The best new years resolution
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Happy New Year and hello!
I’ve resolved to make a game this year (of ANY scale). This will be my first foray into games and actual coding, so I’m keeping my expectations tempered. This isn’t my first foray with this resolution however haha - but this time I’m freshly unemployed and taking this month to set aside blocks of time and make some serious progress towards this long held goal of mine. Excited to be here!!
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I recommend starting here: Make Your Own Arduboy Game: Part 1 - Setting Up Your Computer (it’s where I first learned as well)
Once you’re done, I recommend going here: Make Your Own Sideways Scroller: Part 1 - Steve The Jumping Dinosaur (it’s more advanced, perfect after you’ve learned the basics)
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Those lessons are helpful but I hope they get updated to include instructions on how to store and retrieve things from the FX chip. I’m hesitant to start on a new game for the jam because it seems overwhelming to get started with that.
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Yep. I still can’t find the documentation for the FX library functions and stuff.
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The game jam thread has some helpful links in the Resources section. I guess I just need to dig more into those.
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Thank you Ard_Flamingo! I managed to find those two again before posting too, glad to know I’m on the right track starting there. Ha, I think this will be my third time following the “Setting Up Your Computer” lesson. Third time’s the charm!
@raspberrybrain I’m worried about that too. I was hoping to come up with something small for the themed jam, but learning the FX chip capabilities and use on top of the basics seems like too much for a total beginner to attempt. Thanks for a reminder about the Resources section in the game jam thread. If I make it past my first game baby efforts in time I’ll head over there and start reading up on it.
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This is also a good place to learn about basic C++/Arduino stuff: Arduino Reference - Arduino Reference
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I’m honestly completely overwhelmed by everything in that Resources section too. The fact that I’m a Mac user doesn’t help. For example, just installing the Arduboy FX Arduino plugin has been impossible for me since it involves replacing files depending on your OS, and it’s very difficult to know if I’m replacing them with the correct files. I don’t see myself getting any further than I’ve gotten with using the benefits of the FX chip, which is currently nowhere.
It really doesn’t, I’m a Mac user too. A lot of the helpful tools are unavailable for MacOS as well.
I haven’t installed that yet, but I’ve really only had trouble with VSCode’s intellisence (I had to add mono to the $PATH or something IIRC).
I was able to develop some games on my Mac using the Arduino IDE back in 2019 with no problems really, it was pretty straightforward. I think the addition of the FX capability is throwing me off.
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Looking at the example projects on the ArduboyFX library on GitHub has cleared up a few things up for me. But I’m still unsure about how all the data that will be stored on the FX chip gets combined into the single .hex file that gets uploaded to an Arduboy. @Mr.Blinky is there a Python script that does that? I’m trying to think of the best way to do this on a Mac, and it seems like that will have to avoid using the Arduboy FX Arduino plugin.
The fxdata will not be stored in the hex file. it’s a seperate file (fxdata.bin) that is uploaded seperately.
the fxdata is build using the fxdata-build.py script and then uploaded to Arduboy using the fxdata-upload.py script. These scripts are part of the Arduino plugin and the Arduboy-Python-Utilities
The arduino sketch is uploaded as usual.
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I see, thanks. So when sharing a game that uses the FX chip it’s always necessary to share both the .hex file and the fxdata.bin file?
The .hex file is the file which stores the game itself, the .bin stores the fx data, so yes, it would be necessary (at least in theory, but all the examples which use the FX chip come “packaged” with the .bin)
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Oh. Then I guess it’s the “packaged” part that’s confusing. Maybe I’m over complicating all this stuff.
By packaged, I meant “comes with.” Like, when you share a game, usually you would share the source files and the .hex; the .hex comes “packaged” with the source files. Sorry to confuse you.
Oh, okay. So you’re just saying that they’re put in the same folder, not that the fxdata.bin file is somehow contained within the .hex file.
Yeah, somewhere in the repository.
Yes.
They don’t neccesary need to be in the same folde but they usually are.
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