Faux Manual

This document is up-to-date as of May 14, 2023.

Faux is a fantasy console heavily inspired by PICO-8, but with several alternative design choices. It is probably nowhere near as resource efficient either.

This console being in its infancy, this document is literally the only documentation that exists. As such, anything not found in this documentation should be asked of the author, or assumed to be similar to PICO-8.

What's different from PICO-8?

Glad you asked.

Probably the most important difference is that cartridges are written in JavaScript rather than Lua.

Another huge design difference is that rather than having a fixed amount of sprite/map/music data, a Faux cartridge is made up of up to 16 "sheets". Each sheet can store a certain amount of data in a specific format. Sheets can be used to hold sprite data, map data, code, and eventually music/sfx, fonts, and other types of data. The first sheet must always be a code sheet and must return an object with three properties: init, update, and draw, each of which should be a function.

Code

The code used in faux cartridges is JavaScript, but without a lot of the language built-ins. Instead, faux provides it's own api to accomplish things like drawing sprites, etc.

In the code editor, a few special characters can be inserted by holding alt while pressing another key. Currently, the characters that can be added in this way are:

Symbols for arrows:

⬆️ (Alt+W)
⬅️ (Alt+A)
⬇️ (Alt+S)
➡️ (Alt+D)

And math symbols:

π (Alt+P)

Graphics

cls(color?: number) clears the screen to the given color if provided, otherwise, black.
camera(x: number, y: number) draws everything from here on with an offset of (-x, -y).
sprsht(sheet: number) sets the current spritesheet used for drawing sprites with the spr function below.
spr(x: number, y: number, sprite: number) draws the given sprite from the current spritesheet at (x,y).
txt(x: number, y: number, text: string, color?: number) draws the given text at (x,y) in the provided color (or white if none provided).
rectfill(x: number, y: number, w: number, h: number, color: number) fills a rectangle with the given color with a top-left corner at (x,y) and a width of w and a height of h.
rect(x: number, y: number, w: number, h: number, color: number) outlines a rectangle with the given color with a top-left corner at (x,y) and a width of w and a height of h.
circfill(x: number, y: number, r: number, color: number) fills a circle with the given color with a center at (x,y) and a radius of r.
circ(x: number, y: number, r: number, color: number) outlines a circle with the given color with a center at (x,y) and a radius of r.
ovalfill(x0: number, y0: number, x1: number, y1: number, color: number) fills an ellipse with the given color whose bounding box has a top-left corner at (x0,y0) and a bottom-right corner at (x1,y1).
oval(x0: number, y0: number, x1: number, y1: number, color: number) outlines an ellipse with the given color whose bounding box has a top-left corner at (x0,y0) and a bottom-right corner at (x1,y1).
pset(x: number, y: number, color: number) sets the color of the pixel at (x,y) to the given color.
map(mapSheet: number, tileX: number, tileY: number, screenX: number, screenY: number, tileW: number, tileH: number) draws the map of the given sheet to the screen at (screenX,screenY) beginning from from the tile at (tileX,tileY) and drawing tileW many tiles across, and tileH many tiles down.

Map

mgetsht(mapSheet: number, x: number, y: number) returns the sheet number of the sprite at tile (x,y) in the given map
mgetspr(mapSheet: number, x: number, y: number) returns the sprite number within it's sheet of the sprite at tile (x,y) in the given map
mset(mapSheet: number, x: number, y: number, sprSheet: number, spr: number) sets the sprite at tile (x,y) in the given map to the given sprite of the given spritesheet. (THIS FUNCTION IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.)

Input

btn(key: string | number) returns a boolean indicating whether the given key is currently held down.
btnp(key: string | number) returns a boolean indicating whether the given key has just been pressed. Fires repeatedly after a time, as when typing.
btnr(key: string | number) returns a boolean indicating whether the given key has just been released.

There are also values:

⬆️ a number that corresponds to the up arrow.
⬅️ a number that corresponds to the left arrow.
⬇️ a number that corresponds to the down arrow.
➡️ a number that corresponds to the right arrow.

System

save(name: string) saves the cartridge
load(name: string) loads the cartridge
play() plays the cartridge

Misc.

code(sheet: number) executes the code in the given sheet as a function and returns any return value.
log(...args: any) logs the given args to the stdout of faux.

REPL Only

print(val: any) only really should be used in the repl.
printVal(val: any) only really should be used in the repl.

Math functions

These are all identical to what Javascript typically has under the Math namespace:

max
min
floor
ceil
sin
cos
atan2
sqrt
abs
rand

Faux also provides:

π which is just Math.PI in regular JS.

JS Objects

The following JS objects/functions/value are exactly provided as is in a typical JS environment:

8.3 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History