max4805/celestepico8mapeditor

A minimal map loader and editor for PICO-8 using Everest

PICO-8 Map Loader & Editor

This is a mod providing a very basic editor for PICO-8 Celeste, along with a mod to load the map in-game without straight-up replacing the vanilla one, like putting a Pico8Tilemap.txt at the root of your mod would do. (Yes, this is a thing built in Everest. :p)

Opening the map editor

In order to use the map editor, you must have Java 8 or more. You can download Java here and extract it wherever you want, or use brew/apt/etc if you're on Mac or Linux.

Then, you should run the following command:

path/to/javaw.exe -jar path/to/celeste/Mods/Pico8MapLoaderEditor.zip

Hint: you can create a shortcut to java.exe in order to make running this command easier, and you can do Shift+Right Click => Copy as path in order to copy the full path to Pico8MapLoaderEditor.zip.

The editor will create a picomapeditor-settings.txt file in the working directory ("startup directory" in shortcut properties) to keep track of the last open map and graphics. Any changes to the map are instantly saved.

Mod Structure

A PICO-8 map boils down to ... two files:

• Pico8Maps/yourname_foldername/tilemap.txt: the map itself. This is where you should save your map to when messing with it in the editor.
• Pico8Maps/yourname_foldername/atlas.png: the graphics for the map. The vanilla ones can be found at Graphics/Atlases/Gameplay/pico8/atlas.png in the graphics dump.

If you want to make a map with vanilla graphics, or just a skin mod, you can omit either of those files.

In order to give your map/skin a name, include this in your English.txt file (assuming your map/skin is in Pico8Maps/yourname_foldername):

pico8map_yourname_foldername= My Epic Map/Skin

Releasing a map/skin

In order to release your map/skin, you should make an everest.yaml as any other Celeste mod. Make sure to require this mod as a dependency:

- Name: MyPico8Map
  Version: 1.0.0
  Dependencies:
    - Name: Pico8MapLoaderEditor
      Version: 1.0.0

Also, like main game mods, make sure to zip the contents of the folder, not the folder itself!