blips_embedded

Project maintained by joyrider3774 Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

Blips Embedded Version

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Blips is a remake of the dos bips game made by Bryant Brownell, its a sokoban style puzzle game but with exploding dynamite and collecting coins

Screenshots

The browser build, at twice the game’s own 128x128:

Title screen In game
Blips title screen Blips in game

Devices

Every release has a build for every device. releases/ is where a build of your own puts them, it is not part of the repository:

Device File How to install
ESPboy ESPboy_Blips.bin flash it, the board is a LOLIN(WEMOS) D1 mini
Gamebuino META GamebuinoMeta_Blips.bin copy it into a folder on the SD card, the .hex is for flashing it directly
Adafruit PyBadge PyBadge_Blips.uf2 double press reset and copy it onto the drive that appears
Adafruit PyGamer PyGamer_Blips.uf2 same as the PyBadge
Pimoroni PicoSystem PicoSystem_Blips.uf2 hold X while switching on and copy it onto the drive that appears
Pimoroni Explorer Explorer_Blips.uf2 hold BOOT while pressing RESET and copy it onto the drive that appears
Pimoroni Tufty 2350 Tufty_Blips.uf2 hold HOME while pressing RESET and copy it onto the drive that appears
TinyCircuits Thumby Color ThumbyColor_Blips.uf2 put it into bootloader mode and copy it onto the RPI-RP2 drive that appears
Playdate Playdate_Blips.pdx.zip unzip it and sideload Blips.pdx, the same pdx runs in the Playdate simulator
Libretro / RetroArch Libretro_Blips.zip copy blips_libretro.dll into RetroArch’s cores folder and blips_libretro.info into its info folder, then Load Core and Start Core
Game Boy Advance GBA_Blips.gba put it on a flash cart or open it in an emulator, the progress is saved in the cartridge’s SRAM
Nintendo DS NDS_Blips.nds put it on a flash card or open it in an emulator, the progress is saved next to it in Blips.sav
Nintendo 3DS 3DS_Blips.3dsx copy it into /3ds/ on the SD card and start it from the Homebrew Launcher, or open it in an emulator, the progress is saved in sdmc:/3ds/Blips/
Nintendo 64 N64_Blips.z64 put it on a flash cart or open it in an emulator, the progress is saved in the cartridge EEPROM
PlayStation PSX_Blips.exe open it in an emulator or send it to a console that runs unsigned code, the progress is not saved yet
PlayStation Portable PSP_Blips.PBP rename it to EBOOT.PBP and put it in ms0:/PSP/GAME/Blips/ on the memory stick, or open it in PPSSPP
PlayStation Vita Vita_Blips.vpk install it with VitaShell on a Vita with homebrew enabled, or open it in Vita3K
Windows Windows_Blips.exe runs on its own, the progress is saved next to it in Blips.sav
MS-DOS DOS_Blips.zip unzip BLIPS.EXE onto a DOS machine or into DOSBox and run it, the progress is saved next to it in BLIPS.SAV
Browser Web_Blips.zip upload it to an itch.io HTML project, or unzip it and open index.html from a web server, the progress is saved in the browser

python tools/build_releases.py builds all of them, python tools/convert_skins.py turns the images in assets/skins and assets/skins2 into the headers the game includes and python tools/convert_levelpacks.py does the same for the level packs in assets/levelpacks. The Playdate build also needs the Playdate SDK, see platforms/playdate/CMakeLists.txt, the libretro core libretro-common, see platforms/libretro/CMakeLists.txt, the Game Boy Advance build devkitARM and libgba, see platforms/gba/CMakeLists.txt, the Nintendo DS build devkitARM, libnds and calico, see platforms/nds/CMakeLists.txt, the Nintendo 3DS build devkitARM and libctru, see platforms/3ds/CMakeLists.txt, the PlayStation build PSn00bSDK, see platforms/psx/CMakeLists.txt, the Nintendo 64 build the mips64-elf toolchain and libdragon, see platforms/n64/CMakeLists.txt, the PSP build the pspdev toolchain, see platforms/psp/CMakeLists.txt (pspdev has no Windows build, so on Windows it is built from WSL), the Vita build VitaSDK, see platforms/vita/CMakeLists.txt, the browser build Emscripten, see platforms/web/CMakeLists.txt, and the MS-DOS build DJGPP, see platforms/dos/CMakeLists.txt.

