5 ms·

Show HN: Rewtro plays tiny videogames encoded in origami GameBoy cartridges

117 points by kesiev 7y ago

kesiev 7y ago
Well... made this for my 2019 Christmas greetings cards.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  Very cool idea!
beefhash 7y ago
What good is a console that makes piracy trivial and even advertises this as a feature?
- idle_zealot 7y ago
  Writing and playing games targeting a common runtime?
- cableshaft 7y ago
  Maybe one where you don't have to sell games, you do it for fun? People do that, you know. The Pico-8 fantasy console also makes piracy trivial (you have the full source code available for each game) and yet it has a lot of good games made for it. Way back in the days of Compuserve I used to download Q-Basic games, which was just the source code file you ran in the compiler, and could change whatever you wanted, and that helped get me into programming in the first place by examining how actual programs worked, so there's a real world use case for making "piracy trivial". That was also how most people learned how to do HTML/CSS and basic Javascript back in the day, was right clicking and checking the source code. It's technically still possible now but most websites have become a mess of monolithic scripts or obfuscated code so it's less useful now.
- bovermyer 7y ago
  This console is a toy, something to play with, something fun. If you think anyone concerned with piracy is going to care about this, then perhaps you are thinking about the wrong sorts of problems.
ihuman 7y ago
This reminds me of the Nintendo e-Reader. It was a Gameboy Advance accessory that plugged into the game card slot and had a dot code barcode reader. Some cards unlocked bonus items, but there were also NES game cards. If you swiped all the cards for a game to load the rom, you could then play the game.
RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
Neat project. The folks over on r/FantasyConsoles might be interested. As far as I can tell, neither the readme nor the interface for the "engine" contain a link to this: https://www.kesiev.com/rewtro/carts/ https://www.kesiev.com/rewtro/carts/ It would be pretty hard to make new games for this platform without some real documentation for the JSON format it uses to describe games and their assets.
- kesiev 7y ago
  Ahem. I've just uploaded that folder on kesiev.com and updated the README.md accordingly, following a just opened issue. You're right about documentation. I'll try to add some kind of that when I've some spare time. :)
  - RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
    Fair enough.
tyingq 7y ago
That's pretty neat. I'd switch to this pattern to make the cube: http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/origam16.gif http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/origam16.gif Sturdier, less cutting, and would be more "true oragami". Though maybe the folds would make it harder to scan along the face edges.
- kesiev 7y ago
  I'm starting collecting nice ideas I'm hearing around to the README.md on GitHub. I've copy/pasted your post inside. Maybe, one day... some good soul... Thanks!
danShumway 7y ago
I love this. It's incredibly creative and fun. I had an E-Reader growing up, which was a similar concept but suffered from problems in that it was trying to fit a disposable experience onto an expensive piece of dedicated hardware. The scanning experience was sub-par and the ecosystem just didn't lend itself well to trading or hiding cards. The E-reader was trying to match a disposable, tiny experience to an expensive, closed ecosystem, and that discordance meant that it just didn't work very well. But this -- everyone has a phone that can read these, you don't have to install anything, anyone can print them out and share them. I see this and immediately start thinking of fun things to do with the platform. I love the physicality that's kind of missing from fantasy consoles like Pico-8. This is wonderful, I hope you continue working on it.
0wis 7y ago
So great ! A combination of constrained simplicity with a physical support that you can hold in your hands ! I like both concepts, moreover in software where its now rarer than ever. Mostly because there is no more truly useful application. But you found one ! Thanks for sharing, I don’t know yet to do with it but it made my day.
slantyyz 7y ago
Ok, are any of the old fogeys here other than me reminded of the Cauzin Softstrip when they see the printable/scannable code? Back in the day, way back, actually, you would manually type in source code from print magazines for applications (and sometimes bug fixes wouldn't show up until a month or two later in a subsequent issue of the magazine). The Softstrip was an alternative (that required buying a special scanner) so you wouldn't have to type in all the source code manually. Another novel way of distributing code (without typing) via print magazine was thin a strip of vinyl that you would play on a record player (and weigh it down with a coin) that you would wire into the audio in port (or cassette port) of your computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauzin_Softstrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauzin_Softstrip https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/15/science/personal-computers-supermarket-bar-codes-are-applied-to-software.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/15/science/personal-computer...
- kesiev 7y ago
  Incredible! I used to type in C64/ZX Spectrum games sources from magazines all the times... never known that were such creative alternatives! I wonder if they came to Italy in the past... Thanks for sharing - I'll try to learn more about that! Thanks!
- RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
  From the article, shortsighted, or prophetic? > The vast majority of personal computer owners have two or three programs that they use regularly, and that is all they really need.
  - prox 7y ago
    The answer, as always, is : it depends. Some folks use their laptop as a fancy and expensive browser window and nothing else, while others use 20 apps concurrently.
turtlebits 7y ago
Novel idea but these are not origami, but print, cut and fold. My expectations for the “carts” was much higher from the description.
godelzilla 7y ago
Somewhat misleading. The videogames are encoded in QR codes which can be printed onto "origami". I was expecting the games to actually be encoded in origami via folding patterns, etc. Still fun though!
- kesiev 7y ago
  Sorry for the mislead. I admit that my unhappy choice of the term "origami" to quickly describe the carts is giving me headaches on internet. I thought that the "generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper" of Wikipedia could make me a little safe... but it's clearly not working :) Anyway encoding data with foldings is a whacky idea I like. Something that a villain could use to hide hints about his next move :)
  - jldugger 7y ago
    "papercraft" is the normal term for that kind of thing, no?
    - kesiev 7y ago
      Thanks! I've de-origamized the GitHub repo and replaced with "papercraft". Sadly I can't change social posts. Well... okay. :)
crooked-v 7y ago
This is neat. Would you be open to a PR that adds a basic build system setup, so the output files can do PWA offline stuff without depending on PHP on the server? This also allows other conveniences (like not needing to hardcode absolute paths for asset files), but adds a step before being able to put the built version of the source online.
PostOnce 7y ago
Absolutely kudos for building this, it's something I've daydreamed about for a while. If you ever do a successor format, color triangle barcodes can store 3x as much information per square inch -- so you could either have just one scannable code on the back of the cart, or have 3x as much game with the current method. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/hccb-hccbcompare.jpg https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/hccb-lightexamples.jpg https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... Other random thoughts, if the engine had any "built in assets", the few kb of pure-code could go further. Anyway, lovely stuff. Good work.
- kesiev 7y ago
  Thank you! When I was looking for a printable format for encoding games I stumbled upon HCCB but I was in a hurry and I didn't managed to find anything stand-alone, opensource, JavaScript, and easy to integrate that could encode/decode HCCB. I've noted your suggestion on README.md, just to not forget your good idea. If you've found some technology that may help, feel free to suggest. Right now the only built-in assets are default fonts, that can be overridden by on-cartridge graphics. I decided to keep out game-specific assets (even generic ones, like arrows, circles, squares etc.) from the console code, keeping only what's usually considered "on the machine ROM". Some 8-bit machines used to have symbols built-in in fonts (like the C64) but I reduced the number of valid string symbols from the usual 256 to 64 in order to spare few bits in long texts :)
tostao82 7y ago
Absolutely fantastic idea!!!

