Testing Your Game
This page will show you how to set up developer mode to quickly test your microgame(s).
The first time you run the project, you will be greeted with the developer menu:
From here you can choose to play the game normally or in developer mode.
Select "I wanna test my microgame!"
Use Arrow-keys or WASD to navigate menu. X or L to confirm selection.
You will now see a list of every game in the project:
Select your game from the list.
If you do not see your game anywhere in the list then you may have set up your microgame metadata incorrectly. See the microgame config page for more info)
You will now see a screen asking you to confirm your selection. Hit "Confirm" and Loungeware will begin running your microgame inside the gameboy overlay.
From now on, whenever you run the project it will automatically boot into your chosen microgame and play it repeatedly on a loop!
You can press P on your keyboard at any point if you need to return to the developer menu.
We have provided some basic debug tools to help you develop your microgame:
This panel will be displayed while your game is running in developer mode. It shows some information about your current test environment.
- R ) Restart the microgame at any time.
- 1-5 ) Change the value of the difficulty variable.
- M ) Toggle audio on/off.
- F8 ) Toggle fullscreen
- T ) Preview cartridge | Shows a preview of what your game cart will look like based on your current metadata.
- Y ) Toggle debug info | Show or hide the debug panel at the bottom at the bottom of the screen
- i ) Toggle timer mode
- P ) Go to dev menu | Returns you to the dev menu so you can change the test game, or run the full game.
Note: Current debug settings will be saved between runs for convenience. For example, if you close the game window with the difficulty set to 5, it will still be set to 5 when you next run the game.
The current difficulty value (1-5). This variable does nothing on its own, but you can tune your game to behave differently based on the current value of this variable. Use the DIFFICULTY macro to check the current difficulty level in your code.
You can switch the testing difficulty at any time using the 1-5 keys.
The current prompt for the game. Most games will only have one prompt and won't need to worry about this. However, it is possible to have more than one prompt for a single microgame -- ask in the discord if you want to learn more about this.
The current win state of the microgame. You can check this to see if a win or fail state has been triggered. Remember: the win state is not final until the game ends.
While testing you can press M to mute/unmute all audio.
There are two timer modes: normal and infinite.
In normal mode the timer functions as it would in the base game.
In infinite mode the timer is disabled.
Press i to toggle between these modes.