Guide to Contribute a Game to the Arcade Machine

This guide takes you through the steps required for your game to be added into the arcade-machine library

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Table of contents

• Guide to Contribute a Game to the Arcade Machine
  • Coding
    • Quit Request
    • Window Size
    • Window Border
    • Resources
    • Other
  • Controls
    • Player One
    • Player Two
    • General
  • Compiling
  • Artwork
  • Configuration
  • Content
  • Contributing

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Coding

To make the game accessible and controllable by the arcade machine, some additional code or changes are required

Quit Request

Your game must be able to be exited using the escape key This can be achieved by including the following command in your main loop.

int main()
{
    while(!key_down(ESCAPE_KEY))
    {
        // game play
    }
}

Window Size

The window size of your game cannot exceed 1600 x 900, this is to allow your game to sit neatly inside the arcade-machine itself. Similarly, there is a minimum window size of 640 x 480, to ensure visibility for the user.

The window size of your game cannot exceed 1600 x 900, this is to allow your game to sit neatly inside the arcade-machine itself. Similarly, but mainly for aesthetic purposes, a minimum window size of 640 x 480 is expected.

Window Border

We ask that you remove the border before compiling your game. The Arcade Machine provides a more immersive experience for the user if there is no border. To remove the border of your game window, use SplashKit’s window_toggle_border(); function after the open_window() function like so:

int main()
{
    open_window("my-game", width, height);
    window_toggle_border("my-game");
}

Resources

SplashKit locates the resources directory in different places for different operating systems. To ensure your resources are located correctly, please include the following in your program.cpp file:

#ifdef _WIN32
#define PATH_SEP "\\"
#else
#define PATH_SEP "/"
#endif

Then in main:

int main()
{
    // other code...

    // before get resource bundle
    set_resources_path("Resources", PATH_SEP);
}

Other

To ensure the arcade machine can retrieve files using path information, please refrain from adding whitespace to any file path. Example: Use my-game instead of my game.. etc.

Controls

The following keys are required to be the functional keys of your game to be compatible with the arcade machine.

Player One

Up: W | Left: A | Down S | Right: D Weak(1): R | Weak(2): F Med(1) : T | Med(2) : G Hard(1): Y | Hard(2): H

Player Two

Up: UP_ARROW | Left: LEFT_ARROW | Down: DOWN_ARROW | Right: RIGHT_ARROW Weak(1): U | Weak(2): J Med(1) : I | Med(2) : K Hard(1): O | Hard(2): L

General

Start: ENTER Escape: ESC

Compiling

The compiling of your game is handled automatically through GitHub actions. Your game will be compiled into executables compatible with Windows, Linux and MacOS operating systems.
Please ensure all program files (.h and .cpp) are provided in your pull request

Artwork

A preview of your game will be shown in the Arcade Machine games menu. Please include an image of your game.
This image must be sized as 600px x 540px so it will be displayed correctly in the games menu.
The supported formats are png, jpg and bmp.

If you don’t have access to image editing software such as Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop etc, we suggest you use a browser-based tool such as resizeimage to resize, crop or format a screenshot of your game.

Configuration

Each game must have a config file containing information about the game.
There is a config.txt file located in the base directory of the repository, copy this file into the base directory of your game file and fill it with your game information. It must match the example config file shown below, but with your game information.

The configuration file must be in text (.txt) format, and it must be named config.txt.
This must be located in your games root directory, alongside your program.cpp (example below)

Content

(TBA - explanation of content requirements)

Contributing

Congratulations!

You have now completed all the steps required to have your game showcased on the Arcade Machine.

To contribute your game, go to the Thoth Tech arcade-games repository
Click the ‘Fork’ button at the top right of the screen and create a fork of this repository.

When creating the fork, uncheck the "Copy the main branch only" option, which is selected by default.

If you only have the main branch in your fork, it can cause automated build tools to fail when you submit a PR.

You will now have the arcade-games repository in your personal Git.

On your local, navigate to a desired file path and clone this repository using the bash command:

git clone https://github.com/<your-git-username>/arcade-games.git

Add your game to the directory and stage a commit to the remote repo:

git add .

In your commit message, include your name and the name of the game:

git commit -m ”Anthony George - Venture Adventure”
git push

You will now see your game in the remote fork.

Now create a Pull request to have your game added to the arcade-machine.

Click the ‘Pull requests’ tab, then click ‘New pull request’ button, then click 'Create pull request'

Write a message for the Arcade Machine and hit 'Create pull request'

You will see that merging is blocked until a member of the Arcade-Machine team has reviewed your game.
We will be sure to get in contact with you once it has been approved!