Building scenes

These four modules load baked scenes, attach properties to tiles, create simple bitmap art in code, and reuse a fixed set of sprites. See /reference/ for the signatures.

picogame_scene

The loader turns a baked SCENE dictionary into a pg.Scene and a set of named handles. Use it for a level produced by the editor or scene_build.py. The same data and loader run on hardware and in the simulator. See /scene-format/ for the input format.

load(pg, scene, display=None, strip_h=None, font=None, bank=None) returns a View. It resolves the display in the same way as picogame_game.setup(), constructs the scene, and adds each tilemap, sprite, group, particle system, and HUD label. On an SPI display it allocates two width * strip_h * 2 render buffers, available as view.bufA and view.bufB. On a framebuffer target both are None. Pass a font such as terminalio.FONT if the data contains a HUD label. See /hardware/ for display backends and /memory/ for buffer costs.

load_bank(pg, bank) builds shared bitmaps/sounds/anims ONCE; pass the result as load(..., bank=...) for each level so unchanged art is not rebuilt per level.

From game.json

A whole game is one game.json (see scene format); Game opens it the way the device does, streaming and baking every level at start, and load(name, at) builds one level’s View:

import picogame_scene as pgs, terminalio
game = pgs.Game(pg, "game.json", font=terminalio.FONT)   # or Game(pg, "game_bank") after build --mpy
view = game.load(game.start)
# later, on a goto: drop the old view, gc.collect(), then
view = game.load("cave", "entry")

Zone stories and per-level effects from the file run through picogame_story.Story on top of the Director — no code is generated from the JSON.

Tile properties come with the scene. Do not reach for picogame_tiles after loading a scene — the View already answers per-tile questions: view.is_solid(tx, ty), and view.tile_has(tx, ty, "name") for any other flag. The name is whatever the editor painted, so it is not limited to the four the editor offers by default: add a glass flag in the editor and the game reads it as view.tile_has(tx, ty, "glass"). Falling back to a bitfield here means re-deriving data the loader already holds.

view.camera is data, not behaviour. The loader hands you (mode, target, axis, x, y, w, h) and the game applies it — nothing follows the player on its own. axis is "x", "y" or "xy"; honour it when you call scene.set_view(), or a level authored to scroll vertically silently will not.

The returned View is your handle to everything:

• view.scene - the live pg.Scene. Call view.scene.refresh() each frame and view.scene.set_view(ox, oy) to scroll.
• view.named[name] - dict of name -> sprite / particles / HUD label for any layer given a name.
• view.group(tag) - list of sprites for a group layer (returns [] if the tag is unknown, so it is safe to iterate).
• view.tick(dt) - advance all auto-animated sprites; call once per frame with dt in seconds.
• view.tile_xy(px, py) - world pixel -> (tx, ty) cell of the primary (first) tilemap.
• view.is_solid(tx, ty) - shorthand for tile_has(tx, ty, "solid").
• view.tile_has(tx, ty, prop) - True if the primary tilemap’s tile at that cell has the named property (from the baked tileprops).
• view.set_tile_prop(tile, prop, on=True) - flip a flag for a tile TYPE at runtime: every cell holding that tile changes meaning at once (a lever makes all gate tiles walkable, ice melts). One cell instead: swap its tile with the native tilemap.set_tile. Changes last until the next load() - loading a level resets its tile meanings, even with a shared bank.
• view.point(name) - (x, y) for a named point, or None.
• view.in_zone(x, y, tag=None) - first zone (tag, x, y, w, h) containing the point (optionally filtered by tag), else None.
• view.play(sound_id) - play a baked sfx by id (no-op if audio/sample is missing).
• view.tilemap / view.camera / view.zones / view.points / view.anims - the primary tilemap object, the camera tuple, and the raw collections.

import board, terminalio
import picogame as pg
import picogame_scene as pgs
import world1_scene

view = pgs.load(pg, world1_scene.SCENE, font=terminalio.FONT)
player = view.named["player"]
enemies = view.group("enemies")
while True:
    view.tick(1 / 30)                      # advance auto-animations
    tx, ty = view.tile_xy(player.x, player.y)
    if not view.is_solid(tx, ty):
        player.move(player.x + 2, player.y)
    view.scene.refresh()

Gotchas

the first tilemap layer is the primary one; tile_xy, is_solid, and tile_has query only that map. view.named contains only layers with a name. Sound loading is best-effort: a missing audio module or sample produces a None entry, and play() then does nothing.

picogame_tiles

TileFlags stores one metadata bitfield for each tile index, so every cell using that tile shares the same properties. Use it with a hand-built pg.Tilemap. A scene loaded through picogame_scene already exposes the higher-level view.is_solid() and view.tile_has() methods.

Eight named bits and their masks: B_SOLID, B_HAZARD, B_LADDER, B_PLATFORM, B_WATER, B_COIN, B_EXIT, B_CUSTOM are bit indices 0..7; SOLID, HAZARD, LADDER, PLATFORM, WATER, COIN, EXIT, CUSTOM are the matching 1 << bit masks. Use the masks when building the table, the B_* indices when querying.

TileFlags(flags=None, tile_px=8) builds the table. flags is either a {tile_index: bitfield} dict or a list/bytes indexed by tile index; tile_px is the tile size used by the pixel helper.

