Awesome

BeatBeast

...by Afska & Lu & Synthenia.

This is our entry for the GBA Jam 2024!

Help Joaquín shoot his way out of this rhythmic world!

Experience 15 minutes of intense fun, and even more if rhythm games usually have you off beat. Featuring an amazing 3D title screen, powered by an impressive stack of 150 BMP files pushing 3.66 triangles per second! Enjoy menus accompanied by Good Sounding Music (GSM) and dive into main gameplay with Perfectly Crafted Melodies (PCM)—it's a sound blast!

Made with Butano. Check out the #licenses folder for details!

Install

The game uses a fork of the Butano engine (created from its v17.7.0 version) that disables its audio player, so we can use gsmplayer-gba for UI music and a custom player that plays PCM audio for main gameplay. The forked engine code is included here for simplicity, so users only have to clone this repository in order to compile the game.

The ROM file submitted to the jam was compiled using the latest devkitARM version available at the time (GCC 14.1.0).

# This assumes WSL2 on Windows, but it should be similar in other *nix environments.
cd ~

# Install toolchain
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git python3 python-is-python3
wget https://apt.devkitpro.org/install-devkitpro-pacman
chmod +x ./install-devkitpro-pacman
sudo ./install-devkitpro-pacman
sudo dkp-pacman -Sy
sudo dkp-pacman -Syu
sudo dkp-pacman -S gba-dev
# [!] manual: restart shell

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/afska/beat-beast
cd beat-beast/

# Compile
make -j$(nproc)
# (this will generate a beat-beast.out.gba ROM file)

# --- optional ---
# to update boss scripts:
make rebuild # the `rebuild` target builds the levels && the code
# (requires extra development tools, like node)

# --- macOS ---
# - install devkitARM following the official instructions
# - set the PYTHON variable in the Makefile to python3
# - compile with make -j$(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu)

Development scripts

Install required tools

# [!] manual: install nvm / node 18
sudo apt install gimp -y
sudo apt install -y imagemagick-6.q16

Import levels

cd importer/
# [!] first time: npm install
node src/importer.js
# (generates `*.boss` files in `gbfs_files`)

Export sprites

make sprites XCF=dj
# (exports individual sprites to `graphics/` from `graphics/sprites/dj.xcf`)

Build music

# GSM
ffmpeg -y -i input.wav -ac 1 -af 'aresample=18157' -strict unofficial -c:a gsm output.gsm
ffplay -ar 18157 output.gsm
# PCM
ffmpeg -y -i input.wav -ac 1 -ar 36314 -f s8 output.pcm
ffplay -ar 36314 -f s8 output.pcm
# Batch convert:
for file in *.wav; do
  output="${file%.wav}.pcm"
  ffmpeg -y -i "$file" -ac 1 -ar 36314 -f s8 "$output"
done

Build background videos

ffmpeg -y -i "input.mp4" -r 30 "output_%05d.png"
for file in *.png; do
  magick $file -resize 240x160! -colors 253 -unique-colors tmpPalette.bmp && magick importer/black.bmp tmpPalette.bmp +append tmpPalette.bmp && magick $file -resize 240x160! -background black -gravity northwest -extent 256x256 -colors 253 -remap tmpPalette.bmp "$file" && rm tmpPalette.bmp
done
for file in *.png; do
  output="${file%.png}.bmp"
  magick "$file" -define bmp:format=bmp3 -compress None -type Palette "$output"
done

Build preview videos

ffmpeg -y -i "input.mp4" -r 30 -vf "scale=64:64:flags=neighbor" "preview_%03d.png"
# -> use triangle.png from graphics/sprites/triangle.png
for file in preview_*.png; do
  ffmpeg -y -i "$file" -i triangle.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]alphamerge, format=yuva420p, lut=a=val*255" "$file"
done
# [!] manual: only keep 150 frames (5 seconds loop), then set `start` and `end` in the next command
start=188; end=337; for i in $(seq $start $end); do mv "preview_$(printf "%03d" $i).png" "preview_$(printf "%03d" $(($i - $start))).png"; done
ffmpeg -y -i "preview_%03d.png" -filter_complex "tile=1x150" "preview.png"

VS Code settings

Extensions: C/C++, EditorConfig for VS Code

Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON)

{
  "C_Cpp.clang_format_style": "{ BasedOnStyle: Chromium }",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true
}

Troubleshooting

Link errors

If you've added new folders, ensure they're in Makefile's SOURCES list!