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A single-button Arcade game using Adafruit Itsy Bitsy M4 Express

Once you have a game working on the MakeCode Arcade web editor, it's time to download it and flash it onto your Adafruit board. There are essentially two ways to do it:

  1. Using WebUSB in the browser. More details can be found here: WebUSB
  2. You can also drag and drop a .uf2 file.

You can find additional games by:

  1. Opening https://arcade.makecode.com in your favorite browser
  2. Either open a game that we've provided or start creating your own!

Downloading a game through WebUSB

If you are in a WebUSB-enabled browser (most likely Chrome), you will be prompted to pair your device with your browser. In fact, you will be prompted twice to pair the device in application mode and in bootloader mode (they are essentially two different devices). Once the pairing is completed, flashing will happen automatically in future. Here is how you do it:

  1. Connect your board to your computer with a micro-USB cable.
  2. Press the Download button on the Arcade interface in the browser you are using. If it is unpaired, you will be taken through a wizard to pair the application device and bootloader device.
  3. Wait a few seconds, and your board will be flashed!

Downloading a game with a drag and drop .uf2 file

When WebUSB is not available, you can always use the drag and drop flow. Here is how you do it:

  1. Connect your board to your computer with a micro-USB cable.
  2. Press the reset button to put your device in bootloader mode. You should see the bootloader picture with the big D51 sign.
  3. Press on the Download button in the Arcade editor and select the D51 hardware platform.
  4. Drag and drop the generated arcade-YOURGAME.uf2 file into the ARCD-D51 drive.
  5. Wait a few seconds and the board will restart in the game!

This guide was first published on Jan 18, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Downloading Games) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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