FW16 Pong Wars

Pong Wars written in Rust for Framework Laptop 16 LED Matrix modules.

demo-compressed.mp4

Requirements

• Windows 10 or later
• One or two Framework Laptop 16 LED Matrix modules
• (Building locally) Rust stable toolchain. Optionally, NSIS and cargo-packager for the installer

Installation

Portable executable

Download fw16-pongwars.exe the from the latest releases. Store and run it from anywhere, using either commandline arguments or the settings.toml file (generated on first-run).

Installer

Download the installer (fw16-pongwars_x.x.x_x64-setup) from the latest releases. The portable exe will be saved to %APPDATA%\FW16PongWars for you. You can also create a shortcut.

Build from source

To build the portable .exe:

cargo build --release

The executable is written to target\release\fw16-pongwars.exe.

To build the installer:

cargo install cargo-packager --locked
cargo packager --release --formats nsis

This will also build the portable .exe. The installer is just a wrapper for the portable version.

Usage

Command line

fw16-pongwars-portable.exe --dualmode --speed 48 --balls 5 --brightness 10

Pass game parameters directly on the command line for one-off or scripted runs. No settings.toml is created.

Flag	Description	Default
-d, --dualmode	Drive two modules side-by-side (18x34)	off
-b, --balls [1-20]	Balls per team	2
-s, --speed <1-64>	Target FPS	32
-B, --brightness <0-100>	Brightness percent	40
--settings <path>	Path to persistent TOML settings file	--
--debug	Extra timing output and debug console	off

Settings file

fw16-pongwars-portable.exe --settings path\to\settings.toml

Points the app at a specific TOML file instead of the default location. If the file does not exist one is created with defaults. The --settings flag cannot be combined with any other flags. Changes made in the Settings dialog only take effect on restart. There's a button for this in the menu.

When running in --settings mode, all configuration is read from a TOML file.

Key	Type	Default	Description
dual_mode	bool	false	Use both modules as one 18x34 display
left_serial	string	""	USB serial number of the left module (set by calibration)
right_serial	string	""	USB serial number of the right module (set by calibration)
module	string	"right"	Which module to use in single-module mode ("left" or "right")
balls	integer	2	Balls per team (1--20)
speed	integer	32	Target FPS (1--64)
brightness	integer	40	Brightness percent (0--100)
debug	bool	false	Enable debug timing output
start_with_windows	bool	true	Register a Windows startup entry for the app

System Tray

The app places an icon in the system tray with the following controls:

• Pause / Resume -- toggle game state.
• Reset Game -- restart the match from the kickoff.
• Settings -- opens a window to configure all game options, choose which module side to use, trigger recalibration, and toggle auto-start. Only appears when running with a settings file.
• Exit -- exit the program.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• Original Pong Wars by Koen van Gilst: https://github.com/vnglst/pong-wars
• Framework Computer for the LED Matrix hardware and open-source firmware
• Windsurf and Claude Opus 4.6 enabling me to bring this idea to life