tiny terrarium is a PICO-8 falling sand game made to be entertaining as well as instructive.

There are a variety of elements (materials) and options to play around with. Some of them may delight and surprise you! You're invited to experiment to find out what's possible.

To help meet its goal of being instructive, tt is as unencumbered by intellectual property as feasible; it's licensed CC0, meaning you have legal permission to do practically whatever you want with it, including lift whole code snippets from it. Feel free to let me know if you do something cool with it! You can find its source here, and it's also posted on lexaloffle.

Controls

The following should be enough to get you started, but oversimplifies some things. You're invited to play around to discover the actual rules.

On the simulation screen (where the cart begins):

• Press ⬅️, ➡️, ⬆️, or ⬇️ (arrow keys on keyboard) to move the cursor.
• Press 🅾️ (Z on keyboard) to place the selected atom at the cursor.
• Press ❎ (X on keyboard) to erase the atom at the cursor.
• Press Pause (Enter on keyboard) to open the options screen.

On the options screen:

• Press ⬆️ or ⬇️ to move between options.
• Press ⬅️ or ➡️ to change the selected option.
• Press 🅾️ or ❎ to return to the simulation screen.
• Press Pause (Enter on keyboard) to open the PICO-8 menu.