i want the shells of some of my cartridges to look different than usual:
cartridge | source |
---|---|
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"my less good cartridges", section "2022-11-21: Welcome! — special edition 2" |
more examples
so i created a GUI tool to replace shells of pico-8 cartridges
download & source
every part of this program is licensed under one of these licenses:
how to use
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the GUI has these steps:
- put the original cartridge into the 'original cartridge' field
- put the replacement shell in the 'edited shell' field
- save the edited cartridge
after saving the new cartridge, you can load and run it in pico-8
limitations
filetype limitations
this program acepts only PNG files
image limitations
- you can't change the image size of the cartridge
- you can't move the 128×128px thumbnail that will be shown in splore and on the lexaloffle bbs
- you also can't change the size of the thumbnail area
- if you use more than 16 colors from the pico-8 extended palette in the 128×128px thumbnail area, the thumbnail will look unnatural and wrong in splore
- if you use colors outside of the pico-8 extended palette in the thumbnail area, the thumbnail will look even more unnatural and wrong in splore
early history
you can read about the pre-release history of this tool in 'my less good cartridges':
- section "2022-11-20: Welcome! — special edition"
- section "2022-11-21: Welcome! — special edition 2"
- section "2022-11-25: the impossible cart"
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Hiya,
As awesome as this is - how do you run it?
I've downloaded the release, but it has no extension?
I'm on Windows and it seems from your screenshots that you are also.
Thx in advance
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yes, the screenshots were made on Windows, but that version is barely tested.
for safety, i only exported on Linux, where i developed the program and tested it very much.
if you want to take the risk, you can run the Godot 4.0 project in Godot 4.x.
i developed the program on my Linux computer during school holidays.
when i wanted to write this post, school holidays ended. so i wrote this post in a short period of being done wth homework. to save time, i made this post on the Windows Laptop i use for school homework
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how did this go as unnoticed (as in "it has barely any comments or stars") for two months? this works?? this is kinda freaking phenomenal!
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@aKidCalledAris this went unnoticed because i am an unknown lexaloffle bbs member.
but even if i was well-known in this community, cartridge shell replacer might still have gone unnoticed, because i did not do much marketing for it:
(in this context, ⭕ and ❌ don't mean 'right' and 'wrong', but 'marketed' and 'not marketed'.
i think that the following cases of not marketing the cartridge shell replacer were right decisions)
- ❌ it's not one of my featured posts on my profile. there can be only three, and i chose three posts that i find more important:
- ⭕ in 'my less good cartridges', i blogged about custom cartridge shells since section "2022-11-20: Welcome! — special edition", and i linked to the cartridge shell replacer in this comment
- ⭕ i mentioned the cartridge shell replacer in some comments sections of games i made special edition cartridges for — these are cartridges with a replaced shell that i designed — and i linked to this cartridge shell replacer post after i finished the tool:
- ❌ outside of 'my less good cartridges', i didn't mention the cartridge shell replacer in my posts about my own cartridges. the only way to find out that the cartridge had a custom shell was to download the cart:
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@timothyferriss yes, this is what i have done 🙂
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@wolfguy00 i have not made a Windows export because i did not test the program on Windows, so do it on your own risk:
first, download the source code.
then import it into Godot Game Engine v4.0.
from there you can run and export the program.
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i can't think of anything that can go wrong when using this in the stable version of Godot
since i didn't put any OS-specific code in the program
but just in case it's still better to cautious since i didn't test the program on Windows (only on Linux)
thinking about it, the warning made sense when i made my program (the newest state of Godot 4.0 was Beta 2) but now you can most likely use the program safely in Godot 4.1.3
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