Pika Studio

Run and debug Pika Lua game packs in the native simulator directly from VS Code.

Features

• Explorer — browse all packs under SD/games in the Pika Activity Bar view
• Configuration — set what the host passes into game_start(params): server params (level, difficulty, …), language, and is_a2a
• Run / Stop — launch the native simulator with one click or from the command palette
• Debug — set breakpoints in Lua files and step through code with the built-in Pika Lua debugger
• Manifest form editor — visual editor for manifest.json (open via the gear icon in the editor title bar)
• Output console — simulator stdout/stderr streamed to the "Pika Engine" Output channel
• Robot view — a 3D Pika driven by the game's servo / LED commands with back's timing rules, showing the live LCD; its buttons (or the keyboard) drive the game
• Robot ↔ backend log — a chat column beside the robot view: every request the robot sends (device API, game voice WebSocket, telemetry, media downloads) and every reply, with status and body; rows that never went on the wire (dry-run, mock, journey file) are dashed
• SDK — docs, examples and Lua libraries from the Pika SDK repo (pika.sdk.source), with an asset library and New Game from Example
• To-do journey — launch a pack as back's to-do journey would (pika.todo.*): map or reward phase, journey from the server or a file, POSTs dry-run or real

Requirements

• Windows x64 (the bundled simulator pika_studio.exe is a Windows native binary)
• A workspace containing a SD/games folder, or open SD/games directly

Quick Start

1. Install the extension (.vsix) via Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX
2. Open the Pika firmware repo (or the SD/games folder) in VS Code
3. Click the Pika icon in the Activity Bar
4. Right-click a game pack → Run, or press the ▶ button

Commands

Every command is in the Command Palette under the Pika: prefix (run, stop, debug, export to SD, robot view, SDK browsing, A2A toggle, …); the common ones also sit on the Explorer's title bar and context menu.

Extension Settings

game_start(params) — where each field comes from

The Configuration section mirrors how the robot assembles that table, and keeps the two sources apart because confusing them is the common mistake:

Those two host fields are the only ones the firmware defines by name, which is why only they get a closed list. They are attached after the server object is decoded, so a server field of the same name cannot override them.

Everything else is server-defined: back stashes the whole data object without inspecting it, precisely so a new server field needs no firmware change. The presets (difficulty → easy/medium/hard, level, game_type, hero_label) are conventions drawn from packs and docs, not a contract — so the name field stays typeable and any new server field remains testable here.

Only an A2A launch carries server params. A menu launch sends GameStartMsg_st, which holds nothing but game_id. Setting params with is_a2a off therefore describes a launch the robot cannot perform, and the section warns when you do.

The 128-byte budget includes game_id

conversation.cpp serializes the whole data object into the char[128] params_json field, and game_id is part of that object — so the pack name eats into the same budget (and costs one of the 32 nodes). The meter accounts for it: the Configuration section sizes against the longest installed pack name, and the runner sizes against the pack actually being launched.

This matters because the overflow is silent on the device: back logs a warning but strncpys anyway, the clipped JSON no longer parses, and the game receives an empty table — indistinguishable in-game from "the server sent nothing". Studio therefore refuses to save an over-budget payload and drops it rather than truncating at launch.

Ranking on PC (pika.rankMode)

On the robot, back closes the ranking loop by itself: Ranking.report() arrives as IPC_CMD_GAME_RESULT, back POSTs /games/result, then GETs /games/rank, unwraps data, and sends it down as IPC_CMD_GAME_RANK_RESULT. Head latches that reply and Ranking.get_result() consumes it once.

The simulator runs no back, so nothing closes that loop on its own and Ranking.get_result() would return nil forever — which looks exactly like a broken pack. pika.rankMode decides how it gets closed:

The default is real so the PC behaves like the robot without being configured into it — a leaderboard branch that works here works there.

It writes to the live board. Every Ranking.report() in real mode appends a score row children will see. When you are iterating on a pack and don't want that trail, switch to fetch: same real board data, no upload. mock needs no credentials at all and is the offline fallback.

fetch and real need pika.gameVoice.* credentials; without them the sim falls back to mock and says so in the log.

Both real modes reuse the pika.gameVoice.* credentials (robot id + session or master key) and send the same robot-id / challenge / request-token headers back sends. They are independent of pika.voiceMode: fetching a leaderboard does not turn on the microphone.

The POST body is built field-for-field against Application::PostGameResult (robot_id, game_id, version, entry, ended_reason, score, duration), and both calls carry firmware_version in the query like every other device API call back makes. Both modes were verified end-to-end against the live backend: fetch returns the real board, and real gets {"recorded":true} back with the board updating in the same run.

Two behaviours worth knowing before reading a real-mode result: the backend keeps only your best score, so posting below your current best changes nothing visible even though the row was written; and duration is 0 unless the pack actually ran that long, since the engine computes it from VM start.

Debug

Add a launch.json configuration:

{
  "type": "pika-lua",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "Pika: Debug Game",
  "gameId": "${command:pika.pickGame}"
}

Or press F5 — Pika Studio will prompt you to pick a game pack.

Icons

The Extensions view shows the icon of the installed .vsix, but the extension details page takes it from the Marketplace listing once the extension is published there: a new icon shows on that page only after vsce publish.

icon.png is a build product: after changing icon-source.svg, re-render it or the shipped icon silently keeps the old art.

npx sharp-cli -i media/icon-source.svg -o media/icon.png resize 512 512

License

MIT