When it comes to fitting amazing creations into the smallest amount of code possible, I don’t think there are any better than Mathieu ‘p01’ Henri… And his most recent sketch, Night Train, is no exception.

NIGHT TRAIN
A quick #pico8 #tweetjam

x=0::_::cls(13)srand()for i=0,44 do
z=64+3*sin(i/45)y=z+cos(i/2)*(9+z*z%61)x-=3
?"ˇ",x,rnd(128),6
u=x+2*sin(x/31)
for j=-9,rnd(4)+7 do line(u,y-9,x+j,y+4+i%9,1+flr(y%2)*5)end
?"=",x,z,1
if(sin(x/84)>.8)print("😐",x,z-2)
x%=134end
flip()goto _ pic.twitter.com/ZQboc8Iet6

— Mathieu 'p01' Henri (@p01) December 22, 2019

The scene, featuring a train rolling through a generative field dotted with grass and some windy trees, is really a mind blower… Especially considering the formula generating it consists of 242 characters, fitting inside the tweet!

For real though, what is that emoji doing in there?

Ascii art and imagery have been around for a long time. This silky smooth demo really shows off how nice an ascii world rendered in real-time could look.

I mean, just look at the water, it’s completely mesmerizing.

Water ripples, hard to show it on twitter tho. pic.twitter.com/rn8Y3olA08

— gumix (@MrGumix) December 5, 2019

The amazing creator, MrGumix on Twitter, has a feed full of great videos and demos showing off some beautiful gameplay, as well as some great callouts to other Ascii based games.

You can play the demo, Asciicker here. It’s fairly simplistic gameplay wise, but at the same time shows off what can be a beautifully complex world. And for an added bonus, it runs fairly smoothly on your phone.

A font created from US Congressional Districts. Amazingly, the creators have been able to rustle out every single letter of the alphabet.

Hey Arnold @Schwarzenegger, pic.twitter.com/K8zjwHEVD4

— Ugly Gerry (@UglyGerry) September 26, 2019

The font, available here, provides the OTF files you will need to use the font. Their Twitter is also very active, with some great blasts aimed at politicians, and celebs.