Useful Links
This is a collection of useful resources I’ve used for both of my projects:
Pico-8 Chess Game Resources:
Pico-8 Manual: (https://www.lexaloffle.com/dl/docs/pico-8_manual.html)
It should come as no surprise that the best resource for learning how to use the Pico-8 it the manual made for it. It’s an HTML site but a raw, downloadable .txt version can also be found here. Its a simple and clean guide to the Pico-8 and the tools it comes with. It also has a primer for basic Lua syntax, and, for more complex coding, lists out the entire API usable in Pico-8.
Pico-8 Wiki: (https://pico-8.fandom.com/wiki/Pico-8_Wikia)
Another great resource for getting started with the Pico-8 is the community-maintained wiki. Unlike the manual, the wiki contains more in-depth explanations of a lot of Pico-8’s features, which are helpful for understanding. It also provides a lot of example code that can be quickly input into any Pico-8 machine and toyed around with.
Lichess: (https://lichess.org/)
Lichess is a free online chess website, where you can play against people across the world. I mainly used its board editor and continue from here feature to test certain chess scenarios and see if my version of chess lined up with a correct implementation. Lichess is also open source, so for someone who wants to create a chess game and doesn’t have the same self limitation of looking at others code that I had, looking at their Github can be helpful.
Pomodoro Project Resources:
Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard. It allows for multiple people to work simultaneously, sharing ideas. It is great for presenting ideas visually, and has a lot of tools to support visual organization: frames shapes, arrows, charts, and tables. In the pomodoro project, we used it as a brainstorming tool, letting every team member contribute and build upon others ideas.
Figma: (https://www.figma.com)
Figma is another collaborative online tool, aimed at designing high fidelity wireframes. It has a lot of features that one would expect from a photo editing program: layers, assets, frames, alignments, color pickers, etc. These all make wireframe design easy and simple. Another great feature it has is the ability to convert and wireframe section into HTML and CSS code, allowing simple designs to be quickly integrated into a website, where more changes can be made.
MDN Web Docs: (https://developer.mozilla.org)
The MDN Web Docs are a collection of documentation for all aspects of web design. In it are descriptions of every HTML element, CSS styles, and JavaScript functions, as well as examples of how to implement them and notes on their functionality in different browsers. It also contains guidelines and standards for good, accessible web design. This is a resource every web developer will use at some point.
Github Pages: (https://pages.github.com/)
Github Pages is a free service provided by Github for the hosting of non-commercial websites. It doesn’t require setting up a web server or learning networking, instead its simple and quick. Additionally it has inbuilt Jekyll support, allowing sites to be quickly created by only writing markdown, no HTML, CSS, or JavaScript needed. Github Pages was used to host the CSE 110 project, as well as this very site!