Pokémon Stadium's Kid's Club minigame zone was such a great feature. I know the battling part was the main focus, and pulling in your Pokémon from your Game Boy cartridge to see them up on the big screen was amazing, but I spent hours playing those minigames with my friends. My mum was always a beast when it came to the Sandshrew digging game too.
An Itch.io user called lukethehuman has been working to demake all 9 of the Kids' Club games for PICO-8, a cool project that's allowing him to learn more about PICO-8 while allowing us to play the games in our browser.
So far, lukethehuman (who I'm hoping is human and isn't a robot in disguise trying to play a clever trick on me) has recreated Magikarp's Splash and Rock Harden, with Dig! Dig! Dig! currently in progress as the next game to be finished. There are 9 in total, all with different difficulties, so Luke has a bit of a way to go before they're all finished.
Still, I've really enjoyed playing the games that are available this morning while writing this article, and I'm looking forward to Ekan's Hoop Hurl being finished, as that was always my favourite!
For those of you who don't know what PICO-8 is, it's classed as a fantasy console. Essentially, it's a virtual console that never had real hardware, a place where Mac, PC, and Linux users can make 8-bit games and share them with other users. It's like if someone created an emulator of the ZX Spectrum, but if the ZX Spectrum never existed... if that makes sense!
I don't often cover PICO-8 titles here on Dodo, but as this demake takes one of my favourite N64 games and gives it the 8-bit treatment, I thought it was well worth a mention. The fact that you can play it in your browser using your keyboard is a great little touch too, and the controls are super simple. Have fun playing Magikarp's Splash instead of doing your work today - Monday's are boring, so let Magikarp help bring some of the fun back!
Head to Itch.io to find out more and to check it out!
