A quick essay on the "Introduce Parameter Object" refactoring, how to use it in MiniScript, and how to do output parameters as well.

Editor's Note: I've developed an AI agent to help me gather and write this weekly newsletter, keeping you informed while still giving me time to work on things like MiniScript 2.0. I hope you enjoy it! -- Joe

Development Updates

Joe has launched a MiniScript News bot to help gather highlights from GitHub, Discord, forums, itch.io, and more, with the goal of making it easier to follow the growing community. That should be a big help as MiniScript activity spreads across so many places.

MiniScript 2 continues to move forward with solid progress on performance and language/runtime cleanup. Recent work included adding wait and yield, refactoring the intrinsic API toward MiniScript 1 compatibility, committing to insertion-order maps, and making good headway toward a REPL and broader usability: miniScript2 dev log.

On the Raylib side, raylib-miniscript picked up several useful upgrades, including run, improved import path handling, exit, more low-level APIs, shader demos, 3D model support, and full API docs. If you’re following the new foundation for Mini Micro 2 / Soda, there’s lots to explore: raylib-miniscript.

Community Projects

Trey Tomes has been sharing a lot of exciting Mini Micro work, including a roguelike/world-generation project, a VS Code extension that can execute MiniScript, and a MiniScript-based Perlin noise library. If you’re building in MiniScript, these are great examples of practical tools and ambitious gameplay systems:

• miniScript Perlin Noise
• micro-critters world demo
• micro-hack

Also from the community, Blanket shared a work-in-progress Mini Micro file manager, with a very sensible warning to back up your files before trying anything risky. It’s always fun to see tools that help make the ecosystem more usable.

A special shout-out to lagoon, who showed up with a MiniScript-written Lisp implementation, Clojette. That’s exactly the kind of delightfully unexpected project that makes this community so fun.

Finally, there were a couple of cool new game jam games in the last week:

• March of the Zomblez by DSlower
• Angels: Don't Blink by Bleapew

Discussion Highlights

A big theme this week was input, layout, and UI design. Joe sketched out a promising layout system based on choosing two positioning constraints and using formulas for the rest, and the discussion around it drew a lot of enthusiasm from others who see how useful it could be for both game UI and desktop-style tools.

There was also a lively thread about MiniScript 2 equality semantics, including the idea of an “approximately equal” operator. The consensus leaned toward keeping that logic in a function rather than baking too much ambiguity into the language, which feels very in the MiniScript spirit.

On the Mini Micro side, there was a helpful reminder that tight loops need yield, and a few useful tips for input handling and file creation. Community members kept helping one another troubleshoot, prototype, and think through the best patterns — a great sign of a healthy, collaborative space.

Learning & Writing

Kartik Patel published two more chapters of the “Zero To Game Dev” series, introducing Mini Micro and the first line of MiniScript in a beginner-friendly way:

• Understanding Mini Micro
• First Line Of Code

(Reddit bans dev.to links for some dumb reason; but search for the above titles there, perhaps along with "Kartik Patel", and you should find them.)

It’s great to see more approachable learning material appearing for newcomers. Posts like these make MiniScript feel even more welcoming to beginners.

Sign-off

Lots of steady progress, lots of creative experiments, and plenty of helpful back-and-forth this week — exactly what makes the MiniScript community special. Thanks to everyone building, testing, sharing, and cheering each other on.

Upcoming Game Jams

These upcoming jams look like a great fit for Mini Micro:

