Super Mario 64, GBA Edition

Status

• [-] Rendering
  • Implement basic rasterisation
  • Texture support
  • Figures
    • Animation
  • Stage
    • [-] Water
      • Water level
      • Switch palette when underwater
      • [-] Interaction with figures
  • Translucent shadows
  • [-] Particles
• Level geometry
  • Build-time mesh processing
  • Build-time flat colour derivation
  • Acceleration structure
  • Render sky texture
• [-] Camera
  • Vertex matrix transform
  • Perspective transform
  • Basic movement
  • [-] Camera reorientation
  • [-] First person
• [-] Mario
  • Basic rendering (blob)
  • Basic camera-relative movement
  • Gravity
  • More complex movement
    • Wall slide/jump
    • Long jump
    • Triple jump
    • Ground pound
    • Crouch
    • Dive
    • Belly slide
    • Butt slide
    • [-] Punch
    • [-] Kick
    • [-] Side jump
    • [-] Ledge grab
    • [-] Swimming
  • Pre-render sprites for each limb
  • Animations
• [-] Physics
  • Collision detection
  • Basic collision resolution
  • [-] Ordered/iterative collision resolution
  • [-] Moving terrain-like objects
• [-] Entities
  • Implement ECS
  • [-] Objects
    • Doors
    • Stars
    • [-] Coins
    • [-] Trees
  • [-] Enemies
    • [-] Goombas
  • [-] Characters
    • [-] Toads
    • [-] Koopa the Quick
• [-] Scenes
  • Stage changes
  • [-] Scene transitions
    • Doors allow transitions
    • Allow toggling stage elements when going through transitions
    • Porthole
    • Bowser face
  • [-] Separate 'stage' and 'scene'
  • [-] Intro sequence
• [-] Progression
  • Stars
  • [-] Saving game state
  • [-] Associate stars with save state
• [-] Gameplay
  • Scene changes
  • Health
  • [-] Lives
• [-] Menu/UI
  • Pause menu
  • [-] Main menu
  • [-] Signs
• [-] Audio
  • Basic sample-based audio
  • Simple additive mixer
  • Support for playing sound effects through channels
  • Background music
  • [-] Sequenced music
• [-] Debugging
  • Build-time metrics switch
  • Metric: pixel tests
  • Metric: pixel draws
  • Metric: vertex transforms
  • Metric: polygon draws

Build & run (mGBA)

Requirements:

1. Install rustup.

2. Install mGBA (on Ubuntu, the package is mgba-qt).

Run the executable with mGBA (mGBA can run ELF executables directly):

# Build and run the game executable
cargo --config arch/gba.toml run --release

Build (hardware / other emulators)

Requirements:

1. Install rustup.

2. Install the freestanding ARM version of GCC's binutils (on Ubuntu, the package is binutils-arm-none-eabi).

3. Install gbafix (there are several implementations. Since you have Rust installed, cargo install gbafix will do).

# Build the game executable
cargo --config arch/gba.toml run --release

# Copy the contents of the game executable's ELF into a ROM binary
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary target/gba/release/sm64-gba target/sm64-gba.gba

# Fix-up the ROM header such that it is compatible with the GBA's BIOS
gbafix target/sm64-gba.gba

Side-load the .gba using your desired method, such as a flash cart.

Debugging

Requirements:

1. Installed cargo-asm, by running cargo install cargo-show-asm.

When developing, it's often useful to disassemble a specific function to ensure that the compiler is generating good assembly code.

# Disassemble the given function with inline Rust annotations
cargo --config arch/gba.toml asm -p sm64-gba --bin sm64-gba --rust --simplify <function name>

# Disassemble math code
cargo --config arch/gba.toml asm --target armv5te-unknown-linux-gnueabi --rust -p sm64-gba-math --lib

Testing

# Run tests
cargo test -p sm64-gba-math

Material attributes

Stage material attributes are applied with material names like <name>:attr0,attr1,attr2.

Attributes include:

• slide: causes the player to enter a sliding state when standing on the surface
• slippery: reduces friction when moving on the surface
• unsolid: Surface does not partake in collision detection
• floor: Surface always behaves like a floor, no matter how steep
• animate_u=<f32> and animate_v=<f32>: Surface texture coordinates scroll by the given amount over one second
• double_sided: causes surfaces to have a front and back side, useful for transparent objects like fences