WASM-4 is a fantasy console: a machine that never physically existed, whose limits are set in advance to frame the creative work. Created in 2021 by Bruno Garcia (aduros), it displays 160 × 160 pixels with only four colours on screen, offers 64 KB of memory and four sound channels. It handles up to four simultaneous players, a rarity in this field.
Its real originality lies elsewhere: a WASM-4 cartridge is a WebAssembly module, which means a game can be written in just about any modern language — Rust, C/C++, Go, AssemblyScript, Zig and others — then compiled into a single .wasm file of at most 64 KB. Unlike PICO-8 or TIC-80, the console therefore depends on no particular scripting language, while keeping the same minimalist constraints. The project is open source and its documentation includes a complete tutorial for writing your first game.
| Type | Fantasy console |
| Author | Bruno Garcia (aduros) |
| Availability | 2021 |
| Resolution | 160 × 160 pixels |
| Palette | 4 colours |
| Memory | 64 KB |
| Cartridge | 64 KB maximum |
| Sound | 4 channels |
| Players | up to 4 |
| Languages | any language that compiles to WebAssembly |
| Controller | Mandatory |
📷 Screenshot coming soon:
system-wasm4.png
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro wasm4 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The system relies on a single emulator, Libretro wasm4, available on every board. Netplay is supported, which suits the console's multiplayer games nicely, as are RetroAchievements and CRT output. Keyboard and mouse can be used alongside the controller.
Recalbox ships with five WASM-4 games: Antcopter, HAMMER JOE, Lake Shooter, Seal Adventure and Skip Ahead. You can therefore try the system without downloading anything. See the Included games page.
No BIOS is required for this system.
This system has a built-in downloader: open its menu and pick DOWNLOAD GAMES so that Recalbox fetches a selection of free games and installs them into the roms folder. A network connection is required.
Put your cartridges in:
/recalbox/share/roms/wasm4/
Accepted extensions: .wasm, .zip, .7z
A cartridge is a plain .wasm file: copy it as it is, without extracting or renaming it. Community games are listed on the project's official website, most of them along with their source code.
Deleting the included games from a roms folder can make the system disappear from the menu, since a system is only shown when it contains at least one game.