Make a game

Start

Create a project with Game: Swift, Game: C or Game: nodes (Wii Homebrew). You get a small ball-and-paddle game with its own sprite and sound. Press Build & Run to play it.

How a game works

Every frame, the app calls two functions you write:

• Update (appOnFrame): read the controllers, move things, check collisions.
• Draw (appOnDraw): draw everything. The screen is 640 × 480 with y pointing down.

Example (Swift)

var x = 100

func appOnFrame() {
    if held(Button.right) { x += 4 }
    if pressed(Button.a) { playSound(Sound.blip) }
}

func appOnDraw() {
    drawSprite(Sprite.ball, x, 200)
    drawText("Score 0", 20, 16, size: 24)
}

Pictures and sound

Put images (.png, .jpg) and sounds (.wav, .mp3, …) in the project's assets/ folder. Each is named after its file: ball.png is Sprite.ball, blip.wav is Sound.blip. Keep sprites small and sounds short; they're stored in memory.

Drawing

• drawRect(x, y, w, h, r:, g:, b:, a:): a coloured box.
• drawText(text, x, y, size:, r:, g:, b:): text. Sizes 16, 24, 32 and 48 are always available.
• drawSprite(sprite, x, y), drawSpriteScaled(…) to resize or flip, and drawSpriteRegion(…) for sprite sheets.

Controllers

• held(button) and pressed(button) for the Wii Remote buttons. pressed is true only on the frame the button goes down.
• stickX() and stickY() for a Nunchuk, Classic Controller or GameCube stick (−1 to 1).
• pointerX(), pointerY() and pointerVisible() for pointing with the Wii Remote.
• Up to four players: add player: 1, 2 or 3. A GameCube pad or Classic Controller counts as that player's Wii Remote.

Other helpers: overlaps(…) for rectangle collisions, randomInt(lo, hi), playSound(sound). Music: put a .brstm (for example one from Mario Kart Wii, or made with Make .brstm) in assets/ and call playMusic(Music.name); it streams and loops using the file's loop points. stopMusic() and musicPlaying() do what they say. The Play Music node does the same.

Without code

Choose Game: nodes. The node editor has On Draw, Draw Rectangle, Draw Sprite, Play Sound and input nodes such as Button Held and Stick Left/Right.

Good to know

• Drawing uses the Wii's graphics hardware, so many sprites per frame is fine.
• On a widescreen TV the 4:3 picture keeps its shape with bars at the sides.
• Games can still use the UI designer for menus and score text; widgets draw on top of your game.