piuGBA

This is a PIU simulator for the GBA that uses StepMania SSC charts.

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Key features

• Full .ssc files support, including:
  • Normal, hold and fake notes
  • BPM changes
  • Scroll speed changes
  • Stops/Delays and async-stops
  • Warps and fast-BPM warps
• Multiple game modes:
  • Campaign: Play, unlock songs and defeat bosses
  • Arcade: Play songs in any numerical difficulty level
    • Single: 1 player, either Single (5-panel) or Double (10-panel) charts
    • Multi VS: VS battles via Link Cable or Wireless Adapter
    • Multi COOP: Double (10-panel) charts via Link Cable or Wireless Adapter
  • Impossible: Faster songs with insane mods
• Speed multipliers can be changed in-game
• Mods support:
  • Stage break: On, Off or SuddenDeath
  • Pixelate: Mosaic effect
  • Jump/Reduce: Moves game area
  • Bounce: Makes the arrows bounce
  • Color filter: Alters colors
  • Speed hack: AutoVelocity, FixedVelocity or RandomSpeed
  • Mirror and random steps
  • Training mode: Rate, Fast-forward, Rewind
  • AutoMod: Swaps mods randomly
• Background videos (uncompressed 240x160) can be displayed using a flash cart
• HQ audio (uncompressed s8 PCM) can be played using a flash cart
• Two themes: Classic and Modern
• BGA DARK background with blink effect
• Song selector with names, backgrounds and sound previews
• Hardware integrations:
  • Rumble
  • I/O LED Sync
  • SRAM LED Sync
  • PS/2 input
• Optimized to support ~70 songs per ROM file.

Downloads

The downloads provided in our Releases section include:

• A portable song importer for Windows.
• 4 clean builds (without songs) ready to be used with the importer.
  • If you use the portable importer, these files are not needed!
• A small demo with 9 songs from Project Outfox Serenity's Volume I & II sets.

To play, you need to build a ROM with your songs.

How does it work?

A node.js script (the importer) converts a list of SSC/MP3/PNG files into binary files which the GBA can then understand. For audio, it uses GSM audio files which are very small in size.

Charts are converted into a format created for this project called PIUS. Then everything is bundled in a GBFS file (a filesystem created by the GBA scene) and appended to the final ROM.

Read the wiki for more details!

How to a build a ROM

Wiki: Building a ROM

Developing

Install - Any OS (Docker)

• If you are on Windows, install WSL2
• Install Docker
• Run:

# download docker image
docker pull afska/piugba-dev

# compile game assets
./dockermake.sh assets

# install importer dependencies
./dockermake.sh install

# run ./dockermake.sh {action} {arguments...}
# for example, to build a clean Arcade ROM, use:
./dockermake.sh build ENV=production ARCADE=true

Actions

Commands

• make install: Installs the importer dependencies
• make check: Verifies that all the tools are installed correctly
• make clean: Cleans build artifacts (except assets)
• make assets: Compiles the needed assets in src/data/content/_compiled_sprites (required for compiling)
• make build: Compiles and generates a .gba file without data
• make import: Imports the songs from src/data/content/songs to a GBFS file
• make pkg: Appends the GBFS file to the ROM (piugba.gba -> piugba.out.gba)
• make package: Compiles and appends the GBFS file to the ROM (build+pkg)
• make start: Packages and starts the compiled ROM (package + launch rom)
• make rebuild: Recompiles a full ROM (clean+package)
• make restart: Recompiles and starts the ROM (rebuild+start)
• make reimport: Reimports the songs and starts the ROM without recompiling (import+package+start)

Parameters

| Name | Values | Description | | --------------- | --------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ENV | development, or debug or production | debug: everything is unlocked, backgrounds are disabled, and stage-break is OFF.<br>development: the same thing, but including backgrounds.<br>production: backgrounds, stage-break ON, and working locks.<br><br>Non-production versions also have:<br><br>1) PIU-style controls by default, and a debug menu to correct songs' offsets. See Wiki: Correcting offsets.<br><br>2) If SELECT is pressed when a campaign song starts, stage-break will be ON regardless of the environment.<br><br>3) Profiling code and some logs. | | BOSS | false or true | Automatically adds boss levels to the campaign modes. | | ARCADE | false or true | Creates an arcade-only version of the game that only uses numeric levels, without the campaign modes.<br><br>Add this parameter to both import and build commands! | | SONGS | path to a directory | Songs directory. Defaults to: src/data/content/songs | | VIDEOLIB | path to a directory | Video library output directory. Defaults to: src/data/content/piuGBA_videos | | VIDEOENABLE | false or true | Enables the conversion of video files (from ${SONGS}/_videos) to the VIDEOLIB folder.