PICO-8 Games Multimodal Dataset with 10,967 Cartridges

PICO-8 Games Dataset contains 10,967 game cartridges scraped from the Lexaloffle BBS. Each cartridge is decomposed into Lua source code, pixel-art spritesheets, tile maps, sound effects, music patterns, and metadata. The dataset was created by Fraser and includes label screenshots from the top 48 games by star count.

Use Cases

• Train a multimodal model to generate pixel-art spritesheets from Lua source code descriptions.
• Analyze patterns in music patterns and sound effects across 10,967 cartridges for procedural audio generation.
• Build a classifier using tile maps and metadata to categorize game genres or mechanics.
• Study software engineering practices by mining Lua source code for common coding patterns or bugs.

Strengths

• Contains 10,967 individual game cartridges, providing a substantial corpus for analysis.
• Offers a multimodal decomposition into six distinct component types: Lua code, spritesheets, tile maps, sound effects, music patterns, and metadata.
• Includes curated label screenshots from the top 48 games by community rating (star count).

Limitations

• Dataset scope is limited to games published on the Lexaloffle BBS, which may not represent the entire PICO-8 ecosystem.
• The multimodal decomposition process may introduce artifacts or loss of fidelity from the original cartridge format.
• Lack of explicit column definitions or sample data makes initial data exploration and schema understanding more difficult.

Provenance

Source

Lexaloffle BBS (the official PICO-8 community forum).

Collection Method

Scraped and decomposed from self-contained PICO-8 cartridge files.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-21.