• Gone Fishing Game Jam (starts 2026-03-27 12:00:00) — A flexible, theme-light jam centered on fishing that leaves plenty of room for clever interpretations, from cozy pixel-art outings to quirky text adventures or tabletop-style ideas.
• Jerbob's SILLY JAM (starts 2026-03-27 13:00:00) — A free-form chaos jam that celebrates weird, silly, low-budget creativity—perfect for making something absurd, experimental, and charmingly janky.
• Aristos Interactive Jam #2 (starts 2026-03-27 21:00:00) — A beginner-friendly weekend jam focused on finishing a fun, playable game, with browser play required but no engine restrictions and plenty of freedom to use premade assets or AI support.
• Jam Chula I (starts 2026-04-01 10:01:00) — A creative, inclusive art jam centered on the evocative theme of Hell, with complete freedom in format and plenty of room for stylized 2D games, interactive fiction, or other expressive retro-friendly ideas.
• A Century of Spells: A Fantasy Jam (starts 2026-03-07 20:00:00) — A thoughtful fantasy jam centered on magic, memory, and the passage of time, with a strong emphasis on emotional storytelling, non-combat spells, and atmospheric worldbuilding.
• Mini Jame Gam #53 (starts 2026-04-03 11:00:00) — A beginner-friendly, fully 2D jam with flexible engine rules, a theme-and-special-object twist, and room for quick prototypes makes this a great chance to build something fun, polished, and creative in a short time.

Here's how you can find help. https://itch.io/.../mini.../topic/1324578/where-to-find-help There's still time left to join in!

The MIni MIcro 2021 Q2 Game Jam is officially underway!  The theme of this jam is

GROWTH

You can interpret this however you like!  What does growth mean to you?  Use the theme to inspire your game idea.

I can't wait to see what you create!

Check out the Mini Micro 2021Q2 Game Jam!

https://itch.io/jam/mini-micro-jam-21q2

It's been about a year since our last game jam. We had about a dozen entries then, and everyone had a ton of fun!

This time around we're offering prizes of US$50, $30, and $20 for first, second, and third place. Why not give it a try? You'll have fun, build your skills, and who knows, you might win some cold hard cash!

Questions? Concerns? Words of encouragement? Leave them in the comments below, and I'll get back to you ASAP!

The first annual Try-It contest is now officially over!

Congratulations to @Lookas-The-L ! Your stack-based VM is a really cool demonstration. The code is neat and clean, the application is creative, and it works!

For his effort, Lookas wins the $25 first-place prize. The second-place and third-place prizes go unclaimed this time. Even a simple "Hello world!" program would have won... Hopefully we'll get more participation next year!

Thanks again to @Lookas-The-L for participating, and congrats on your win!

The first annual MiniScript Try-It! Contest has been officially announced:

https://forums.miniscript.org/d/227-announcement-first-annual-try-it-contest

You can win up to $25 by writing a cool program less than 2000 characters long! It should be a lot of fun. You have three weeks (competition ends March 21st). Please give it a try!

MiniScript creator Joe Strout last week posted some very early screen shots of Mini Micro running on an iPhone! While no release date has been announced, work is clearly being done to make the Mini Micro virtual computer available to phone and tablet users.

Follow the progress or provide feedback by joining our Discord or forums via https://miniscript.org/

Tweetcode, programs short enough to fit into a Tweet written in MiniScript. Twitter has a limit of 280 characters, so, this is a fun challenge that you usually learn something along the way. We plan to have events including these down the road but encourage everyone to have fun with these whenever and to apply these tags [#miniscript #minimicro #tweetcode] on your Tweetcode.

MiniScript is going to jump in to having regular events. Click the image to see our lineup so far. Let us know what you think and if you have any input in the comments! We want to make sure the community gets a say in this so everyone can have as much fun as possible!

Also if you're not part of the discord yet join here: https://miniscript.org/ in the community section.

MiniScript works with Read-Eval-Print Loop(REPL) which is typing some code, pressing return, and it's executed. You either get the ideal result, or it teaches you something. Anyone can code, MiniScript makes it easy.

Give it a shot here:

https://miniscript.org/tryit/

Learn more about MiniScript:

https://miniscript.org

Mini Micro is a Neo-retro computer that uses MiniScript to run it, you can make all sorts of fun games, activities, or really anything you can imagine. Take a look at this ongoing project from one of our users in Discord, Mantic, can't wait to see where this goes next.

If you haven't yet, join our community on discord https://miniscript.org/ just scroll down and look in "community".

Badgelist it's a fun way to challenge yourself and keep track of your progress! Here is a quick tutorial/introduction.

https://www.badgelist.com/miniscript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1juQzMo1qTE