Very cute game and very in-line with the theme... well done and all the best!

i liked this one, but i felt a bit too easy and i could keep on winning forever, maybe the difficulty scaling should be increased

Nice little concept. The instructions image and simple controls made this really easy to just start playing straight away. good job!

Simple and well executed. I like how the time bar gets faster over time. There is some strategy to dancing in the right spot to make the bar go up faster. Pixel art is cute too.

My best run was 105.01 seconds. Well made little game :).

Simple idea, done well. Feels nice and retro. :)

106.86 seconds! Amazing game with an approach to the theme i havent seen before!

ALIEN? DISCO? I'm in!
I'm not used to play Pico-8 games, so this was quite fresh for me. With the gameplay and soundtrack it really felt like playing a NES game, which was awesome. The gameplay was fun, and I really love the music. However, I just felt like there was not much motivation to go on apart from surviving. Some kind of score system would be awesome! Other than that, I think the game was flawless :)

Cute and fun little game! Love the retro feel

Nice concept, and an approach to the theme that feels very original!

Great take on a theme. And I guess aliens and me have more in common than I originally thought. Great controls, the game looks beautiful and the music sounds great, considering Pico-8 limitations!

@u4ia @arachnid56 @joerenglish @the-jahn @xinera @m11 @dzejpi Thank you all so much for the kind words, really makes all the difference! :)

@ratogodoy Just curious, how did you define "winning" since it's basically a highscore game ("go as long as you can")? Or did your game just never end (it should become super difficult after 2-3 minutes)?

@pvp @kewdev Thank you and great job! I think anything above 100 seconds is good, best ones I've seen seem to be ~150.

@iluvatar Thank you very much! I agree it could use more of a scoring system, maybe even a progressively harder score goal ladder you can climb up. Something for a potential post-compo version. Oh, and you have a world of amazing PICO-8 games to explore, let me tell you! :D

By the way did you know PICO-8 games are saved in "cart" image files like the one below (yes, the image itself actually encodes all the lua scripts, sprites, maps etc.)? Such a lovely system!


@ludokultur What? That's awesome! I was checking the console some time ago, thinking about learning how to work with it, but I simply could not get over the pixelated interface. I just have hard time reading the text, and writing in such environment. If the coding text was normal text, and everything else was pixelated, that would be great. Aren't there any mods or something?

@iluvatar Actually these days it's rather easy to not use the built-in code editor. PICO-8 added an #INCLUDE function a while ago that allows you to just include a regular lua file in your p8 file (and you can edit that lua file in any code editor of your choice). I've also seen VSCode plugins and the likes that feature auto-completion for PICO-8 specific functions etc. So if you're into the aesthetics of the games themselves, there are definitely ways to not use the 128x128 code editor.


Really good fun! I like that while it's superficially quite simple there's layer of strategy in deciding whether to dance in the 'wrong' lights or wait for the right one. The difficulty ramp up was well done, too -- it noticeably gets harder and more interesting, but not so much that it feels impossible. Good job!

> By the way did you know PICO-8 games are saved in “cart” image files like the one below (yes, the image itself actually encodes all the lua scripts, sprites, maps etc.)?

Whaaaat?! That's insanely cool.

I love being forced to dance and a nice menu screen. Well done :)

My best run 143! ALIEN DISCO!? Twuu Tu-Tuttu I was dancing with the alien ahahah
However, I would add some sort of a score system to make the player go on! Even the time going up would be nice, if I knew that I survived 143 seconds I would try to keep dancing more to get a rounded score :smile:

@chameth Thank you very much, that's exactly what I was going for! And more than 2 minutes is a very good score! :D

@shellofagirl Haha it's a pleasure, thank you!

@m-a-t Wow, definitely among the best performances I've head of yet! Thank you for playing and for the feedback! :)

@ludokultur You sir, just gave me hope. Thank you.

This is great! Every mechanic is simple, makes sense, it all works together. Music is fun, graphics are cute, can't miss. Great work.

What a lovely retro dancing game! I dig the humor on this one, and the audio is well done too. :thumbsup:

Chasing the spotlight is fun! The color coding bonus seems to be crucial as your buzz wears off quicker. My best score was 141.93 seconds. The visuals and sound are all very cute, really well done!

Danced for 100 seconds... It definitely brought back the feeling in being in the disco and manage your energy for the night :smile: And being the star of the night. A fun little game, with matching style of gameplay, graphics and audio. Great work, congrats!

121 seconds ! Cute retro style :smile: Good work !

I like the concept and the retro-ness of it. Like some of the other reviewers said the difficulty ramp up could be made steeper, but a cool idea!

Danced for 132s!! Really enjoyed it. The music work very good for the game as well

Fun little game! The graphics & sound/music were awesome! Everything fit together really nicly.

Got to 122 seconds. Nice concept and cool Pico-8 project. Pretty fun to play.

I danced for 100 seconds! Pretty fun game with cute graphics. Great entry!

Very nice little game, well done! I can't imagine the work it had to be solo! Well done !

Very cool concept and visual effect!

Nice to see a PICO-8 game here. Thought it was a clever take on the theme, with a simple mechanic that really makes you feel like you're at a night club. Keep dancing!