Buttons

The game’s buttons on every device:

Device D-pad A B L R
ESPboy d-pad ACT ESC LFT RGT
Gamebuino META d-pad A B MENU HOME
Adafruit PyBadge d-pad A B SELECT START
Adafruit PyGamer joystick A B SELECT START
Pimoroni PicoSystem d-pad A B Y X
Pimoroni Explorer A up, C down, B left, Y right X Z BOOT + B BOOT + Y
Pimoroni Tufty 2350 UP up, DOWN down, A left, C right B HOME HOME + A HOME + C
TinyCircuits Thumby Color d-pad A B left bumper right bumper
Playdate d-pad A B menu: restart menu: free view
Libretro d-pad A B L R
Game Boy Advance d-pad A B L R
Nintendo DS d-pad A B L R
Nintendo 3DS d-pad or circle pad A B L R
Nintendo 64 d-pad A B L R
PlayStation d-pad Cross Circle L1 R1
PlayStation Portable d-pad or the analog stick Cross Circle L R
PlayStation Vita d-pad or the left stick Cross Circle L R
Windows arrow keys X C S D
MS-DOS arrow keys X C S D
Browser arrow keys X C S D

On the Explorer BOOT is held as a shift, the direction pressed with it is not sent.

On the Tufty 2350 a tap of HOME is B when it is let go, held HOME is a shift like BOOT on the Explorer. It has no speaker, the game is silent there. Holding RESET until the rear LEDs are dark puts it to sleep, a front button wakes it up again, with UP and DOWN held as well it goes into shipping mode instead.

The Thumby Color’s display is 128x128, the game’s own size, so it is shown 1:1 over the whole screen. That build has not been tried on the device itself yet.

The Playdate shows the black & white skin, scaled up in the middle of its display. It has no side buttons, L and R are the restart and free view entries of its system menu.

The Game Boy Advance shows the game scaled to 160x160 in the middle of its screen, with black bars at the sides. Blips runs at about 20 frames a second there, the other devices show it at 30. Scrolling around a level that is bigger than the screen is slow there: the game engine draws the whole screen again while the view moves.

On the Nintendo DS the game is scaled to 192x192 in the middle of the top screen, with black bars at the sides, and the bottom screen stays dark. The progress is saved as Blips.sav on the card the game was started from, so a card that libfat can not write to (or an emulator without one) plays the game but forgets it afterwards. Its tones are square waves played as a sample: the DS’s own tone channels can not go below about 256 Hz, which is under the notes of the explosion.

On the Nintendo 3DS the game is scaled to 240x240 in the middle of the top screen, with black bars at the sides, and the bottom screen stays dark. What the game saves goes into sdmc:/3ds/Blips/Blips.sav. Its tones play through the console’s DSP when the DSP firmware has been dumped to the SD card (sdmc:/3ds/dspfirm.cdc), and through CSND when it has not: on hardware either one plays, in an emulator only the DSP one does.

On MS-DOS the game runs in VGA mode X, 320x240 in 256 colours, blown up to 240x240 in the middle of the screen with black bars at the sides. That mode rather than the usual 320x200 one because its pixels are square, where 320x200 is stretched over the same screen and would show the game a fifth too tall. The 256 colours are set to the RGB332 cube, which is exactly what the game’s 8 bpp screen buffer holds, so a frame reaches the card without a colour being worked out. Its tones are a square wave on the PC speaker, the progress is saved next to the program in BLIPS.SAV, and Escape quits. The program is 32 bit and carries the CWSDPMI host inside it, so it needs nothing beside it on the disk.

In a browser the game is drawn into a canvas of its own 128x128 pixels, which the page stretches to whatever room it is given while keeping it square and keeping the pixels sharp. What the game saves goes into the browser’s localStorage under the game’s name, so a private window plays it but forgets it afterwards. The zip holds index.html, index.js and index.wasm and is what an itch.io HTML project takes as it is.

On the Nintendo 64 the game is drawn into memory and the RDP puts it on screen scaled to 240x240 in the middle of its 320x240 screen, with black bars at the sides. Its tones are a square wave written into the buffers the sound hardware plays from. The progress is saved in the cartridge EEPROM, which the ROM says it has, so a cartridge or an emulator without one plays the game but forgets it afterwards.

On the PlayStation the game is drawn into memory, handed to the GPU as a texture and shown scaled to 240x240 in the middle of its 320x240 screen, with black bars at the sides. Its tones are a square wave the SPU plays from a single looping block. The memory card is not written yet, so the progress is gone when the console is switched off.

On the PlayStation Portable the game is doubled to 256x256 in the middle of the display, and the high scores are saved next to the EBOOT.PBP in Blips.sav.

On the PlayStation Vita the game is blown up four times to 512x512 in the middle of the display, and the high scores are saved in ux0:data/Blips/Blips.sav.

On the Gamebuino META holding HOME for a second goes back to its loader.

Game Features:

Playing the Game:

The aim of the game is to collect all the dollar coins in a level, you need to create pathways to these coins by pushing boxes around or even make them explode by pushing them into the dynamite

Controls

Button Action
DPAD Select menu’s, options, level packs or levels. Move the player in game, pan around the level in free view
A Confirm in menus, level selector and questions asked. In 2 player levels switch between the players
B Back in options and level selector, ask to quit to the level selector in game, leave free view
L Ask to restart the level
R Enter or leave free view
(A) + Left + Down Show or hide the debug info

Credits

Game is a remake of dos bips game made by Bryant Brownell and based on the gp2x version i initially made

Level authors

Graphics