rust_pixel

Change Log  |  Principle  |  Coding  |  FAQ  |  TODO  |  Art Center Roadmap

RustPixel is a 2D game engine & rapid prototyping tools, supporting both text and graphics rendering modes.
It is suitable for creating 2D pixel-style games and developing terminal applications.
It can be compiled into FFI for front-end and back-end use, and into WASM for web projects.

• Text Mode: Built with crossterm, runs in the terminal, and uses ASCII & Unicode Emoji for drawing.
• Graphical Mode: Built with wgpu & glow & sdl2, using PETSCII/ASCII & custom graphics symbols for rendering.

Here is a petscii art painting browser made with rust_pixel. Special thanks to x.com/PETSCIIWORLD for the character painting and the transition shader provided by gltransition. Click here for online demo。

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4758f2b6-66c2-47ed-997d-a9066be449aa

Features

• Game loops & Model/Render design pattern (game.rs)
• Event/Timer messaging mechanism (event.rs)
• Unified render adapter trait for text & graphics mode( adapter.rs )
• Support text render mode (crossterm) (cross_adapter.rs)
• OpenGL mode supports sdl and wasm (glow & sdl2 | winit) (sdl_adapter.rs, winit_glow_adapter.rs, web_adapter.rs)
• Wgpu drawing mode (winit & wgpu) (winit_wgpu_adapter.rs)
• 3 core OpenGl shaders for gl & web graphics mode: (gl/)
• 3 core Wgpu shaders for wgpu graphics mode: (wgpu/)
  • instance rendering shader for draw mainbuffer (render_symbols.rs)
  • transition shader for transition effect (render_transition.rs)
  • general 2d shader for draw render texture (render_general2d.rs)
• Some common game algorithms (algorithm.rs, algorithm/, util.rs, util/)
• audio & log support (audio.rs, log.rs)
• Demo games: tetris, tower, poker... (apps/)
• Demo terminal ui app: palette... (apps/)
• Examples of wrapping core algorithms into FFI and WASM (apps/poker/ffi, apps/poker/wasm)
• Cargo style cli tool: cargo-pixel

Installation Guide

The main steps of the installation process are as follows:

• Install DroidSansMono Nerd Font & setup terminal (for text render mode)
• Install dependent libraries and softwares
• Install Rust and Wasm-pack

The detailed steps for each operating system:   MacOS   |   Linux   |   Windows (WSL)   |   Windows (Native)

Starting from version 0.5.3, you can deploy cargo-pixel directly from crates.io:

cargo install rust_pixel         # use crates.io rust_pixel crate deploy cargo-pixel
cargo pixel                      # first run cargo-pixel will clone rust_pixel to <homedir>/rust_pixel_work automatic 
cd ~/rust_pixel_work             # cd to workspace
cargo pixel r petview s          # run demo game...

To use the newest code, you should clone RustPixel and deploy cargo-pixel tool:

git clone https://github.com/zipxing/rust_pixel
cd rust_pixel
cargo install --path . --force

If you have installed an old version of cargo-pixel, you may get an error when running it. git update is required and the new version of cargo-pixel is deployed manually:

cd rust_pixel
git pull
cargo install --path . --force

Usage Instructions

cd rust_pixel
cargo pixel run snake term            #Run the snake game in terminal mode
cargo pixel r snake t                 #Run the snake game in terminal mode - shorthand
cargo pixel r tetris s                #Run the Tetris game in SDL window mode
cargo pixel r tower w                 #Run tower in web,visit http://localhost:8080/ in your browser
cargo pixel r tower w --webport 8081  #Change web server port
cargo pixel r tower w -r              #Run with release mode
cargo pixel r petview g -r            #Run the petview game in winit+glow mode
cargo pixel r petview wg -r           #Run the petview game in winit+wgpu mode

You can also use cargo pixel to create your own game or app:

cargo pixel c mygame           #Create mygame in ./apps using apps/template as a template

Creat a standalone app in some directory:

cargo pixel c myapp ..  #Create a standalone crate in ../myapp 
cd ../myapp 
cargo pixel r myapp t
cargo pixel r myapp s

RustPixel also includes several tools:

1. palette: A terminal-ui tool to generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors.

cargo pixel r palette t -r

2. edit: Used to edit character art assets, example:

#term mode
cargo pixel edit term . assets/logo.txt
or
cargo pixel e t . assets/logo.txt

#graphics mode
cargo pixel edit sdl . assets/logo.pix
or 
cargo pixel e s . assets/logo.pix

3. petii: Used to convert regular images into PETSCII character art, example:

cargo pixel p assets/a.png > a.pix
cargo pixel e g . assets/a.pix

cargo pixel p assets/lion.png 40 40 > assets/lion.pix
cargo pixel e g . assets/lion.pix

4. Script to automatically convert gif images into PETSCII animations (.ssf)

cargo pixel cg assets/sdq/fire.gif assets/sdq/fire.ssf 40 25 
cargo pixel ssf . assets/sdq/fire.ssf       # preview ssf 

Demo games

1. snake: A snake game with a cool PETSCII animations

#graphics mode
cargo pixel r snake s -r

#term mode
cargo pixel r snake t -r

#web mode
cargo pixel r snake w -r
#and visit http://localhost:8080/ in your browser

2. tetris: A Tetris game where you can play against AI

#term mode
cargo pixel r tetris t -r

#graphics mode
cargo pixel r tetris s -r

#web mode
cargo pixel r tetris w -r
#and visit http://localhost:8080/ in your browser

3. poker: Includes the core algorithms for Texas Hold'em and Gin Rummy

cargo pixel r poker t -r
cargo pixel r gin_rummy t -r

The poker/ffi directory demo how to wrap Rust algorithms into CFFI for use with other languages, showcasing C++ and Python calling poker_ffi

cd apps/poker/ffi
make run

The poker/wasm directory demo how to wrap Rust algorithms into wasm for JS calling

cd apps/poker/wasm
make run

4. tower: A tower defense game prototype demonstrating the use of objpool and pixel_sprite for pixel-perfect sprite movement

#graphics mode
cargo pixel r tower s -r

#web mode
cargo pixel r tower w -r
#and visit http://localhost:8080/ in your browser

and so on ... ...