I’ve had my Arduboy FX for a day now and I’ve been searching for an answer to this question for an hour. I’m able to load an individual game from Arduino IDE. But when I turn off the Arduboy FX and turn it back on, the game is gone. How do I upload games onto the device in a way that survives a power cycle? Is there an app in the 200+ games that can show games that I’ve uploaded?
The bootloader on the Arduboy FX will show a menu at power on. Press A at that menu (instead of using the arrow buttons to browse categories and games) to start the currently loaded game.
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Hi @Tripsel 
and welcome to the community! 
When you upload an individual game, the program should remain stored on the FX.
After switching on, just press the A (left most) action button. This should launch the last game played. Let me know if that works?
(As @brow1067 said 
…)
That’s cool, didn’t know about that formatting!
Thanks so much both! I’m learning a lot already. 
A game that you load from the Arduino IDE will remain until it’s replaced by another one loaded from the IDE or from the FX menu system.
If you want games added, that aren’t in the FX menus, such that they are included in the menus, you’ll have to build and install a new FX image for the flash chip, using the tools that have been developed for this.
Currently the only way to do that is using the tools here:
Which require you to run a few batch files, you don’t actually have to “know” python, but you do need to have it installed. To accomplish it, you put the hex file you created in a location then edit a csv file to record the location of the hex file and a png file for the menu image. Then a python tool compiles the collection of hex file into a bin file. Then you use a separate python utility to upload that to the Arduboy FX.
Maybe we can collectively summon @tuxinator2009 to return to us and bring us some better tools!
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Hello again old friends. Been lurking in the shadows for some time now checking out the latest games and following along with some of the latest developments. Life got super hectic and crazy for quite some time as my family was relocating to a different state for some better life opportunities. I’ve still had some time for hobbies but its been so limited that I’ve only had time for one at a time. For a while that time was devoted to my Prelude to a Dream game I’m making over on the Pokitto because I’ve been getting really good at pixel art and am making things I never thought I’d be able to make (plus I like chatting over on discord about random things).
Been wanting to get back into finishing ArduManFX along with Shattered Lands 2 (and possibly 3, 4, and 5 as it’s a 5-part series). However, with Shattered Lands I’m debating on keeping it as is or redesigning it from the ground up utilizing the FX chip which will allow me to make it the way I had originally intended with more story, a character party (second character comes and goes similar to Final Fantasy Mystic Quest), and a more detailed map (especially utilizing my newfound pixel art skills).
What I would really like to do with ArduManFX is to setup a repo-like system that @bateske can host here on the official website (Arduboy and ArduboyFX games are still extremely tiny so space isn’t much of an issue) that would allow people to submit games without having to learn how to do a PR through github. Ideally games would be submitted and then a moderator would approve the submission before it’s added to the collection (helps reduce spam or posting bins that cause problems on the device). Ideally it would authenticate users using their Discourse forum login so it’s tied to their forum account and username (also makes it so they don’t need separate accounts). From there it would be possible for the ArduManFX to download an offline copy of the repo much as it does with the git repo (only downloading new and updated games after the initial full download). The download happens in the background and is relatively small (plus with a custom repo I could easily code a PHP script so ArduManFX would request only the files it needs and the script can grab them, compress them into a single archive, then send one file back instead of fetching each file as separate GET methods).
With my current state of affairs being much more relaxed now and I’m starting to have more free time on my hands I definitely want to finish this program and get back into making neat Arduboy/ArduboyFX games. Currently I’ve just uploaded a program called FMStudio to github that’s mostly for the Pokitto but can be used on any system that supports FM synthesis, but it can also export RAW audio files. This morning before I leave for some appointments I’m finalizing the release packages (though I can’t get Mac working in a VirtualBox anymore so no Mac binary for now). If anybody has a Mac that they usually always leave powered on and wouldn’t mind setting up a remote desktop (there’s ways of doing it where I would login to my own account and wouldn’t control your desktop) so I can more easily build Mac binaries, or if someone has an old Mac Mini or something lying around they don’t use anymore and would be willing to send my way that would be great. Until then I’ll continue to try and get it working in VirtualBox.
FYI: Both @filmote and @Vampirics have occasionally bin poking me over on the Pokitto discord about ArduManFX lol (not complaining).
Summary of what I’m looking for in the official repo:
- Ability to submit games without doing complex git forking and PRs
- Ideally users would login using their Discourse credentials
- Root folder contains json file describing all categories and games
- Sub-folder for each category
- Each game has it’s own folder for all of its files
- Game folder must contain a minimum of a hex file and a banner image (128x64)
- Games can optionally include a single bin file (for FX data) and screenshot images (all 128x64, used only within the ArduManFX tool and not actually uploaded to the FX chip).
If anybody knows how to setup something like that and would like to help get an official repo started that would be great, if not I think I know how to implement all of the above (mostly just need to run some tests and a fake Discourse forum to test the login system). Once a backend system is in place a front-end web interface would be very easy to setup to enter things like Title, Author, Description, Version, upload Hex/Bin/Images, etc, and is something I could very easily do myself in little time.
PS: The ArduManFX will also have the ability to upload a hex+bin combo in dev mode (uploads the bin to the end of the FX chip like the python script does, but then patches the hex file in the same way it does when adding it to an FX cart so you don’t need to modify the code with the data’s location).
I’m not really good at anything except following directions on this kind of stuff.
I very much want to help get this going and willing to put in as much time is needed.
That said… I’ve done some limited php and sql development to actually build most of this (I don’t know how to handle the back end compiling and stuff, but at least the front end).
But it would not what I would consider to be robust or secure or anything like that. I mean these days I would suspect you’d want to build this on top of some kind of framework.
I can absolutely get you a mac to dev on, even if you can just provide a basic upload tool for .bin files to start with would be worth it.
The cart site might be a good starting point.
It has all the games in database and can handle multiple platforms (Arduboy, 8BitCade, etc) and different categorisations.