117 points by kesiev 7y ago

kesiev 7y ago

Well... made this for my 2019 Christmas greetings cards.

cableshaft 7y ago
Very cool idea!

beefhash 7y ago

What good is a console that makes piracy trivial and even advertises this as a feature?

idle_zealot 7y ago
Writing and playing games targeting a common runtime?
cableshaft 7y ago
Maybe one where you don't have to sell games, you do it for fun? People do that, you know. The Pico-8 fantasy console also makes piracy trivial (you have the full source code available for each game) and yet it has a lot of good games made for it. Way back in the days of Compuserve I used to download Q-Basic games, which was just the source code file you ran in the compiler, and could change whatever you wanted, and that helped get me into programming in the first place by examining how actual programs worked, so there's a real world use case for making "piracy trivial". That was also how most people learned how to do HTML/CSS and basic Javascript back in the day, was right clicking and checking the source code. It's technically still possible now but most websites have become a mess of monolithic scripts or obfuscated code so it's less useful now.
bovermyer 7y ago
This console is a toy, something to play with, something fun. If you think anyone concerned with piracy is going to care about this, then perhaps you are thinking about the wrong sorts of problems.

ihuman 7y ago

This reminds me of the Nintendo e-Reader. It was a Gameboy Advance accessory that plugged into the game card slot and had a dot code barcode reader. Some cards unlocked bonus items, but there were also NES game cards. If you swiped all the cards for a game to load the rom, you could then play the game.

RodgerTheGreat 7y ago

Neat project. The folks over on r/FantasyConsoles might be interested. As far as I can tell, neither the readme nor the interface for the "engine" contain a link to this: https://www.kesiev.com/rewtro/carts/ https://www.kesiev.com/rewtro/carts/ It would be pretty hard to make new games for this platform without some real documentation for the JSON format it uses to describe games and their assets.

kesiev 7y ago
Ahem. I've just uploaded that folder on kesiev.com and updated the README.md accordingly, following a just opened issue. You're right about documentation. I'll try to add some kind of that when I've some spare time. :)
- RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
  Fair enough.

tyingq 7y ago

That's pretty neat. I'd switch to this pattern to make the cube: http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/origam16.gif http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/origam16.gif Sturdier, less cutting, and would be more "true oragami". Though maybe the folds would make it harder to scan along the face edges.

