Of course a MIPS device is a lot more powerful than the ESP32.
1. I find the font really hard to read. I really wish it was 2x the resolution. I think it would still have a cool retro pixelated look but be so much more legible.
2. The keyboard controls don't always seem to register on my system (Chrome, MacOS). Or maybe it's just not obvious which keys to press. I tried playing two games, they loaded, music started, but I wasn't actually able to get to the point where I'm actually playing the game.
And since JavaScript implies TypeScript, I once wrote a small tool to automatically build games from .ts files, with functions declarations for the whole API: https://github.com/scambier/tic80-typescript
I don't use it anymore, but try to keep the declarations up-to-date :)
Personally, I'm still undecided as I like the use of JavaScript in TIC-80 and the fact that it is open source, versus the wealth of materials available for the PICO-8.
Compare it to other models. Donations don't work at all, they just make developers downhearted. Ads are huge betrayal of user's trust (and hard to do across platforms). Freemium is based on addiction-forming patterns. Commercial products create walled gardens for privileged, they severely limit adoption rates and they are reserved for first-comer (PICO-8).
> For users who can't spend the money, we made it easy to build the pro version from the source code.
