A completely biased ranking of 12 obscure fantasy consoles

It's likely if you've played games from multiple generations of video game console that you've noticed consoles used to have specific aesthetics to them. Typically each console had unique color, resolution, processing, and audio capabilities that made it fairly easy to tell what game a console is for. NES games look like NES games, PlayStation games look like PlayStation games, and Atari games look like dogshit.

Changing gears, you've probably heard about video game console emulators if you've played games enough. Programs used to run games made for a specific console on another device are commonplace and an important way of preserving video game history in a way that's accessible and immune to physical deterioration. They also allow older games new life and capabilities with easier modding, accelerated hardware, or functionality never possible on the original console.

However, there are some emulators out there for consoles that never actually existed on their own, consoles with their own set of limitations and aesthetic to them just like any other older console but that was never determined by any set of hardware. These are called Fantasy Consoles, and they're incredibly interesting.

I've been interested in fantasy consoles since I learned what they were, and I'm here today to tell you about some out there today and what I think of them. I'm going to rate them based on cuteness, uniqueness, and coolness, as well as give them an overall rating. I've at the least tried every one of these consoles.

And of course, for those in the know, the Pico-8 is the best. But, it's only the best for now...

This is by no means a comprehensive list of fantasy consoles. If you want a must more comprehensive (and objective) list of awesome fantasy consoles, check out this list by Tony Wang.

• cel7
  Cuteness: 7/10 | Uniqueness: 7/10 | Coolness: 6/10
  Overall: 7/10
  This console is pretty interesting to me, because it's restricted to only using tiles. This makes it great for grid based games like roguelikes, but not very good for games with a lot of precision like platformers. It's also got a very cute 4-bit color palette to work with! I really wish there were more games made with cel7, because I bet you could do some really cool things with the tile limitation!
  

  

• DreamBox
  Cuteness: 0/10 | Uniqueness: 9/10 | Coolness: 10/10
  Overall: 7/10
  This one is a dream... box! It's one of the only 3D focused fantasy consoles, themed like a Y2K console like the PS2! I was so, so exited to see what awesome retro style games people had made with this, but it also didn't have any games made for it, just demos. Hm. I looked everywhere I could for some, but didn't find any, even in its dedicated discord server. It does exist, you can download it and try out demos, though. It's really cool seeming, just the menus and demos really give the feeling of an early 3D console. Super cool, doing something nobody else has done, but pretty much entirely ignored, even by the people who like it.
  

  

• Kate
  Cuteness: 10/10 | Uniqueness: 6/10 | Coolness: 6/10
  Overall: 7/10
  The Kate is so, so adorable! It's a very pink fantasy console made to be used only for visual novels and 2D rpgs, which happen to be Plum's favorite genres. It also uses X and O buttons, something I love a lot, though it actually has three, the third being the star button. I love unique face button layouts, and having three is really cool. It also can play converted Renpy and Bitsy games, as well as many web games, which is really awesome! Honestly, we'd want this one just as a real indie console. Unfortunately, it only has three games made for it so far, and all of them are made by the creator of the Kate. It's still being actively worked on though, so hopefully more people start making games for it. For some reason every image of it has a different design though, maybe on purpose.
  

  

• Nibble
  Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 3/10 | Coolness: 5/10
  Overall: 5/10
  No, this one isn't related to the DIY console called the Nibble from my indie consoles blogpost. It's got a cute name and icon for sure. This seems to be pretty inspired by the TIC-80 and by consequence the PICO-8, and looks to be a little interesting, but doesn't seem to do anything particularly unique. I struggle to see why you'd use it over the TIC-80 or PICO-8, and so did everyone else, because this one also seems to have no games for it posted anywhere.
  

  

• PICO-8
  Cuteness: 8/10 | Uniqueness: 8/10 | Coolness: 7/10
  Overall: 8/10
  Here it is, the original fantasy console, the one everyone knows and loves (because of Celeste). The PICO-8 is extremely well made, well documented, everything needed to develop for it is built in, and you can find and play other peoples games from within the console, all of which greatly increase its usability and use cases far above literally every other fantasy console ever. There are dozens of amazing games on the PICO-8 being posted all the time, ones by everyone from children learning to code to full-time professional developers. This one is the one to go for if you're looking to get into fantasy consoles, and will probably be where most people stop, because it really offers more than you could want. It's got an incredibly adorable palette, is instantly recognizable, and perfectly tows the line between limited and versatile. It's cartridges are cute PNG files and it has X and O buttons, truly the best of its niche.
  

  

• Picotron
  Cuteness: 8/10 | Uniqueness: 8/10 | Coolness: 8/10
  Overall: 8/10
  The PICO-8's successor. This one is still in alpha and isn't fully finished, but is more of a fantasy OS than a console, but I'm including it anyway because I love it. It's got a larger palette of colors, and everything about it, literally everything, is editable from within it. If you want any of it's system apps to work differently or want to improve them, you can. You can get as down and dirty with it as you'd like, and it's more powerful than the PICO-8. So far not much has been made for it, but I'm hoping as it gets more updates more people will use it. I especially hope soon you'll be able to download programs for it from within it like with the PICO-8.
  