• tf.get(tile, bit=None) - the full bitfield of a tile, or one bool flag if bit (a B_* index) is given.
• tf.set(tile, bit, value=True) - flag (or clear) a bit on a tile at runtime.
• tf.at(tilemap, tx, ty, bit) - flag bit of the tile at cell (tx, ty).
• tf.at_px(tilemap, px, py, bit) - flag bit of the tile under MAP-LOCAL pixel (px, py); the common collision probe.

import picogame as pg
import picogame_tiles as tiles

TILE = 8
tf = tiles.TileFlags({1: tiles.SOLID, 2: tiles.COIN, 3: tiles.EXIT}, tile_px=TILE)

def blocked(level, tx, ty):                # level is a pg.Tilemap
    return tf.at(level, tx, ty, tiles.B_SOLID)

if tf.at_px(level, px, py, tiles.B_SOLID): # is the tile under pixel (px, py) solid?
    stop()

Gotchas

at_px assumes the map is at screen (0, 0) - if it is moved, subtract the map origin from px/py yourself before calling. Tiles missing from the table read as 0 (no flags). Build with the MASK constants (tiles.SOLID) but query with the BIT indices (tiles.B_SOLID); mixing them up silently checks the wrong bit.

picogame_shapes

These functions build single-colour PAL8 Bitmap objects in code. They suit prototypes and geometric art such as balls, bricks, or ships. Unlike Canvas, they return a reusable bitmap for a Sprite or Tilemap. Palette index 0 is transparent and index 1 contains the requested colour.

• rect(w, h, color) - a filled w x h rectangle.
• circle(d, color) - a filled disc of diameter d.
• ring(d, color, thickness=2) - a circle outline of diameter d.
• from_mask(mask, color) - a bitmap from a list of strings; #, X, or 1 sets a pixel. Sized to the mask.
• atlas(frames_data, w, h, color) - pack a list of w*h 0/1 buffers into one horizontal multi-frame bitmap (one colour). The general “frame sheet” builder.
• color_frames(w, h, colors) - a multi-frame bitmap where frame i is a solid fill of colors[i]; frame 0 is already a colour. Index 0 transparent.
• tileset_colors(w, h, colors) - a tileset where frame 0 is EMPTY (transparent) and frame i is a solid fill of colors[i-1]. So a Tilemap reads tile value 0 as empty and 1..N as coloured tiles.
• poly_frames(size, points, nframes, color, fill=True) - bake nframes rotations of a polygon (points around centre, +y down) into a size x size atlas. The engine also rotates at runtime (Sprite.angle); baked frames trade a little RAM for a cheaper per-frame blit and pixel-stable art, so pick them for many always-rotating objects (asteroids), and angle for one-off or continuous rotation. Set fill=False for an outline.

import picogame as pg
import picogame_shapes as shp

ball = shp.circle(4, pg.rgb565(255, 255, 120))
bricks = shp.tileset_colors(16, 8, [pg.rgb565(220, 70, 70),
                                    pg.rgb565(80, 140, 240)])   # value 0 empty, 1..2 coloured
ship = shp.poly_frames(16, [(0, -8), (6, 7), (0, 4), (-6, 7)], 16,
                       pg.rgb565(200, 220, 255))                 # 16 pre-rotated frames
sprite = pg.Sprite(ball, 100, 60)

Gotchas

color_frames frame 0 is a visible colour, but tileset_colors frame 0 is transparent (empty) - pick the one matching how your Tilemap treats value 0. circle fills its bitmap edge-to-edge, so it looks flat-topped when scaled up. poly_frames with nframes=1 bakes a single un-rotated frame (use it for a fixed-direction shape).

picogame_pool

Pool pre-allocates a fixed number of sprites for short-lived objects such as bullets, enemies, or pickups. sprite.visible marks an occupied slot and sprite.data can hold entity state. Spawning and freeing slots allocate no new sprites. See /memory/ for why stable allocation matters on the device.

Pool(scene, bitmap, capacity, anchor=None, fixed=False) pre-allocates capacity hidden sprites sharing bitmap, sets each anchor (if given) and data = None, and adds them all to scene (fixed= passes through to scene.add).

• pool.items - the underlying list of sprites; iterate it directly for zero-alloc updates.
• pool.spawn() - make the first free (hidden) sprite visible and return it, or None if the pool is full. The slot comes back in its baseline look - blit effect (flash/tint/dither/shadow), scale/angle, frame and flips restored to how the sprites looked at the first spawn() - so a hit-flash or a death scale-up never leaks into the next life. Set-up right after construction (for e in enemies.items: e.flip_y = True) is therefore kept; only .data and the position are left to you.
• pool.baseline() - re-snapshot the baseline after reconfiguring the sprites later in the game (bigger rocks on level 3).
• pool.free(s) - hide sprite s (return it to the pool).
• pool.free_all() - hide every sprite (use on level reset).
• pool.count() - count of live (visible) sprites; cheap, but iterate items for the sprites themselves.

import picogame as pg
import picogame_pool

bullets = picogame_pool.Pool(scene, bullet_bm, 6, anchor=(0.5, 0.5))

b = bullets.spawn()                        # a now-visible sprite, or None if full
if b:
    b.data = {"vx": 6}
    b.move(x, y)

for s in bullets.items:                    # zero-alloc iteration
    if not s.visible:
        continue
    s.move(s.x + s.data["vx"], s.y)
    if off_screen(s):
        bullets.free(s)

Gotchas

always skip hidden slots when iterating (if not s.visible: continue) - items holds every slot, alive or not. spawn() returns the first free slot it finds (don’t rely on any particular order), so if you free(s) and spawn() in the same step, read any state off s.data BEFORE freeing - the new spawn may overwrite it. A full pool returns None from spawn(); check for it. All sprites share one bitmap, so per-entity frame/animation must be set on each sprite after spawn(). Hiding a pooled sprite is safe - the pool tracks its slots in pool.alive, not through visible - but your own guard skips it while it’s blinked off, so blink-and-move needs if not pool.alive[i] instead.