Desktop Version

The game can be run on your computer, which allows you to experiment with it without needing to setup an ESP32. The desktop emulator lives in the catode32-desktop crate.

Requirements

• Rust
• SDL2

The emulator uses SDL2 to render the same 128x64 framebuffer that would normally render to the hardware screen to a desktop window instead.

On macOS:

brew install sdl2

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libsdl2-dev

Running the emulator

The default target when building is for ESP32 (riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf). To run it on desktop instead you need to pass --target with your host triple when building the desktop crate.

Examples:

Apple Silicon:

cargo run -p catode32-desktop --target aarch64-apple-darwin

Intel Mac:

cargo run -p catode32-desktop --target x86_64-apple-darwin

Linux:

cargo run -p catode32-desktop --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Controls

Key	Action
Arrow keys	D-pad
A	A (Select)
S	B (Back/Cancel)
Q	Menu 1
W	Menu 2
Esc	Quit Emulator

Custom colors

You can change the screen colors when you launch the emulator. Put the options after -- so cargo passes them through to the program:

For example, when running on linux:

cargo run -p catode32-desktop --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -- --fg 33ff66 --bg 000000

Option	Sets	Default
--fg RRGGBB	Lit pixel color	23A5CC
--bg RRGGBB	Background color	0A0A0A

Colors are 6-digit hex. The leading # is optional (quote it in the shell, e.g. --fg '#33ff66'), and --fg=33ff66 also works. Run with --help to see all options.

Save file

The desktop save is stored at ./catode32-save.json in the current working directory. It is separate from the device save, which lives on the ESP32's nvs flash partition.