When comparing PICO-8 vs RunKeeper, the Slant community recommends RunKeeper for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D Lua game engines?” RunKeeper is ranked 3rd while PICO-8 is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose RunKeeper is:
RunKeeper displays your route using Google Maps and tracks distance, duration, speed, pace and calories burned. You can also input your runs manually (useful when running on treadmills) to add them to your "workout logs".
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Takes away the pain of having to wire things together
Because it's an all in one product, you don't have to worry about things like how to load sprites.
Pro Very simple programing language
It's lua with a few modifications.
Pro Encourages building simple games
As a beginner it's all to tempting to try to make the games you like to play, like Zelda or Call of Duty when we should probably be making pong.
Pro Restrictions of tokens count "forces" to write code effectively
When you reach 8192 tokens, you're screwed. However, this limit can teach you to take a look at entire code and think how you could optimize it.
Pro Possible writing code in external editor
Since launch of 0.1.12c version of software, you can now write and include external script using the same directive just like in C / C++.
Pro Perhaps one of the easiest sound editors around
Pro Share the game in a .png file with other Pico-8 users
Pro You can read the code of any game you play
Pro Lots of examples
Almost every game made for the Pico-8 is open source (if you can download the .png, you can see the source).
Also there's the fancy Pico-8 "fanzine" that has lots of code examples as well as other great tutorials in a beautiful physical or PDF form.
Pro Easy to get things going very quickly
Pro Tracks distance, duration, speed, pace and calories burned
RunKeeper displays your route using Google Maps and tracks distance, duration, speed, pace and calories burned. You can also input your runs manually (useful when running on treadmills) to add them to your "workout logs".
Pro Simple interface
The interface is clean and easy to use.
Pro Gives audio cues
Pro Great for Interval Training
Interval lengths can be set and RunKeeper will let know when to start and stop running via audio messages.
Pro Tracks shoe mileage
You can add several pairs of shoes to this app and select which you are wearing for each activity. It will keep an overall count of a shoe's mileage to help you know when to buy new shoes.
Pro Tracks shoe mileage
You can add several pairs of shoes to this app and select which you are wearing for each activity. It will keep an overall count of a shoe's mileage to help you know when to buy new shoes.
Pro Website has detailed statistics
Stats such as top speed, speed of each interval, fastest/slowest parts of a course, etc. Where applicable, graphs and maps routes will be display for a visual representation.
Pro Add photos to your runs
To make the memorable runs easy to remember why they were memorable.
Pro Works with Pebble smartwatches
You will have to download the app both on your phone and Pebble.
Pro Can chart weight
Pro Perfect localization for interface and voice
Pro Works with Android Wear
Pro Integrates with many accessories
Cons
Con No collision library or other common things
Pico-8 is very minimalistic and as such doesn't come with really any abstractions whatsoever which means often you end up re-inventing the wheel.
Con Code editor leaves some things to be desired
Such as code completion and automatic indentation.
Con Costs 15$
Unlike many of the other frameworks it's not free. However this is kind of a feature because it means it's much more likely to be supported.
Con Memory restrictions could be confusing or frustrating to a beginner
Con Intervals are not supported in stopwatch mode
Since this allows both "GPS" and "stopwatch" mode, and tracking several sports, it should allow you to use intervals in stopwatch mode. I would like to use intervals for treadmill running or stationary bicycle.
Con Warm-up and cool-down time are included in overall pace
Warm up and cool down are options you can toggle for a run. If you toggle them on, those are included in your overall pace calculation, but they are.
Con Warm-up and cool-down time are included in overall pace
Warm up and cool down are options you can toggle for a run. If you toggle them on, those are included in your overall pace calculation, but they are.
Con Charts don't overlay
While charts do exist for pace, elevation, and cadence, they're all independent graphs. It would be nice to see pace overlaid with elevation, as some other apps do.
Con Does not announce intervals correctly when also using audio stats
If you are using both intervals and audio stats, and then happen to occur at the same time, the stats are announced first, and then your interval announcement after. You end up starting your interval late, even though it's tracking that interval already.
Con GPS sometimes fails
The GPS sometimes fails on devices that rely on WIFI for GPS (Apple ipod touch). However, GPS can be fixed manually later.
Con Slow and heavy for old smartphones
Con Does not announce split pace properly when using kilometers
Con Doesn't optimize for WGS-84 GPS on map
The track path draw on map is wrong cause WGS-84 GPS format.