Skullotron

The Skullotron is the "Steam-powered" ^{[Citation required]} Winnitron machine. It contains a variety of arcade-style games wrapped up in a simple and fun UI.

Playing the Skullotron

Press the button on top of the machine to boot it up. Wait for it to fully finish booting up, then the Winnitron menu will present itself for playing. Select a game and play!

Currently added games

Games come in two catagories: Games that have been there prior to the reformat ("Legacy Skullotron") and new games, by Sksp members ("Homemade Skulls") or the Winnipeg Game Collective ("Winnipeg Game Collective")

This list is still work-in-progress

Legacy Skullotron

0space

A duel in a gravity-defying arena, fight against a friend with simple weapons

Homemade Skulls

Dueling Arkanoid

A fast and chaotic duel between you and the aliens in a pong / Arkanoid fusion.

This game is in active development. The version on the Skullotron may be very out of date!

Made by Felicia

Winnipeg Game Collective

No WGC members have submitted games yet

Creating Games for the Skullotron

Games for the Skullotron are simply just windows games with a really weird keyboard layout. You can use any game engine (or none at all if you're feeling adventurous!) as long as you follow these requirements:

Game Requirements

• You must compile an x86-compatible Windows binary of your game (preferably x86_64 / 64-bit version)
• Your game must open into fullscreen
• Your game must have no external launcher, and should automatically present you the title screen of the game on launch. If you're adapting a Unity game, ensure that the game does not present you with a resolution selection dialog upon launch.
• The game must use the following controls:
  • ESC closes the game (or shows a pause menu that has the option to close a game)

Controls

Player	Movement	Button 1	Button 2
1	Arrow Keys	.	/
2	WASD	`	1

• Your game files must include a file named `winnitron_metadata.json`, with the following data

{

 "title":"Your Game", 
 "min_players":"1", 
 "max_players":"2", 
 "executable":"yourgame.exe", 
 "legacy_controls":"false", 
 "image_url":"yourgameimage.png",
 "slug":"yourgame"

}

• • Title: The exact name that will be shown in the launcher
  • executable: The exe file that the launcher will start
  • legacy_controls: If you're using the keybindings above, you can safely keep this as false
  • image_url: The path to a preview image of your game. It should be a screenshot of gameplay or promotional art. Avoid adding text to this screenshot since it's shown in the background and the title of the game will be shown already in the launcher.
  • slug: An ID of your game, identifying it if updates are ever needed. It should be a snake_case representation of your title

System Maintainance

Adding Games

An automated script will be added soon to validate and copy the game folders from a USB drive inserted into the computer.

If it's a Skullspace-made game, copy the folder containing all game files & winnitron metadata into /home/skullotron/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/winnitron_138/drive_c/WINNITRON_UserData/Playlists/Homemade Skulls. The folder should look like so:

Playlists

| Homemade Skulls

| | YourNewSkullspaceGame

| | | game.exe

| | | gamepreview.png

| | | winnitron_metadata.json

| | | <other files the game needs to run>

The game will automatically find and be able to play your game

Troubleshooting

Winnitron hangs on "Compiling games" on startup

Your winnitron_metadata.json might be broken or nonexistent. Create it with the sample

Software setup

The system is running Hyprland on Arch with a minimal config to ensure nothing can be run during game demos. It also sets things to automatically fullscreen upon game launch.

The game is running through xwayland.

The button inputs are being translated using InputRelay as a systemd service.

For maintenance, connect a keyboard, switch to another tty, and use `root` account with usual password. `skullotron` is the account that is running the games themselves, and it has no password.