P8SCII

P8SCII is PICO-8's character set. It has 256 codes, consisting of 16 control codes and 240 printable characters (letters, numbers, symbols).

For detailed information about control codes, see P8SCII Control Codes.

P8SCII reference[]

Control codes[]

Control codes describe effects that occur during printing of strings via the print() function. Typically, you specify a control code in a string literal with an escape sequence. Code strings can also be calculated by number with chr(). Except for cursor position, foreground color, and audio in progress, effects are reset at the end of the print() function call.

Some codes accept parameters as characters after the control code. See P8SCII Control Codes for more details.

Number	Escape Sequence	Character	Name	Parameters
0	`\0`	none	Terminate printing
1	`\*`	¹	Repeat next character	P0: number of times to repeat
2	`\#`	²	Draw solid background	P0: color
3	`\-`	³	Move cursor horizontally	P0: num of pixels minus 16
4	`\\|`	⁴	Move cursor vertically	P0: num of pixels minus 16
5	`\+`	⁵	Move cursor	P0: horiz offset minus 16; P1: vert offset minus 16
6	`\^`	⁶	Special command	See P8SCII Control Codes
7	`\a`	⁷	Audio command	See P8SCII Control Codes
8	`\b`	⁸	Backspace
9	`\t`	tab	Tab
10	`\n`	newline	Newline
11	`\v`	ᵇ	Decorate previous character	See P8SCII Control Codes
12	`\f`	ᶜ	Set foreground color	P0: color
13	`\r`	none	Carriage return
14	`\14`	ᵉ	Switch font defined at 0x5600
15	`\15`	ᶠ	Switch font to default

Symbols and Japanese punctuation[]

PICO-8 rendering of the symbols and Japanese punctuation character range

Characters 16-31 are symbols useful as icons or Japanese punctuation.

These can be typed by entering one of the Japanese modes (Ctrl+J/Ctrl+K) then pressing the key in the Entry column

Number	Character	Name	Unicode	Entry (in Japanese mode)
16	▮	Vertical rectangle	U+25AE	Shift+1
17	■	Filled square	U+25A0	Shift+2
18	□	Hollow square	U+25A1	Shift+3
19	⁙	Five dot	U+2059	Shift+4
20	⁘	Four dot	U+2058	Shift+5
21	‖	Pause	U+2016	Shift+6
22	◀	Back	U+25C0	Shift+7
23	▶	Forward	U+25B6	Shift+8
24	「	Japanese starting quote	U+300C	[
25	」	Japanese ending quote	U+300D	]
26	¥	Yen sign	U+A5	\
27	•	Interpunct	U+2022	/
28	、	Japanese comma	U+3001	,
29	。	Japanese full stop	U+3002	.
30	゛	Japanese dakuten	U+309B	e.g. ba
31	゜	Japanese handakuten	U+309C	e.g. pa

ASCII characters[]

Printable characters 32-127 match the ASCII standard.

Within PICO-8, English letters in the range 65-90 print in lowercase (small caps), while letters in the range 97-122 print in uppercase.

Lowercase letters (small caps) can be typed in puny font mode (Ctrl+P).

Number	Character	Name	Number	Character	Name
32	space	space	80	`P`	P
33	`!`	!	81	`Q`	Q
34	`"`	Double quote	82	`R`	R
35	`#`	Number sign	83	`S`	S
36	`$`	Dollar sign	84	`T`	T
37	`%`	Percent sign	85	`U`	U
38	`&`	Ampersand	86	`V`	V
39	`'`	Single quote	87	`W`	W
40	`(`	(	88	`X`	X
41	`)`	)	89	`Y`	Y
42	`*`	*	90	`Z`	Z
43	`+`	+	91	`[`	[
44	`,`	,	92	`\`	\
45	`-`	-	93	`]`	]
46	`.`	.	94	`^`	Caret
47	`/`	/	95	`_`	Underscore
48	`0`	0	96	`	Backtick
49	`1`	1	97	`a`	a
50	`2`	2	98	`b`	b
51	`3`	3	99	`c`	c
52	`4`	4	100	`d`	d
53	`5`	5	101	`e`	e
54	`6`	6	102	`f`	f
55	`7`	7	103	`g`	g
56	`8`	8	104	`h`	h
57	`9`	9	105	`i`	i
58	`:`	:	106	`j`	j
59	`;`	;	107	`k`	k
60	`<`	<	108	`l`	l
61	`=`	=	109	`m`	m
62	`>`	>	110	`n`	n
63	`?`	?	111	`o`	o
64	`@`	@	112	`p`	p
65	`A`	A	113	`q`	q
66	`B`	B	114	`r`	r
67	`C`	C	115	`s`	s
68	`D`	D	116	`t`	t
69	`E`	E	117	`u`	u
70	`F`	F	118	`v`	v
71	`G`	G	119	`w`	w
72	`H`	H	120	`x`	x
73	`I`	I	121	`y`	y
74	`J`	J	122	`z`	z
75	`K`	K	123	`{`	{
76	`L`	L	124	`\|`	Vertical bar
77	`M`	M	125	`}`	}
78	`N`	N	126	`~`	Tilde
79	`O`	O

Typeable symbols[]

Characters 127-153 and 254-255 are graphical symbols proprietary to PICO-8.

