SuperStation

SuperStation is a 16-bit fantasy console. Think of it as a Super Nintendo on steroids. In terms of limitations it falls somewhere between PICO-8 and Löve2D. You use the Wren Programming Language to write games.

Features and Restrictions

1024 simultaneous sprites that can be moved, scaled and rotated individually
8 simultaneous tile layers that can use affine transformations (Mode 7)
1024px * 1024px of video memory for graphics (RGBA)
Fast OpenGL ES 2.0 based renderer that will maintain 60 fps even on devices as low as the Rasperry Pi 1

Getting started

Create a new folder called myproject

myproject/main.wren

import "gfx" for Sprite, VRAM, PixelData

// Load an image and upload it to video ram upper-left corner
var pd = PixelData.fromImage("image.png")
VRAM.upload(pd, 0, 0)

// Set Sprite 1 to VRAM location 0,0 size: 16x16
Sprite.set(1,0,0,16,16)

var rotate = 0

// Run game loop
while(true){
  // Move sprite to coordinates 100, 100 and rotate by r
  Sprite.transform(1, 100, 100, r)
  r = r + 0.01
  // Return control for the console to render
  Fiber.yield()
}

Start SuperStation and drag the folder on the window.

Building

SuperStation uses CMake for building.

Dependencies

SDL2

On Desktop platforms SuperStation relies on ANGLE for OpenGL ES 2.0 and EGL implementation. As the build process is rather lengthy, binaries are included.

SuperStation also relies on these libraries that are created during build:

Wren
jsmn
stb_image
stb_ds

Windows

Building on Windows has only been tested with Mingw32

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

WebAssembly

Install emscripten according to instructions

mkdir build-wasm
cd build-wasm
source emsdk_env.sh
emcmake cmake ..
emmake make superstation

WebAssembly builds call some methods in superstation.html to load files asynchronously. Make sure to serve superstation.html from a fileserver.

Make sure to build in Release mode for better Wren performance.