Jspicl-cli NPM

jspicl CLI

jspicl CLI is a command line tool that simplifies PICO-8 game development in JavaScript.

Features:

Comes with its own set of build pipeline so you don't need one.
JavaScript to PICO-8 Lua transpilation through jspicl.
Treeshaking which prevents unused code from being included and increasing your token count.
Allows a PNG file to be used as a spritesheet, no need to edit your assets in PICO-8 anymore. Use your image editor of choice.
Live reloading of PICO-8 cartridge whenever code or spritesheet is updated. See your changes live!

Future goals:

Importing audio files to be used as SFX or music.

Installation

npm install jspicl-cli -D

Usage

In order to generate a cartridge you need to supply at least four mandatory options:

jspicl-cli
  --input <entryfile.js>
  --output <outputFile.p8>
  --spritesheetImagePath <pathToSpriteSheetFile.png>
  --cartridgePath <pathToExistingCartridge.p8>

Options

Name	Type	Description
input	string	Your game's entry point. This file can then import other modules. `[required]`
output	string	Where to output the PICO-8 cardridge `[required]`
spritesheetImagePath	string	Path to a spritesheet file. Only PNGs are supported. `[required]`
cartridgePath	string	Path to an existing cardridge to reuse sound, music and state flags from. Normally you would point this to the generated cartridge so that you can save the assets directly and reuse them. `[required]`.
includeBanner	boolean	Include a short comment at the very top of the generated LUA code that contains info about jspicl. Does not affect token count.
jsOutput	string	Where to output the flattened and transpiled JavaScript code. You may use this with astexplorer to inspect the AST, just make sure to select Esprima as the parser. For debugging purposes.
luaOutput	string	Where to output the transpiled LUA code. For debugging purposes.
showStats	boolean	Display statistics about the generated cartridge. Useful for determining how much resources your game is using.
pipeOutputToConsole	boolean	Output all console.log to terminal that launched PICO-8. For debugging purposes.
reloadOnSave	boolean	Reload PICO-8 when the cartridge has been updated.
customPicoPath	string	Custom path to the PICO-8 executable.
prettify	boolean	Format the generated LUA code.
watch		Runs the cartridge in PICO-8 and rebuilds it when the source files change.