Dino from Zero

Chrome://dino from zero on my custom microcomputer, the Atto-8

Embark on a thrilling prehistoric adventure with Dino from Zero, a chrome://dino game running on the powerful Atto-8 microcomputer, rocking a 1MHz clock and 256 bytes of RAM. Nature fights back as cacti launch pixelated attacks on your single-pixel dinosaur. Dodge and survive in this limited-resolution world. Can you conquer the challenges and become the ultimate pixel dinosaur champion? Probably not because there isn't enough RAM left to implement a score system. Unleash your inner dinosaur and brace yourself for an unforgettable showdown!

Play the Game

Ensure the following is installed on your system:

• Git
• Rust
• Python 3.10+

Then, run the following commands to download and run the game:

git clone https://github.com/Bricktech2000/Atto-8
cd Atto-8/test/
python3 test.py dino.asm asm emu

Use the arrow keys to jump!

The processor will halt upon the dinosaur dying. Hit Ctrl+C to break out and run python3 test.py dino.asm asm emu again to continue playing.

Technical Details

This game was built from scratch in the Atto-8's custom Assembly language. The source code is available here. When running python3 test.py dino.asm asm emu, the game's source code is assembled to machine code using a hand-written optimizing assembler and then emulated using the Atto-8's instruction-level emulator.

The Atto-8 has a dual-tone 16x16 pixel display and very limited RAM. Getting a whole game to fit in 256 bytes is a challenge! At this point, there are only a few bytes of memory left, which is not enough for a score system or for automatic respawn upon death. Unfortunately, the Atto-8 does not support audio, and so the game is silent. After playing the game a few times, you may notice that the cacti always spawn in the same pattern. This is because the pseudo-random number generator is seeded with the same value every time the processor is reset; the emulator is entirely deterministic.

Important note: the Atto-8 microcomputer and its standard library were not built from scratch during this game jam. As for assets, both pixels of the cactus models were hand-drawn by me, and the same is true for the single-pixel dinosaur. The sky and ground assets are also original work.