PICO-8: Game States

Game States

This cart demonstrates how to have different game states for your game. (Such as menu, game, game over, etc.)

Simple Version

Notes: The basic idea is that PICO-8 normally runs _update() and _draw() 30 times a second. Instead of putting all our code into those two functions, we make separate update and draw functions for each of the states we need for the game. Then we have a variable called state that stores which state the game is currently in. Then, based on that variable, _update() and _draw() will run the appropriate update and draw function for the current state. (Such as menu_update() and menu_draw() for the menu state.

Advanced Version

Notes: The basic idea is that PICO-8 normally runs _update() and _draw() 30 times a second. However, because you can treat functions like variables, you can store one function's code in another function.

So for changing states, we just make our own separate _update() and _draw() functions for each state. Such as menu_update() and menu_draw() for the menu state. Then we make an _init() function for each state, such as menu_init() that re-assigns _update() to menu_update() and _draw() to menu_draw(). Then PICO-8 will run those functions 30 times a second until we say otherwise.