Thanks a lot for this marvel!

TIC-80, though slightly less polished than Pico-8 (facing some technical or documentation hurdles, but nothing too serious actually) is also more powerful and flexible. It does a very good job balancing restrictions and focus, which after some work leads to less frustration than Pico-8. I also tried Picotron, which is likely even more powerful but also a bit too tool-oriented to my taste, risking to distract from the main goal of game development. So in my view, TIC-80 strikes the (almost) perfect balance between these two.