WirtWare

Rapid-fire microgames in the style of WarioWare, made with Godot 4.7.

Each microgame lasts a few seconds. You see a one-word prompt, then you have to work out what to do before the fuse runs out. Win to score, lose to drop a heart. Between games, Wirt (the host, a kid in a floppy cone hat) reacts to how you did.

A run has three stages. Each stage is 10 microgames and then a boss. Every 4 wins within a stage the game speeds up. Beating a boss is worth 5 points and gives a heart back. Losing to a boss costs a heart, and you fight it again. After the third boss the run loops back to stage one, faster and at full difficulty.

Stage	Look borrowed from	Boss	Boss fight
1 Graveyard Shift	8 Bit Evil Returns	Mr Hat	Left/right as Jon, who fires stakes on his own. Dodge top-hat tornadoes and, later, diving bats
2 Tlaloc’s Temple	Tlaloc’s Curse	Tlaloc	Breakout against his stone face. Rain and darts come in the angry phase
3 Snail Lord’s Swamp	8 Bit Evil Returns + Hemlock’s Tower	Snail Lord	Tap the goo, crows and toads before they crack the screen. Tap him when he comes out of his shell

Difficulty is 1 in stage one, 2 in stage two and 3 in stage three and every later lap.

Controls

Action	Keyboard	Gamepad	Touch
Move	Arrow keys / WASD	D-pad / left stick	On-screen arrows
Action	Space / Z / Enter	A	On-screen A button
Pointer games	Mouse	—	Finger

WirtWare is portrait-first: the game is a 720×1280 (9:16) canvas, laid out for a phone held upright. On phones, each microgame shows only the buttons it needs, along the bottom edge. On tall phones they sit in the spare space under the game. On shorter ones they float over the game’s floor.

Microgames

Most microgames change their look per stage, using the stage’s art.

Prompt	Folder	What you do
DODGE!	`dodge`	Move left and right to avoid falling things until time runs out
PUMP IT!	`pump`	Mash the action button to blow something up until it pops
CATCH!	`catch`	Slide the basket under the falling treat
STOP!	`stop`	Press the button while the needle is in the glowing zone
POP ‘EM!	`pop`	Tap every ghost / spirit / wisp
JUMP!	`jump`	Jump over the obstacles
COPY!	`copy`	Press the arrow sequence shown, in order
DRAW!	`duel`	Wait for “FIRE!”, then shoot. Too early or too late loses
LAND!	`land`	Hold the button to brake, and touch down slowly
SORT!	`sort`	Send each item to its bin
WHACK!	`whack`	Press the arrow that matches the hole something pops out of. A wrong swing loses
SCRUB!	`scrub`	Hold and scrub the grime off
SLICE!	`slice`	Swipe through everything before it falls
TRACE!	`trace`	Drag along a wiggly path from start to finish without leaving it
FLICK!	`flick`	Flick the ball into the target. One shot
FEED!	`feed`	Drag each snack into the mouth
WIND IT!	`crank`	Spin your finger around the crank until the box pops
FOLLOW!	`follow`	Keep your finger on the wandering light until time runs out
SWIPE!	`swipe`	Swipe the way each arrow points. Red arrows mean the opposite way

New ones, each a nod to another game in the Scareathon arcade:

Prompt	Folder	Homage to	What you do
LEAP!	`leap`	Salmon Run 2	Time the button to leap a salmon up the waterfall steps
CARVE!	`carve`	Jack O’Lantern	Drag along the dotted face to carve the pumpkin
PET IT!	`pet`	Cryptlins	Rub the gremlin, but stop when it bares its teeth
GLIDE!	`glide`	Daughter Of The Wind	Steer the glider through the gaps in the clouds
BLAST!	`blast`	Denver Vs The Universe	Shoot the saucer before it abducts a building. Shots are limited
SLIDE!	`slide`	Penguin Slide	Steer the penguin through the slalom gates
JAM!	`jam`	One Man Band	Hit the button on each note
PHONE HOME!	`phone`	Phone Home	Mash to pedal until the bike lifts off past the moon
SHAKE!	`shake`	Snow Globe	Rub back and forth to shake the snow up
CLIMB!	`climb`	Hemlock’s Tower	Alternate left and right to climb the tower