Symbols in the range 128-153 can be entered in the PICO-8 editor by holding the Shift key and pressing a letter key, assigned in alphabetical order. Many symbols have intuitive assignments. For example, the Up, Down, Right, Left, X, and O keypad symbols are assigned to Shift-U, Shift-D, Shift-R, Shift-L, Shift-X, and Shift-O, respectively.

Tip: The btn() and btnp() functions accept the keypad symbols as an argument, as an alternative to the key code. Use the corresponding symbol as if it were a variable name, without string quotes:

if btn(❎) then
  jump()
end

When printed, characters 128-255 are eight pixels wide. Characters 16-127 print as four pixels wide.

Note: PICO-8 uses variation selector 16 (U+FE0F) with the Unicode emoji symbols for Down key (⬇️), Left key (⬅️), O key (🅾️), Right key (➡️), and Up key (⬆️). Not all emoji-capable displays show an emoji variant glyph for Black Rightwards Arrow (U+27A1), but PICO-8 uses the variation selector anyway. The variation selector is not used with X key (U+274E).

Number	Character	Name	Unicode	Entry
127	○	Hollow circle	U+25CB
128	█	Rectangle	U+2588	Shift-A
129	▒	Checkerboard	U+2592	Shift-B
130	🐱	Jelpi	U+1F431	Shift-C
131	⬇️	Down key	U+2B07 U+FE0F	Shift-D
132	░	Dot pattern	U+2591	Shift-E
133	✽	Throwing star	U+273D	Shift-F
134	●	Ball	U+25CF	Shift-G
135	♥	Heart	U+2665	Shift-H
136	☉	Eye	U+2609	Shift-I
137	웃	Man	U+C6C3	Shift-J
138	⌂	House	U+2302	Shift-K
139	⬅️	Left key	U+2B05 U+FE0F	Shift-L
140	😐	Face	U+1F610	Shift-M
141	♪	Musical note	U+266A	Shift-N
142	🅾️	O key	U+1F17E U+FE0F	Shift-O
143	◆	Diamond	U+25C6	Shift-P
144	…	Ellipsis	U+2026	Shift-Q
145	➡️	Right key	U+27A1 U+FE0F	Shift-R
146	★	Five-pointed star	U+2605	Shift-S
147	⧗	Hourglass	U+29D7	Shift-T
148	⬆️	Up key	U+2B06 U+FE0F	Shift-U
149	ˇ	Birds	U+2C7	Shift-V
150	∧	Sawtooth	U+2227	Shift-W
151	❎	X key	U+274E	Shift-X
152	▤	Horiz lines	U+25A4	Shift-Y
153	▥	Vert lines	U+25A5	Shift-Z

Hiragana[]

Characters 154-203 are the Japanese Hiragana alphabet, and characters 204-253 are the Japanese Katakana alphabet. Japanese characters appear in order, followed by the four digraph indicators.

Japanese diacritics and punctuation can be found in characters 24-31.

Hiragana characters can be typed by entering Hiragana mode (Ctrl+J) and then typing out the character's sound, as seen in the table below.

Number	Character	Entry	Unicode	Number	Character	Entry	Unicode
154	あ	a	U+3042	179	は	ha	U+306F
155	い	i	U+3044	180	ひ	hi	U+3072
156	う	u	U+3046	181	ふ	fu	U+3075
157	え	e	U+3048	182	へ	he	U+3078
158	お	o	U+304A	183	ほ	ho	U+307B
159	か	ka	U+304B	184	ま	ma	U+307E
160	き	ki	U+304D	185	み	mi	U+307F
161	く	ku	U+304F	186	む	mu	U+3080
162	け	ke	U+3051	187	め	me	U+3081
163	こ	ko	U+3053	188	も	mo	U+3082
164	さ	sa	U+3055	189	や	ya	U+3084
165	し	shi	U+3057	190	ゆ	yu	U+3086
166	す	su	U+3059	191	よ	yo	U+3088
167	せ	se	U+305B	192	ら	ra	U+3089
168	そ	so	U+305D	193	り	ri	U+308A
169	た	ta	U+305F	194	る	ru	U+308B
170	ち	chi	U+3061	195	れ	re	U+308C
171	つ	tsu	U+3064	196	ろ	ro	U+308D
172	て	te	U+3066	197	わ	wa	U+308F
173	と	to	U+3068	198	を	wo	U+3092
174	な	na	U+306A	199	ん	nn	U+3093
175	に	ni	U+306B	200	っ	tt	U+3063
176	ぬ	nu	U+306C	201	ゃ	e.g: kya	U+3083
177	ね	ne	U+306D	202	ゅ	e.g. kyu	U+3085
178	の	no	U+306E	203	ょ	e.g: kyo	U+3087

