Been scratching my #retrogaming itch with some #wasm4 development, and it's been pretty great! It is honestly a great tool for easing people with some #gamedev experience into #baremetal programming (with all the direct memory access and whatnot), honestly feels a bit like programming an #embedded #microcontroller with a really good library.

The semester is starting again soon though, and so I may have to abandon recreational #coding for a while :(

I had an idea late last night to make a fantasy retro games console based on WASM, but then I discovered #WASM4 so now I don't have to.
I ported my little #Quoridor game instead.
https://ringtailsoftware.github.io/zoridor/cart.html
#gamedev
WASM-4 Cart

First blog post: A brief history of fantasy video game consoles.

https://blog.fireflyzero.com/pages/history1/

This is the first part out of two-part series about the technologies that influenced and made possible Firefly Zero. This part covers #CHIP8, #PICO8, #TIC80, and #WASM4.

A brief history of fantasy video game consoles

This is the first post in the two-part series about the history of Firefly Zero. This post is dedicated to the technologies that inspired Firefly Zero, from early computers to modern programming languages. 1977. CHIP-8 In 1977, Joseph Weisbecker released COSMAC VIP. It was a personal computer designed for writing and playing video games. The whole idea of video games was quite new. Tetris was created only in 1985 (8 years after COSMAC VIP).

How many colors is enough for a retro game?

#playdate #gameboy #gba #pico8 #wasm4 #commodore64 #chip8

2 (CHIP-8, Playdate)
24.4%
4 (Gameboy, WASM-4)
18.9%
16 (PICO-8, Commodore 64)
40%
More! (GBA, DOS)
16.7%
Poll ended at .

Some sort of milestone for my compiler to #wasm - using the #wasm4 library we’ve got graphics and user input, these different squares appear as you mash the keyboard.

What a time to be alive.

#compiler #haskell #GameDev

#Wasm4 is pretty cool. It's nice to have a #virtualConsole with an ISA that is easy to generate performant native code from.
Also, live reload. πŸ‘Œ
Every #gamedev thing should have it.

i should make sure #Pinput works with modern #pico8 and #wasm4 in time for #StrawberryJam…

if you want vibrator support for your PICO-8 (most platforms) or WASM-4 (desktop only) game, Pinput is here for you https://codeberg.org/vyr/Pinput

Pinput

Extended gamepad support for PICO-8 and WASM-4

Codeberg.org

After playing a bunch of old Gameboy & SNES games in my #NintendoSwitch recently, I was excited to see the #GameBoyColor #Zelda Oracle of the Ages/Seasons games released. I never had a GBC, so these are new games to me and I love them.

This makes me want to write a #WASM4 game, since that platform has not too dissimilar level of tech.

Is there an easy way to deliver WASM-4 to a Switch, or would I have to play in the browser on my android phone with a Bluetooth gamepad?

Following the #uxn tutorial after seeing @nettles posting about it. So far I've been enjoying working with the TAL language, which surprises me a little. It reminds me of #WASM4, though from my brief time tinkering with it I would say #uxn is better designed.

It doesn't seem to have an answer for making applications accessible, though I know that is a big ask. I'm not an expert, but one of the big advantages of modern tech stacks is how they can expose text to screen readers to be read aloud.

Alongside my main game, I decided to, finally, start a longer game for the #wasm4 (fantasy) console (something I wanted to do since the launch of micro-quest).

I have some ideas in mind, some beyond wasm4.

For now, here's a little first sketch:

Also, naturally for a wasm4 game, this will be open-source and free-to-play on browser.