Project layout

scenes/main.tscn            Entry scene (just runs scripts/main.gd)
scripts/main.gd             Game loop: stages, bosses, intermissions, speed-ups, lives, best score
scripts/stages.gd           The three stages: names, colours, art folder, boss
scripts/microgame.gd        `Microgame` base class that every game and boss extends
scripts/microgame_fx.gd     Sparks and floating words drawn over a microgame
scripts/mascot.gd           Wirt, the host, drawn and animated in code
scripts/backdrop.gd         The between-games scene for each stage
scripts/sfx.gd              Sfx autoload: sound effects, jingles and stage music, made in code
scripts/hearts.gd           Lives display
scripts/touch_controls.gd   On-screen buttons for phones
art/<stage>/                Pixel art borrowed from the arcade games (sizes in art/sizes.txt)
bosses/<name>/<name>.tscn   One folder per boss (named in Stages.THEMES)
microgames/<name>/<name>.tscn   One folder per microgame (found automatically)
tools/autopilot.gd          Plays by itself, for recording the arcade attract video
tools/shots.gd              Saves screenshots every so often, for checking the look
tools/mascot_preview.tscn   Wirt in every mood side by side
build/                      Web export, served by GitHub Pages

Adding a microgame

Create microgames/<name>/<name>.tscn with a Node2D root. Give the root a script that extends Microgame.

Set the prompt and settings in _init():

extends Microgame

func _init() -> void:
    prompt = "SHAKE!"            # the big instruction word
    controls_hint = "ARROW KEYS" # small hint under it
    duration = 4.0               # seconds before speed-up
    win_on_timeout = false       # true for "survive until time's up" games
    touch_hint = "TAP THE BUTTON" # hint shown on touch screens instead
    controls = Controls.BUTTON   # touch buttons: BUTTON, LEFT_RIGHT, ARROWS or POINTER

Set up the round in _on_start(). difficulty (1–3) and stage (0–2) are already set at this point. Stages.theme(stage) gives the stage’s colours, and draw_sprite("graveyard/ghost", frames, anim_frame(8, frames), pos, 4.0) draws its art.
Call win() or lose() when the outcome is decided. Guard input with is_playing().
For juice, use Sfx.play("pop"), burst(pos, color), popup("+1", pos) and shake(12). Main already plays the win/lose sounds and shakes the screen on a loss.
The screen is 720×1280 (portrait). The fuse bar runs along the top. If the game uses touch buttons (BUTTON, LEFT_RIGHT, ARROWS), keep the action above CONTROLS_TOP (y = 1060), because on shorter phones the buttons cover the area below it. POINTER games can use the whole screen.

The main loop picks up the new folder automatically. Speed-ups work through Engine.time_scale. Use delta, timers and tweens as normal and they all speed up together.

Testing

Command-line options (after --):

Option	Effect
`--game=<folder>`	Play only that microgame, over and over
`--stage=<0-2>`	Start on that stage
`--games=<n>`	Play n microgames per stage (1 gets to the bosses fast)
`--autopilot`	Start right away and play some games by itself
`--shots=<folder> --every=<s>`	Save a screenshot every s seconds (needs a window, not `--headless`)
`--mute`	No sound

godot --path . -- --autopilot --stage=1 --games=1 --shots=C:/tmp/shots --every=0.5 --mute
godot --path . res://tools/mascot_preview.tscn

Web build and the Scareathon arcade

WirtWare runs as a cabinet in the Scareathon arcade. The page loads https://sclondon.github.io/WirtWare/build/index.html in a 9:16 iframe. At game over the game posts { type: 'PLAYER_DIED', score } to the parent page, where the score is microgames won plus 5 for each boss beaten.

To publish a new build:

godot --headless --path . --export-release "Web" build/index.html
git add build && git commit -m "Update web build" && git push

Then bump the ?v= cache-buster on WIRTWARE_URL in the arcade page (src/pages/Arcade/games.tsx in scareathon-v3) to the new commit hash.

To re-record the attract video, run the game on autopilot with the movie maker, then convert the result to a 540×960 mp4 in public/game-recordings/WirtWare.mp4:

godot --path . --write-movie attract.avi --fixed-fps 30 --resolution 720x1280 --quit-after 560 -- --autopilot