Beep8 and BeepMini – a Retro Games Library

I’ve always had a soft spot for retro games. Born in the 80s, I was lucky enough to be raised on them—though they weren’t retro at the time. For a while now, I’ve wanted to build something that makes rapid game creation easy. At first, I imagined a Mario Maker-style tool, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised I needed a solid game engine to build on top of. So, I decided to create an open-source retro games library, inspired by fantasy consoles like Pico-8.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting projects, and last year I stumbled across QX82, a fantastic open-source JavaScript library. It did a lot of what I needed, but the structure didn’t quite match my style. So, I forked it and started turning it into something of my own—and that’s how Beep8 was born.

What drew me to QX82 was its use of textmode graphics, using a black-and-white tileset to build visuals. The graphics are loaded once and then recoloured so each tile has a foreground and background colour. This gives loads of flexibility with very few assets. It also creates a natural retro feel, thanks to the limited colours and chunky tiles. I also loved the idea of making games with only built-in assets—no need to create custom artwork (despite being a designer). That meant I could focus purely on gameplay.

One of my early changes was adding support for flexible pixel tiles, so Beep8 could be used for all sorts of games. I was inspired by artists like MrMo Tarius, Batfeula, and others. I wanted tiles that would work in many different settings—platformers, puzzle games, dungeon crawlers, whatever.

While digging around online, I also found Kenta Cho’s (ABA Games) minimalist library, Crisp. Kenta is well known in indie circles for his stripped-back, fast-paced shooters—especially TUMIKI Fighters. Crisp is written in JavaScript and designed to make games with minimal effort. Title screens, music, sound effects—it’s all baked in, with no external assets. I loved that approach and wanted something similar for Beep8.

A big part of the project has been the tilemap editor and loader I built. Drawing and loading elements is now both fast and fun. These tools will be available to everyone eventually.

I also wanted a games arcade—a home for my beep8.com creations. Inspired by last year’s release of UFO50, I thought it’d be fun to “find” an old console and restore its games so others could play them on modern hardware. That led to BeepMini. I found the console in my grandfather’s attic and have been restoring games ever since.

I’m loving working on Beep8 and BeepMini—I haven’t felt this inspired since I first started building Brush Ninja.

If you’re curious or want to join the adventure, the Beep8 code is on GitHub, the docs are at beep8.com, and you can play some games at beepmini.com.