"As is traditional for PICO-8 works, the cartridge art up above includes the program within it, steganographically encoded within the cover art."

That is wild to hear.

Without digging into the details (my confession) it immediately reminded me of the kind of simulations that were introduced in the old "Computer Recreations" column of Scientific American.

Love this! Making things in PICO-8 is my go-to when I'm burnt out on client work.

A couple years ago I was hit with a similar inspiration and made my own spiritual successor of Simulated Evolution for the PICO-8, called Petri: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=141479