@madjackmcmad @gus-the-shark @jonah-srg @hotaloca @ommadawn @kalevrk @cabjhegas @glaikunt @dnabro @maggardjosh @chikentear @khaoz-fang Thank you all so much for playing and for the kind words! :blush:

@quite-good Thank you! And yes, PICO-8 is an amazing "do everything by yourself quickly with minimal setup" game-making tool. :D

I danced for 123 seconds on my second attempt! Really nice to see PICO games! I've heard about it earlier and thought about using it once but when I saw the code editor I changed my mind. But now I googled PICO again and noticed that apparently it's possible to use external editor with it, so now I'm thinking that I could use PICO someday. I just need the idea for the right project.

Great concept, art and sound! Really fun to play, maybe could expand with obstacles or projectiles (falling lights maybe, or lights that you shouldnt step on). Nice job!

I lasted 129s!
The music in the end was totally noisy xD
That's a fun game, well done!

A very good game. I like the way everything fits together: light patterns, energy, movement, etc. It’s challenging without being discouraging. The graphics and sound are a good use of PICO-8. One of the better games here. Nice work comrade.

Nice entry! Love the music!

A fun little game! I always love PICO-8 games, and this one is not an exception. It has this nice layer of strategy where you have to consider your options and decide which one is best at that very second. A lot of times I found myself wanting to go for a stamina bar, but there was the right kind of light in the opposite direction. Having to wage when it's right to risk it makes the gameplay feel tense. The background music is also really fitting. Well done!

I managed to make it 130 seconds, pretty fun and addictive little arcade game, nice one!

I would suggest more party-like music but I'm unsure if it would fit the well-done aesthetic

@octahedronsoftware Thank you! I mentioned a couple things about using external editors in a comment above. If you're into the kinds of games, I'd suggest giving it a shot. It refreshing to use something so light-weight yet self-contained for game dev. :)

@casa-ocho Thanks a lot! Yes, more items and would be one of the next things on the list for sure.

@solah Haha, the music was meant to get more "unstable" (and well... alien) towards the end. Thank you for playing!

@ghoulean Thank you for playing! For now I was just going for "increasingly alien over time" in terms of the music, but a wider variety of tracks would definitely be one of the things to add next. Maybe I should host a PICO-8 music jam for the game! :P

@gamebuilder @stoickekis @lcstark @slimmerburger Thank you very much for the kind words! :D

I love the concept.
Dancing aliens are cute.
Nice gameplay, well done!

Neat little game with a charming aesthetic. Solid gameplay loop and I think you've done a good job with the difficulty, creating just the right amount of frantic. Good work!

Very different, very out of the box. It feels a little like an overcooked style game where you have to hit all the stations in decent time... One suggestion I would have would be to randomize the key to dance, or somehow make dancing itself more involved than pressing a single button.

A very arcade-y style game with some fun music to boot! The graphics were cute and the music felt very wobbly, which was very on-theme. Having the recharge rate be tied to different circles added more depth as well.

The game did feel like it was out of ideas after figuring out the optimal strategy of storing battery charge until the optimal light appeared, and then dancing as much as you could under it. Maybe other powerups could've been added like an energy drink that constantly uses your charge but gives the optimal amount of dance meter for all lights.


I love to see a Pico-8 made entry! love this system, but I find it super challenging, so I truly appreciate what you did here. Great great job! :D

Nice fun game! Cool idea how you had charge rate tied to specific light patterns. Actually was pretty challenging overall haha. The music was nice, suited the game quite well. Could possibly add more powerups to make it a little more interesting? Though overall, a great job!

Funny my name is Fabian too. Well, first of, great game! I was very nice and cute, nice exploration of a strong mechanic and easy to understand gameplay. I pushed myself to dance as much as posible so far: 1:30 is my best.

@hiko-game @glenugie @gorypixels Thank you so much for playing and the kind words! :)

@michael-feldman Good idea considering I only use one button. Would need an additional UI prompt though. I wanted to keep the controls super casual and easy to get into (at least for the compo version).

@fakefirefly Thank you! It's true that this strategy is optimal (although it only goes so far in theory, because later on you'll often have to dance suboptimally just to keep the meter up). More (and more varied) power-ups as also suggested by @pkzinpo are definitely on top of the list though. :)

@binaryprinciple Ha, nice to meet you, other Fabian! Keep dancing (and making games)! :D

Danced for 110 seconds! And now I'm tired! That was a satisfyingly frantic game. And the premise and animations were really funny. Overall I don't have many notes! I wish it was balanced where it was SLIGHTLY more common to have a dance circle on-screen that matched your dance bar. But I thought the systems and mechanics were really good! Great work!

Great job! A very unexpected take on the theme! I love the soundtrack too!

It takes a few tries to understand how to dance but that's totally ok. Don't have much to add to what has been said already.

If you would like to see how a first-time player interacts with your game I've made a recording of my playthrough: https://youtu.be/nr6n3tF5CHY

It's a fun game! Having to juggle between dancing, searching for the stamina item and moving to the circles that matched the progress bar really kept me engaged. Also, I think the music worked well with the game.

The music was really silly, I liked it. I liked the gameplay too. One thing I think would go a long way is to add inertia/acceleration to the movement.

I liked it! SImple to pick up, and i liked the added wrinkle of getting a bonus for dancing in the right pattern. Well done!