I'm curious if embedded scripting language gurus know, would micro-python be suitable for pico-8? I'd prefer python over lua about 100 to 1. But maybe even in micro form, python is still too big to embed in that project?

You could look at TIC-80 and WASM with micropython compiling to WASM (or even full python).

Or... just use a python tool inspired by PICO-8: https://github.com/kitao/pyxel