Pico-8 other than licensing is superior. But TIC-80 has a pro version that is paid and has some features locked behind it. I generally dislike the practice. You either release the whole software as open source or release a commercial product.

I really like this model. Users get free stuff, they create content to attract more users. Bigger fans spend a bit of money on full version, which fuels the development. Potential contributors build from source code and get full version. The full version is little more than quality-of-life improvement and WIP modules that will likely reach free version when done. It's hard to see any downside.

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).

From the README:

> For users who can't spend the money, we made it easy to build the pro version from the source code.

This is actually how I released mobile games in the past. The binaries were for sale on Google Play, whereas the source was open and available for people to compile themselves if they wanted.

I may be revisiting this because Android is now requiring AABs for all Google Play apps.

And by the way the license is MIT, so there aren't even any worries about modifying the source and incorporating into your proprietary project.

Can you list what's better in your perspective in pico-8? I've been looking at both recently in the context of teaching kids programming basics and didn't really see that much of a difference.

They both have pros and cons, but they're indeed quite similar.

TIC-80 is less restricting: more languages (Lua, MoonScript, JavaScript, Fennel, Wren), custom color palette, higher res, and widescreen. The main advantage of PICO-8 is its community, which is the biggest of all "fantasy consoles", which means more help, more examples, and more released games.

I'd personally go with PICO-8, because it's more restricting, and thus allows for a better focus (IMO).