MiniScript Road Map for 2026

Source: Dev.to

2026 Outlook

With 2025 coming to a close, it’s time to look ahead to 2026! MiniScript is now eight years old. Many programming languages really come into their own when they’re about ten years old, and it looks like MiniScript will be no different – just wait till you see all the cool developments coming in the next two years!

MiniScript 2.0 – The Big Push for Next Year

• Complete rewrite of the compiler, bytecode, and virtual machine (VM).
• A handful of minor new features, but the main focus is performance – we think we can make MiniScript run dozens of times faster, maybe even hundreds of times faster on certain benchmarks.

C++ Version Enhancements

• True garbage collection (just like the C# version).
• Improved error messages.
• The C++ code will be the foundation for almost everything else in the roadmap, so it will receive a lot of love.

Both the C++ and C# versions will rely heavily on unit‑test and integration‑test suites to ensure the language is rock solid.

Status: After a bunch of prototype work, development of MiniScript 2 is now underway. Follow its progress on GitHub.

Raylib & MSRLWeb

I’ve recently been exploring Raylib, a low‑level abstraction layer over OpenGL, audio, files, and game‑input devices. Raylib is simple, lean, and easy to use.

With help from Discord users dcrawl, minerobber, and Redspark, I quickly put together MSRLWeb, an environment that lets you use Raylib in MiniScript to make 2‑D web‑browser (HTML) games.

• No compiler needed – just write MiniScript code, drop it into a folder with the MSRLWeb binary and any sound/image assets, and point a web server at it.
• Online demo and a game I built for a 3‑hour game jam are available.

Future Plans

• Polish a general MiniScript Raylib package for desktop and mobile games.
• Promote MiniScript as an attractive option for Raylib users – both are clean, minimal, and easy to learn, making them an ideal combo for creators who want their tools to stay out of the way.

Soda – A C++/SDL Game Engine

Soda is a game engine built on C++ and SDL that lets you use MiniScript with an API very similar to Mini Micro. Unlike Mini Micro, Soda does not simulate a retro computer – games run windowed or full‑screen with raw access to the host, just like Unity, Unreal, Godot, etc.

Why Soda Has Stalled

• SDL is painful to work with: complex API, quirky build system, poor documentation, and missing built‑in features that require extensions.
• These pain points have slowed progress considerably.

The Way Forward

• Once MiniScript 2 is finished, we will rewrite Soda using Raylib.
• Our experience with MSRLWeb gives us confidence that this will be a much faster, smoother process.
• The result will be a complete implementation of the Mini Micro API (and more) in an unfettered environment usable for game projects of any size.

Mini Micro 2.0

After MiniScript 2, and leveraging Raylib, we will develop Mini Micro 2.0. This will finally remove our dependency on Unity and enable us to run on platforms we couldn’t practically target before, such as the Raspberry Pi. We’ll also aim to release Mini Micro for Android and iOS tablets.

Planned New Features

• Box‑drawing characters and alternate text sizes in the text display.
• A system debugger/BIOS screen to aid development.
• Better support for non‑QWERTY keyboards.
• Fast vector/matrix math.
• Better support for widescreen (16:10) displays.

Performance Boost

• MiniMicro 2 will feel much faster thanks to MiniScript 2’s inherent performance improvements.
• It will be written in C++ rather than C#, and will run on ARM hardware.
• Existing projects should Just Work, only more efficient and on more platforms.
• Existing resources (e.g., Introduction to Computer Programming) will continue to apply.

Prototype: An early prototype of Mini Micro 2 is already on GitHub – give it a star to let me know you care!

A Dedicated Mini Micro Computer?

Mini Micro is a neo‑retro virtual home computer. Many users have expressed a wish for a machine that boots quickly and directly into Mini Micro, allowing them to hack around and develop games/demos with no distractions.

Vision

• Hardware: Not a dedicated board, but something like a Raspberry Pi 500 (computer built into the keyboard, reminiscent of the Commodore 64) or a laptop such as an Acer 15″ with a 1920×1200 display.
• Software: A custom Linux distribution that strips away everything we don’t need and launches directly into Mini Micro in full‑screen mode with crisp, pixel‑perfect graphics and stereo sound.

We’ll probably have a couple of hardware options that we test and optimize for, though a tech‑savvy user could get the custom Linux distro running on other hardware as well. In any case, it will look and feel very much like a dedicated Mini Micro computer.

Stay Tuned

We’ve begun to dream big, and the roadmap ahead is packed with exciting milestones. Keep an eye on the repositories, join the Discord, and let’s make 2026 a landmark year for MiniScript, Raylib, Soda, and Mini Micro!

Summoner Game Platform

Building a whole game platform around MiniScript, to make it easier and safer for both developers and players. We’re calling this the Summoner Game Platform.

Nobody likes to think about it, but you actually take a pretty big risk every time you download a game to your computer.

• How do you know it’s not malware?
• There’s the hassle of downloading, unzipping or otherwise unpacking, installing (if required), and running it…
• And if it’s not your cup of tea, you have to track down everywhere it installed stuff to remove it.

Summoner Game Platform will address both issues.

• A Summoner game will have a unique ID/URL that takes you to a web page about it.
• Paste that same ID/URL into the Summoner app (or click a summoner:// deep link) and it will seamlessly download or update the game and launch it.
• The app will let you easily see what games you have downloaded and uninstall them (or, if you choose, uninstall the game but keep the game data, in case you change your mind).
• For safety, Summoner games will be sandboxed: they can only access a restricted, safe part of your file system and cannot log keystrokes when the game is not front‑most, etc.

Summoner games will be written in MiniScript, using either the Mini Micro/Soda API or the lower‑level Raylib bindings.

Further down the road we might even:

• Build support for mods (also written in MiniScript!) right into the Summoner client, making it easy for both mod developers and users.
• Add a “tip jar” for each game (and mod?) so you can show appreciation to your favorite devs.

All this will make Summoner a great platform for everything from quick game‑jam projects to large professional‑quality titles.

“Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.”

Timeline

How to Stay Updated (or Help)

• Follow me here on dev.to for future updates.
• Follow MiniScript on Bluesky.
• Star and watch the various GitHub projects linked above, especially MiniScript 2.
• Join us on Discord.
• Participate on the forums (they’ve been rather dead lately as everyone has moved to Discord, but we’d love to see more activity there).
• Sponsor me on GitHub.

So what do you think of these plans? Share your thoughts in the comments below!