Installation

To create a simple game in Messenger, the first step is to install the Messenger CLI tool.

Messenger CLI is written in Python. You need to install python>=3.7. It is recommended to use a python package manager instead of pip on Unix-based OS (including WSL). For example, pipx is a tool to manage python applications. uv is also a fast python package manager.

# pipx:
pipx install -i https://pypi.python.org/simple elm-messenger>=0.5.3
# uv:
uv tool install -i https://pypi.python.org/simple elm-messenger>=0.5.3
# Or use pip on Windows:
pip install -i https://pypi.python.org/simple elm-messenger>=0.5.3

This tool is helpful in quickly building a project. To create a new project, use the following commands:

messenger init helloworld
# Or with custom repo:
messenger init helloworld -t <Repo URL>
# With custom branch:
messenger init helloworld -t <Repo URL> -b <Branch name>

By default, it uses a local REGL JS backend with default font consolas (~200KiB).

You could switch to use JS on CDN or use the local version without default font:

# Use CDN REGL JS with default font:
messenger init helloworld --use-cdn
# Use local REGL JS with no font (~140KiB):
messenger init helloworld --min
# Use CDN REGL JS with no font:
messenger init helloworld --use-cdn --min

See CLI documentation to learn more about Messenger CLI.