Splork

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream art drawer/printer for Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico 2, Pico 2W, or any other RP2040/RP2350 board.

Fork of NotNite/splork, which forked aveao/splork (the original Splatoon 3 version) to add initial Tomodachi Life support. This fork fully converts the project for Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, with an 84-color palette, automatic editor setup, and an optimized drawing algorithm.

Setup

Dependencies

• Deno runtime
• Pico SDK + CMake + arm-none-eabi-gcc toolchain
• A Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico 2, Pico 2W, or any RP2040/RP2350 board

On macOS:

brew install cmake
brew install --cask gcc-arm-embedded
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk.git ~/pico-sdk --recurse-submodules

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential cmake git python3 \
    gcc-arm-none-eabi libnewlib-arm-none-eabi \
    libstdc++-arm-none-eabi-newlib
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk.git ~/pico-sdk --recurse-submodules

Preparing Your Image

Any image works. The converter will resize and dither it to Tomodachi's 84-color palette automatically. Transparent pixels will be ignored.

The paint canvas is 256x256. You can specify a custom size, but 256x256 fills the full canvas.

Generating Instructions

From the repo root:

deno run -A imageconverter2/main.ts <image path> [width] [height]

Examples:

deno run -A imageconverter2/main.ts images/myimage.png 256 256
deno run -A imageconverter2/main.ts images/myimage.png  # uses original image dimensions

This outputs:

• images/result.png - preview of the dithered image
• rp2040src/drawing.h - instruction data for the firmware

The converter will print the number of colors used and an estimated draw time. A full 256x256 image with many colors can take upwards of 12 hours.

Building the Firmware

cd rp2040src
mkdir build
cd build
export PICO_SDK_PATH=~/pico-sdk
cmake ..
make

For Raspberry Pi Pico 2 / Pico 2W (RP2350):

cd rp2040src
mkdir build
cd build
export PICO_SDK_PATH=~/pico-sdk
cmake .. -DPICO_BOARD=pico2_w
make

On subsequent builds you only need cd build, the export, and make. If you are building for a different board, pass the appropriate -DPICO_BOARD= value.

Pico 2W note: The onboard LED is connected to the CYW43 wireless chip, so board_led_write() has no effect. Don't expect the LED to light up — this is normal.

Docker note: The provided Dockerfile/Dockerfile.ci build for the default pico (RP2040) board. If you're using Docker with a Pico 2/2W, pass -DPICO_BOARD=pico2_w or uncomment the PICO_BOARD line in rp2040src/CMakeLists.txt before building.

Flashing

• While holding down BOOTSEL on your board, plug it into your computer.
• Copy rp2040src/build/splork.uf2 to the newly mounted drive:
  • Original Pico (RP2040): RPI-RP2
  • Pico 2 / Pico 2W (RP2350): RP2350

Drawing

• Make sure the advanced/pro editor is enabled in your game settings.
• Open a new paint canvas in Tomodachi Life. Don't touch anything after opening it.
  • The firmware will automatically set the brush size, select colors, and position the cursor.
  • Tip: if docked, disconnect all other controllers to ensure the "connect your controller" UI is visible.
• Connect your board with a USB cable to your Switch, either while it's docked or with a USB-C to USB-A cable.
  • Draw sessions can take many hours. Keep your Switch docked.
• Press the BOOTSEL button on the board to start.

The firmware will:

1. Wait for the Switch to recognize the controller
2. Dismiss the controller connection dialog
3. Set the brush to 1px
4. Navigate to the top-left corner
5. Draw the image color by color

My drawing wasn't perfect, some lines drifted!

That happens, unfortunately, and there isn't a great way to prevent it. The original Splork has a diffgen tool that can generate cleanup runs from a screenshot, but it hasn't been adapted for Tomodachi yet.

Changes from Upstream

• Image converter rewritten in Deno/TypeScript (was Python)
• Full 84-color palette support (was black and white only)
• Automatic dithering to palette via image-q
• Automatic brush setup (1px) and cursor positioning
• Firmware support for X and B buttons
• Drawing algorithm uses diagonal movement, row trimming, and color ordering optimizations
• Y button for color picker navigation (was B in Splatoon)

TODOs

• diffgen support for Tomodachi
• Web patcher for easy setup without building from source
• Faster drawing via combined A+direction instructions (needs testing)

Licenses

• All code is MIT. Parts are based on other MIT projects, see "Credits" section below for more detail.
• All sample images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, unless otherwise stated.

Credits

• Original Splork by ave
• Tomodachi Life fork by NotNite
• The RP2040 codebase is vaguely based on the official dev_hid_composite example project
• The SwitchDescriptors.h file is from https://github.com/FeralAI/MPG (MIT)