⚠️ The project is unfortunately no longer developed nor maintained.
LIKO-12 is a fantasy computer that you can use to make, play and share tiny retro-looking games and programs. It comes with a default, fully customizable, DOS-like operating system installed, called DiskOS.
DiskOS provides an environment with basic command line programs and visual game editors.
The created games and programs are saved as disk files that can be easily shared to friends or anyone else.
- PICO-8: The original fantasy console that started the whole trend. It's community is pretty good. Made with care to provide the old consoles feel. Recommended for anyone who can purchase it.
- PixelVision8: An open-source fantasy console that promises to keep the old consoles feel, still under development till today. Has a very good quality and sweet graphics.
- TIC-80: An open-source PICO-8 clone that does have it's own feel and community. It's in a finished/stable state and supports multiple programming languages. Could be also a good choice, but it also has a paid PRO version to support the developer.
- There's a whole list of other fantasy consoles here.
| BIOS POST Screen | DiskOS Installer | Command-line Prompt | Code Editor | Sprite Editor | Map Editor | WIP Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The documentation is scattered and available over multiple places:
- In the cheatsheets (best resource I believe).
- LIKO-12 GitHub Webpage (sufferes from changing navigation bar issues).
- Another GitHub Webpage (an attempt to get better documentation).
- Via a Discord bot on LIKO-12's Discord
- In a JSON format on the API-Documentation Repository (used by the Discord bot).
The demos and games included could be used as a last resort before reading the source-code.
LIKO-12 was made using the awesome LÖVE Framework and written purely in Lua.
Lua is a simple scripting language that used to be very good back in the days, and it could still serve as a good start for beginners with some care to overcome the obstacles of moving into other well known languages like JavaScript. (Although Python is a better choice for learning programming)
There are lots of ninja crimes in the codebase, where I sacrificed code readability to feel satisfied in doing something so hacky and Lua specific. Very sorry for that 😬
As the project has grew over the years, it has been split into multiple repositories under the LIKO-12 Organization
The project is unfortunately no longer developed nor maintained.
For being such an awesome community that had the patience to tolerate me as a kid, and help me learn way much stuff over the years.