A WebAssembly based fantasy console

About

MicroW8 is a WebAssembly based fantasy console inspired by the likes of TIC-80, WASM-4 and PICO-8.

The initial motivation behind MicroW8 was to explore whether there was a way to make WebAssembly viable for size-coding. (Size coding being the art of creating tiny (often <= 256 bytes) graphical effects and games.) The available examples so far are all in this space, however, I very carefully made sure that all design decisions make sense from the point of view of bigger projects as well.

Specs

• Screen: 320x240, 256 colors, 60Hz
• Modules: Up to 256KB (WASM)
• Memory: 256KB
• Gamepad input (D-Pad + 4 Buttons)

For detailed documentation see here.

Examples

• Skip Ahead (249 bytes): A port of my TIC-80 256byte game from LoveByte'21, now with sound
• Fireworks (127 bytes): Some fireworks to welcome 2022.
• OhNoAnotherTunnel (175 bytes): A port of my entry in the Outline'21 bytebattle final
• Technotunnel (157 bytes): A port of my entry in the Outline'21 bytebattle quater final
• Font & Palette: Just a simple viewer for the default font and palette.

Examplers for older versions:

• Technotunnel B/W (199 bytes uncompressed): A port of my entry in the Outline'21 bytebattle quater final (older MicroW8 version with monochrome palette)
• XorScroll (50 bytes uncompressed): A simple scrolling XOR pattern. Fun fact: This is the pre-loaded effect when entering a bytebattle.
• CircleWorm (126 bytes uncompressed): Just a test for the circle fill function.

Versions

v0.4.0

• Web runtime
• Linux
• MacOS
• Windows

Changes:

• add support for sound on mono- and surround-only devices
• update wasmtime dependency to fix performance regression in 0.3.0
• add frame counter since module start at location 72
• add 6 and 7 parameter function types to base module

Older versions

Find older versions here.