Mini Micro: A Neo-Retro Fantasy Computer That Runs in Your Browser

🎮 Play Mini Micro (browser, free) · Download · itch.io · GitHub

Mini Micro is a neo-retro fantasy computer. It is not a game. It is a place where games are born. Boot it up in your browser and you get a virtual machine with a 960x640 color display, sprite and tile graphics, stereo sound, and a blinking cursor waiting for input. Type a command and something happens.

It was built by Joe Strout, the creator of MiniScript. MiniScript is the language that drives everything on Mini Micro, from the shell to the games. It is designed to be learnable. A kid can open it and draw a circle on screen within minutes. Professional developers use it to prototype and ship complete games on itch.io.

Specs

Mini Micro emulates a retro computer that never existed:

Display - 960x640, full 32-bit color
Graphics - Pixel, sprite, and tile rendering
Text - 68x26 character grid
Sound - Synthesized and digitized stereo audio
Input - Keyboard, mouse, and game controller support
Shell - Interactive REPL with a built-in code editor
Language - MiniScript, a clean modern language inspired by Lua and Python

The desktop version runs as a native app. The browser version uses WebGL and WebAssembly.

What You Can Do With It

You can boot Mini Micro and immediately start typing MiniScript commands at the REPL. Draw a circle. Play a note. Load a sprite. The machine comes with built-in demos you can run right away:

Asteroids - A tribute to the Atari classic
Breakout - Block-breaking with a twist
Flappy Bat - Obstacle avoidance
Platformer Demo - A Mario-style engine you can build on
Wumpus Trap - Hunt the Wumpus
Mochi Bounce - An endless jumper
Tower Defense - Balloon-popping strategy
FatBits - A sprite editor
Drum Machine - Click the grid and lay down a beat
Globe - 3D wireframe globe rendering
Greedy Gargoyle - A text adventure

Each demo loads in one click from the Programs tab. They are written in MiniScript and you can open the source, modify it, and run your version.

The Community

The Mini Micro community publishes games on itch.io with the tag. There are over 60 games listed on the site ranging from puzzle games like In My Bubble and Sub-Optimal to full action titles like Skyguard (pseudo-3D flight combat), Mini Macro (a 2.5D racing game), and Kip and the Caves of Lava (a polished Mario-style platformer). There is a tower defense game, a survival horror game, a RTS about alien organisms, and a complete BASIC interpreter written in MiniScript.

The community skews friendly and encouraging in the way old hobbyist computing groups did. People share code. They write tutorials. They port classic games.

What Makes It Interesting

Mini Micro sits in a space that most modern platforms ignore. It is not trying to be a game engine. It is not trying to be an emulator. It is a self-contained little computer that happens to be really good at making games, and it makes the entire process visible.

You are never more than a Control-C away from the source. Every running program can be interrupted and inspected. Variables, call stack, the works. That transparency is something modern development environments abstract away, and losing it changed how people learn to code.

There are books written for Mini Micro. Introduction to Computer Programming is a 54-page color guide aimed at absolute beginners. Learn to Code in 30 Days is a full 386-page curriculum. Both use Mini Micro as the teaching environment.

How to Try It

Open miniscript.org/MiniMicro/ in any modern browser. Click Play Now and the WebGL build boots into the Mini Micro desktop. You can start typing commands immediately or pick a demo from the Games/Apps tab.

If you want the full experience, download the native version for macOS, Windows, or Linux. The desktop build has better performance and is self-contained. It also supports downloadable DLC games like Retro Robots and World Conquest.

The whole thing is free. No ads, no accounts, no paid tiers.

Crepi il lupo! 🐺