v0.8.21 · Amiga Vampire A6000 · Windows · macOS

A fantasy console
built for real hardware.

FRED-80 runs on the Apollo A6000 — a real Amiga with a 68080 CPU and SAGA chipset. Write games in Lua. Draw sprites in the built-in editor. Ship a single binary. You can play and develop on Windows and Mac too!

Get it on itch.io Quick Start →

640 × 480 256 colours 128 sprites 4 audio channels Lua 5.4

-- soldiers.lua
function _init()
  map(0, 0, 0)
  units = {}
  for i = 1, 20 do
    units[i] = {
      x = rnd(600),
      y = rnd(440),
      s = rnd(8)
    }
  end
end

function _draw()
  cls()
  for _, u in ipairs(units) do
    spr(u.s, u.x, u.y)
  end
end

fps: 60 FRED-80 v0.8.21

Everything on the machine.

No cross-dev tools. No emulator. Edit, run, and ship directly on the A6000.

■

Sprite Editor

128-slot 16×16 sprite bank with per-sprite hitboxes, palette picker, and live preview. Draw on-machine.

□

Tilemap Editor

8 map slots, 64×32 tiles each. Parallax-ready with AMMX-accelerated transparent blits.

♪

Audio

8 synthesis channels + 4 hardware DMA channels (zero CPU cost for PCM). TOMMY step sequencer with 8 tracks, patterns, and song ordering.

◆

Lua 5.4

Full Lua — tables, closures, coroutines. A clean 40-function API on top. No globals pollution.

△

AMMX Accelerated

Sprite blits and parallax scrolling use the Vampire's AMMX SIMD unit. 8 pixels per instruction.

●

Single Binary

One fred-80.m68k file. Drop it anywhere, run from Shell. Carts are plain folders under fred80/.

Up in two minutes.

Copy the binary to your A6000, create a cart folder, start the editor.

Get it on itch.io, then install

1.SYS:> copy fred-80.m68k C:fred-80
1.SYS:> fred-80

Create your first cart

Press N on the Home screen to create a new cart, then open the Code tab to start writing.

Write a game loop

function _init()
  x, y = 320, 240
end

function _update()
  if btn(0) then x = x - 2 end
  if btn(1) then x = x + 2 end
  if btn(2) then y = y - 2 end
  if btn(3) then y = y + 2 end
end

function _draw()
  cls()
  spr(0, x, y)
end

Run it

1.SYS:> fred-80 fred80/mygame/main.lua

Or press F5 from the editor to launch the active cart.

Configuration.

Drop a fred80.cfg next to the FRED-80 binary (PROGDIR:fred80.cfg on the A6000) to override defaults.

FRED-80 blanks the screen after 10 seconds of no input by default. Set ss_timeout (in seconds) to change it, or set it very high to effectively disable it.

# fred80.cfg
ss_timeout = 30

Clean, minimal API.

100+ functions. Everything you need, nothing you don't.

Graphics

cls([col]) — clear screen
spr(n, x, y [,scale]) — draw sprite
map(slot, x, y) — draw tilemap
rect(x,y,w,h [,col]) — rect outline
rectfill(x,y,w,h [,col]) — filled rect
line(x0,y0,x1,y1 [,col]) — line
pset(x, y [,col]) — plot pixel
pal(i, r, g, b) — set palette entry
print(str, x, y [,col]) — draw text

Input

btn(b [,p]) — button held
btnp(b [,p]) — button pressed
mouse() — x, y, buttons
key(k) — keyboard held
keyp(k) — keyboard pressed

Audio

sfx(n [,ch]) — play sound
music(n) — start song
vol(ch, v) — set channel volume

Math & Util

rnd(n) — random 0..n-1
mid(a,b,c) — median of three
flr(n) — floor
time() — time in seconds
stat(n) — engine stats (fps, mem…)
dset(i, val) — persist number to slot 0–63
dget(i) — read persisted slot

A fantasy consolebuilt for real hardware.

Everything on the machine.

Sprite Editor

Tilemap Editor

Audio

Lua 5.4

AMMX Accelerated

Single Binary

Up in two minutes.

Get it on itch.io, then install

Create your first cart

Write a game loop

Run it

Configuration.

Clean, minimal API.

Graphics

Input

Audio

Math & Util

FRED-80

A fantasy console
built for real hardware.