Prerequisites

Before you start building games for Emberware ZX, you’ll need to set up your development environment.

Required Tools

1. Rust

Emberware games are written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly. Install Rust using rustup:

Windows/macOS/Linux:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Or visit rustup.rs for platform-specific installers.

2. WebAssembly Target

After installing Rust, add the WASM compilation target:

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown

3. Code Editor (Optional but Recommended)

Any text editor works, but we recommend one with Rust support:

• VS Code with rust-analyzer extension
• RustRover (JetBrains IDE for Rust)
• Neovim with rust-analyzer LSP

Verify Installation

Check that everything is installed correctly:

# Check Rust version
rustc --version

# Check Cargo version
cargo --version

# Check WASM target is installed
rustup target list --installed | grep wasm32

You should see output similar to:

rustc 1.75.0 (82e1608df 2023-12-21)
cargo 1.75.0 (1d8b05cdd 2023-11-20)
wasm32-unknown-unknown

Optional: Emberware CLI

The ember CLI tool provides convenient commands for building and running games:

cargo install --path tools/ember-cli

This gives you commands like:

• ember build - Compile your game
• ember run - Run your game in the player
• ember pack - Package your game into a ROM file

Next: Your First Game