started the trend.




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