FREM Sprite32! in Early Access

Hi!

I've been working on a simulator/sandbox/programming/retro-computer-y thing the past handful of months, and wanted to share it with the world! Right now, you can play around with the Sandbox and learn all about the language that powers the machine: FREMScript. The language is a high-level interpreted programming language, designed to be easy to learn, and to feel like a language that might have appeared sometime during the 1980s home computer era. Likewise, the Sprite32! system (that exclamation point really complicates sentences) was created to capture the feel of machines like the C64, Apple II, and other popular machines from that time period. 

Current Features

• Write programs using the high-level FREMScript interpreted programming language
• Read the in-game manual to learn the language, discover system settings, and copy code examples to run in the editor.
• Display text and get keyboard input from the user as the program runs.
• Get feedback in the status window for current system state, including program errors and highlighting.
• Play with sprites, pixels, the color grid, and 3-channel waveform audio generation.
• Save and load files, even swap out the default boot program with your own!
• Download additional FREMScript examples using the GitHub repository.

What's Next?

• Scenarios: Go deeper into FREMScript with challenges and goals
• More Documentation and examples
• General improvements and UI polish

Roadmap/Timeline

In the immediate term, the main focus will be to address any reported bugs or issues. This is the first game I've released to other than a handful of friends, so I have to get a feel for what that's like. Drop some feedback in the comments or hit me up at the email provided on the game launcher.

I'm in the early stages of adding some kind of story elements, which I'm tentatively calling "Scenarios". I like the feel of the sandbox environment, as that's what I'm usually looking for in other programming games. This is why I've chosen to release the game in its current state, as the sandbox works pretty well and is generally feature complete. That being said, there's not much else there for anyone looking to be engaged with specific tasks to complete. I don't have any objectives, win conditions, etc. It's just a sandbox for you to do things with FREMScript. I have a bunch of rough storyboard ideas that I came up with in the preliminary inspiration stages, and there are several unfinished examples in the GitHub repo that derive from those. The plan is to take some of these ideas and turn them into scenarios for the player to complete. I'm not exactly sure where I'll land with those, but before calling this game "finished", the intention is to add some gameplay elements.

I guess that's about it for now.

Thanks for reading!

-- John 

Negative(-11) Games Division