Katakana[]

Characters 204-253 are the Japanese Katakana alphabet. Japanese characters appear in order, followed by the four digraph indicators.

Japanese diacritics and punctuation can be found in characters 24-31.

Katakana characters can be typed by entering Katakana mode (Ctrl+K) and then typing out the character's sound, as seen in the table below.

Number	Character	Entry	Unicode	Number	Character	Entry	Unicode
204	ア	a	U+30A2	229	ハ	ha	U+30CF
205	イ	i	U+30A4	230	ヒ	hi	U+30D2
206	ウ	u	U+30A6	231	フ	fu	U+30D5
207	エ	e	U+30A8	232	ヘ	he	U+30D8
208	オ	o	U+30AA	233	ホ	ho	U+30DB
209	カ	ka	U+30AB	234	マ	ma	U+30DE
210	キ	ki	U+30AD	235	ミ	mi	U+30DF
211	ク	ku	U+30AF	236	ム	mu	U+30E0
212	ケ	ke	U+30B1	237	メ	me	U+30E1
213	コ	ko	U+30B3	238	モ	mo	U+30E2
214	サ	sa	U+30B5	239	ヤ	ya	U+30E4
215	シ	shi	U+30B7	240	ユ	yu	U+30E6
216	ス	su	U+30B9	241	ヨ	yo	U+30E8
217	セ	se	U+30BB	242	ラ	ra	U+30E9
218	ソ	so	U+30BD	243	リ	ri	U+30EA
219	タ	ta	U+30BF	244	ル	ru	U+30EB
220	チ	chi	U+30C1	245	レ	re	U+30EC
221	ツ	tsu	U+30C4	246	ロ	ro	U+30ED
222	テ	te	U+30C6	247	ワ	wa	U+30EF
223	ト	to	U+30C8	248	ヲ	wo	U+30F2
224	ナ	na	U+30CA	249	ン	nn	U+30F3
225	ニ	ni	U+30CB	250	ッ	tt	U+30C3
226	ヌ	nu	U+30CC	251	ャ	e.g. kya	U+30E3
227	ネ	ne	U+30CD	252	ュ	e.g. kyu	U+30E5
228	ノ	no	U+30CE	253	ョ	e.g. kyo	U+30E7

Remaining symbols[]

PICO-8 rendering of the final two symbols of the P8SCII character set

The final two characters in the P8SCII set offer two more symbols.

These can be typed by entering one of the Japanese modes (Ctrl+J/Ctrl+K) then pressing the key in the Entry column

Number	Character	Name	Unicode	Entry (in Japanese)
254	◜	Left arc	U+25DC	Shift+9
255	◝	Right arc	U+25DD	Shift+0

Using PS8SCII codes[]

All characters and codes can appear in string literals using either typed characters or escape sequences. Some codes have special escape sequences, such as \n for a newline code. All codes can be entered via their number using an escape sequence such as \0xxx, where xxx is the number in decimal.

print("press ❎ to jump\npress 🅾️ to use an item")

price = 729
print("cost: " .. chr(26) .. tostr(price))

The chr() function takes a number and returns a one-character string with the corresponding P8SCII character. The ord() function takes a one-character string and returns the P8SCII code for that character as a number.

All printable characters have an equivalent symbol in the Unicode character set. You can type a printable character in the PICO-8 editor by entering the corresponding symbol or by pasting it from the clipboard. PICO-8 uses the Unicode equivalent when saving to a .p8 file, printing to the console via printh(), or copying to the clipboard.

Note: The P8SCII value is not the same as the Unicode value! The character sets overlap in the ASCII range (32-126), with uppercase and lowercase swapped. Otherwise, a P8SCII printable character maps to a Unicode character with the same meaning (as for Japanese letters) or a pictographic equivalent (as for symbols).