Goals and plan

A player picks games on this site, presses Update, and the PiTrex SD card holds exactly that selection: PiTrex games, classic Vectrex games and arcade games, with the player's own ROMs left alone. On the Vectrex, a new menu shows one game at a time as a big animated tile. I'm building it in stages; each one is usable on its own.

Goals

For players: find a game (PiTrex, classic Vectrex or arcade), put it on the card in a few clicks, play it, and update it later without losing saves.
For developers: one package format, one place to publish, and no loader rebuild for every new game.
For the PiTrex: make it as easy to use as it is capable, so more Vectrex owners get to enjoy it.

How it works

A game is a folder under games/ on the SD card, with a game.ini (title, author, version, which build to start), an animated vector icon and the game's own files. Copy the folder and the game shows up in the menu.
Classic and arcade games only get a description: the ROM stays where it is today, in vectrex/ or roms/.
Saves are safe: a game writes into its own saves/ folder, and an update never touches it.
No ROMs from here: pitrex.io never ships arcade ROMs. Arcade games need your own romset in roms/; the menu says "NO ROMSET" instead of hiding the game.

The stages

PiTrex games by copying a folder in progress

The loader reads games/, shows names instead of file names, starts the right build for the board, checks that everything a game needs is there, and tells the game where its folder is. Back to the menu still works with buttons 1+2+3+4.
The new menu first version in the simulator

One big animated tile per game; buttons 1 and 2 switch between FAVORITES, PITREX, CLASSIC and ARCADE; button 3 opens an A to Z index; button 4 the details, with exactly three choices: PLAY, FAVORITE, BACK. It runs in a desktop simulator of the PiTrex today; next it goes onto the real hardware.
The store on the web, with Update online, beta

This site. Pick games and favorites, then Update: with the card in the computer, Chrome and Edge write your selection straight to it after showing the list of changes; other browsers download it as a zip. A way for developers to publish their games.
Everything from today's PiTrex SD card planned

All the content of the current PiTrex SD card comes into the store as packages: the games, the emulators and the freely distributable Vectrex ROMs. Starting from an empty card, Update then gives you everything you have today, in the new menu.
Developers on board planned

Developers publish and update their own games on pitrex.io, and the games from the PiTrex repositories become available as their developers approve them.

Roger

← Back to the games