kesiev 7y ago
I'm starting collecting nice ideas I'm hearing around to the README.md on GitHub. I've copy/pasted your post inside. Maybe, one day... some good soul... Thanks!

danShumway 7y ago

I love this. It's incredibly creative and fun. I had an E-Reader growing up, which was a similar concept but suffered from problems in that it was trying to fit a disposable experience onto an expensive piece of dedicated hardware. The scanning experience was sub-par and the ecosystem just didn't lend itself well to trading or hiding cards. The E-reader was trying to match a disposable, tiny experience to an expensive, closed ecosystem, and that discordance meant that it just didn't work very well. But this -- everyone has a phone that can read these, you don't have to install anything, anyone can print them out and share them. I see this and immediately start thinking of fun things to do with the platform. I love the physicality that's kind of missing from fantasy consoles like Pico-8. This is wonderful, I hope you continue working on it.

0wis 7y ago

So great ! A combination of constrained simplicity with a physical support that you can hold in your hands ! I like both concepts, moreover in software where its now rarer than ever. Mostly because there is no more truly useful application. But you found one ! Thanks for sharing, I don’t know yet to do with it but it made my day.

slantyyz 7y ago

Ok, are any of the old fogeys here other than me reminded of the Cauzin Softstrip when they see the printable/scannable code? Back in the day, way back, actually, you would manually type in source code from print magazines for applications (and sometimes bug fixes wouldn't show up until a month or two later in a subsequent issue of the magazine). The Softstrip was an alternative (that required buying a special scanner) so you wouldn't have to type in all the source code manually. Another novel way of distributing code (without typing) via print magazine was thin a strip of vinyl that you would play on a record player (and weigh it down with a coin) that you would wire into the audio in port (or cassette port) of your computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauzin_Softstrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauzin_Softstrip https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/15/science/personal-computers-supermarket-bar-codes-are-applied-to-software.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/15/science/personal-computer...

kesiev 7y ago
Incredible! I used to type in C64/ZX Spectrum games sources from magazines all the times... never known that were such creative alternatives! I wonder if they came to Italy in the past... Thanks for sharing - I'll try to learn more about that! Thanks!
RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
From the article, shortsighted, or prophetic? > The vast majority of personal computer owners have two or three programs that they use regularly, and that is all they really need.
- prox 7y ago
  The answer, as always, is : it depends. Some folks use their laptop as a fancy and expensive browser window and nothing else, while others use 20 apps concurrently.

turtlebits 7y ago

Novel idea but these are not origami, but print, cut and fold. My expectations for the “carts” was much higher from the description.

godelzilla 7y ago

Somewhat misleading. The videogames are encoded in QR codes which can be printed onto "origami". I was expecting the games to actually be encoded in origami via folding patterns, etc. Still fun though!

kesiev 7y ago
Sorry for the mislead. I admit that my unhappy choice of the term "origami" to quickly describe the carts is giving me headaches on internet. I thought that the "generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper" of Wikipedia could make me a little safe... but it's clearly not working :) Anyway encoding data with foldings is a whacky idea I like. Something that a villain could use to hide hints about his next move :)
- jldugger 7y ago
  "papercraft" is the normal term for that kind of thing, no?
  - kesiev 7y ago
    Thanks! I've de-origamized the GitHub repo and replaced with "papercraft". Sadly I can't change social posts. Well... okay. :)

crooked-v 7y ago

This is neat. Would you be open to a PR that adds a basic build system setup, so the output files can do PWA offline stuff without depending on PHP on the server? This also allows other conveniences (like not needing to hardcode absolute paths for asset files), but adds a step before being able to put the built version of the source online.

PostOnce 7y ago

Absolutely kudos for building this, it's something I've daydreamed about for a while. If you ever do a successor format, color triangle barcodes can store 3x as much information per square inch -- so you could either have just one scannable code on the back of the cart, or have 3x as much game with the current method. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/hccb-hccbcompare.jpg https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/hccb-lightexamples.jpg https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... Other random thoughts, if the engine had any "built in assets", the few kb of pure-code could go further. Anyway, lovely stuff. Good work.

kesiev 7y ago
Thank you! When I was looking for a printable format for encoding games I stumbled upon HCCB but I was in a hurry and I didn't managed to find anything stand-alone, opensource, JavaScript, and easy to integrate that could encode/decode HCCB. I've noted your suggestion on README.md, just to not forget your good idea. If you've found some technology that may help, feel free to suggest. Right now the only built-in assets are default fonts, that can be overridden by on-cartridge graphics. I decided to keep out game-specific assets (even generic ones, like arrows, circles, squares etc.) from the console code, keeping only what's usually considered "on the machine ROM". Some 8-bit machines used to have symbols built-in in fonts (like the C64) but I reduced the number of valid string symbols from the usual 256 to 64 in order to spare few bits in long texts :)

tostao82 7y ago

Absolutely fantastic idea!!!