  

• Pixel Vision 8
  Cuteness: 7/10 | Uniqueness: 8/10 | Coolness: 8/10
  Overall: 8/10
  This one I am shocked more people haven't used, as it seems really well made and has some really cool features. The Pixel Vision 8 has unique 'hardware' specifications like any other fantasy console, but you can edit and swap these out, giving you a degree of freedom in the look, feel, and capabilities of your games. Personally, I think some of the things it gives you freedom over, like storage size and sprite count, unfortunately makes it feel like you might as well just not use it because you can do whatever you want, and being able to configure the color and sound capabilities means PV8 games likely don't really look like they're from the same console unfortunately. I still think it's pretty cool though, a really cool concept with great execution. It has all it's development tools built in like the PICO-8, Picotron, and Nibble too, which is great for user friendliness.
  

  

• Pyxel
  Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 5/10
  Overall: 5/10
  This one is uses python, so its essentially garbage right out the gate.
  I kid... Mostly. It seems pretty interesting, inspired by the PICO-8 and TIC-80 with python scripting which is pretty easy to learn, but it's dev tools are far more complicated than either. There are actually a decent amount of games made for it, some pretty polished looking. It's got just enough dev tools and ease of sharing that you can use it for cool things if really wanted to, but you could probably do just the same with the PICO-8 or TIC-80 and they're less clunky. Still, if all you know if python, it's a good option for making retro style games.
  

  

• Script-8
  Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 7/10 | Coolness: 8/10
  Overall: 8/10
  This one is entirely browser based and its games are called cassettes, super cool. It also has a really sweet 3-bit brown monochrome color palette that's just so cozy, I really really love it. It has all its dev tools built in, it has a built in tutorial to teach you how to play games, and you store finished cassettes on the Shelf where anyone can grab and play them. I really really love this one, and I think I might try making a game or two for it at some point.
  However, there is a huge problem with this fantasy console... Its functionally dead. You can no longer seem to load cassettes at all anymore, any that I've found all just hang on the boot screen. You can still make games in the editor and play them, but trying to access shared cassettes just gives an error, and that's heartbreaking. The github repo is labeled as deprecated. I really, really hope it gets revived, because it's easily my favorite. I've emailed the creator about it, maybe I'll post an update if anything comes of it.
  

  

• TIC-80
  Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 3/10 | Coolness: 5/10
  Overall: 6/10
  While this one is described as a fantasy computer, I'm going to include it anyway. The TIC-80 is free and open-source fantasy computer inspired by the PICO-8. It's pretty similar to the PICO-8 in a most ways, though it's not exactly the same, having a lot more storage for sprites, map data, and code. Still, if you can do something on the TIC-80, I'd say you could probably do it on the PICO-8 as well, and vice versa. The TIC-80 does I guess the appeal is that it's free and that you can use lots of different programming languages with it. Personally I would just used the PICO-8, but if you don't want to buy it or you don't want to learn lua to make games for it, the TIC-80 is a pretty good alternative. Its colors aren't as cute for sure though. I don't hate it, it has its place and has some pretty good games for it.
  

  

• Voxatron
  Cuteness: 8/10 | Uniqueness: 8/10 | Coolness: 6/10
  Overall: 7/10
  And now, the secret real first fantasy console. While the PICO-8 is kind of the first, the Voxatron began its life before it, and the PICO-8 was originally made as a complimentary program for Voxatron when it was just a game and not a fantasy console. However, the PICO-8 blew up and the Voxatron was essentially abandoned, so it's clear which one will be remembered as the original. The coolest part of the Voxatron is that it uses voxels instead of pixels. If you don't know what a voxel is, it's the 3D version of a pixel, going from a little square to a little cube. This means pretty much all games are 3D by default. The Voxatron is a lot less popular and a bit more limited than the PICO-8, so there isn't quite as much made for it, but I would love to see what it could do when pushed to its limits. It also just feels a lot clunkier than the PICO-8 unfortunately. Still, it's a cool novelty, and even has volumetric display support, so you can use a 3D display and play your cute little cubey games in true 3D.
  

  

• WASM-4
  Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 6/10 | Coolness: 7/10
  Overall: 6/10
  This one is really interesting to me just because of its readily configurable 2-bit color palette. It's pretty limited, but at the same time you can change it to better match whatever project you're making on it. It also has online multiplayer support, which is something most others don't have, though some like the PICO-8, Voxatron, Picotron, and TIC-80 do have local multiplayer support. It's great for making larger Gameboy-esque games and sharing them online. It's cool enough I guess, just not really something that gets me excited compared to some of the others.
  

  

Overall, I think these are all really cool, some more than others. I wish they all had more games and interest, but unfortunately fantasy consoles are just very niche. I love them, lots of indie devs love them, but if you aren't passionate about small indie games or game development you're probably not going to get as much out of them. Maybe someday, a new fantasy console will come along, the new best that one ups the PICO-8, that is unique and interesting and user friendly enough that people will be drawn to it and want to make games for it, maybe one of these already is that and it just hasn't reached that point yet. For now, most of these is a very small niche within a very small niche, and I'm glad to have been able to show it to you.
Let us know what fantasy console you like the most, what you would want to see in your ideal fantasy console, or if you have a favorite I missed. I'm interested in your thoughts about these.