Gamegirl: the retro console done right

davidperrenoud • 2016-03-25*2016-03-25 11:01* •

As I've already discussed with some people on Slack, we are making a portable console prototype which will support PICO-8 games:

https://hackaday.io/project/10207-gamegirl-the-retro-console-done-right

I'm doing this with the developer of Lakka and he is currently adapting the picolove implementation to run on this console. As we use RetroArch under the hood, that means this PICO-8 loader could potentially be available on a lot of hardware (Raspberry Pi, ODROID, Android, etc.)

As our screen is 320x240 we think of giving the user the option of running PICO-8 games at either 128x128 or 256x240 with neighbor interpolation.

What do you think?

shadow1w2 • 2016-04-03*2016-04-03 16:06*

Looking good.
Looking forward to seeing it when its finished.
Kinda want to suggest four buttons on the back for L R L2 R2 buttons but that might be excessive. (always thought of making Pico-8 games that use eight buttons for one player. I think I'm the only one though)

So pretty much a port of pico-8 to retro arch eh?
The 3DS homebrew scene has a retro arch port, would love to see this pico-8 loader core get ported one day, though that kind of skips the point.

Hoping the overall machine will be affordable in the end, a lot of these sort of projects are expensive one time kickstarter projects or cost more than is practical for a consumer.

Also any plans on connectivity?
Lan or atleast USB for data transfers and possible linked multiplayer games?
I realize its difficult with the limits of the Rpi zero but worth a thought?

Anyway, good luck with the project.
Looking forward to it and the retroarch core especially since that opens it to pretty much everything. :3

Ivoah • 2016-04-03*2016-04-03 22:32*

Looks nice! One suggestion I would have though is to consider changing the name. Right now it's quite similar to Adafruit's Game Grrl and Pi Grrl projects. https://learn.adafruit.com/game-grrl/gallery

davidperrenoud • 2016-04-08*2016-04-08 02:54*

L and R buttons are planned but not L2 and R2.

RetroArch is indeed available to many platforms so once the PICO-8 port is done it should be available on all of those platforms.

We plan on adding USB OTG to Lakka for transfering games using USB.

Multiplayer through USB should technically be possible if someone wants to devote some time developing this. Micro USB to micro USB cables exist but they aren't officially allowed. Maybe with USB-C to USB-C cables?

Otherwise you could connect a Bluetooth dongle if the battery supports it.

I knew of the Pi Grrl but not the Game Grrl. Does anyone have an idea for the name?

breadbeard • 2016-05-11*2016-05-11 09:01*

Very cool concept! I would really like to see a new version of pico8 have a widescreen option. 480x320 seems to be the best portable rpi screen resolution for pico8, yet it can only scale to 320x320, since it has no widescreen mode.

I understand it is meant to be retro aspect of 4:3, but that also means it is not fully compatible with 99% of flat screens! I a few 8" screens that are 4:3 ratio, but why spend $100 on a screen, just for a pico8 arcade?

If this is a problem of the engine running at higher resolution, I would suggest the option to decrease the resolution from 128x128 to 128x96. Loosing pixels would be sad, but at least it would scale to 16:9 and look better on pocketChip and raspberry pi screens.

Domarius • 2016-05-18*2016-05-18 22:39*

I really hope this happens and is affordable. There is the portable CHIP but it's not a dedicated gaming device like yours, it's meant to be a portable computer. And it's $80.