Gamegirl

The most portable way to play LÖVE, PICO-8, Scratch or your favorite emulated games. Powered by RetroArch!

Table of Contents

• Description
• Components
• Build your own!
• Setup
• Team
• License

Description

We develop a very small, affordable and portable gaming console with a 320x240 display at 120 FPS run by a Raspberry Pi Zero. Gamegirl runs on the Lakka distribution powered by RetroArch because of its speed, fast power-on, instant power-off and its potential to run many retro and hipster-retro games (LÖVE, PICO-8, Scratch and emulators).

Join us on our Discord Chat Channel!

Project Goals:

• Hardware accelerated display
• Custom software (Lakka / RetroArch)
• High quality case and buttons
• Small form factor

Components

• 1 x Gamegirl custom PCB (audio, power, etc.)
• 1 × Raspberry Pi Zero
• 1 × 2.4" TFT display 320x240 (RGB 565 @ 120 FPS)
• 10 × soft rubber dome buttons
• 2 x metal dome buttons
• 1 × 15-16mm speaker
• 1 × 800+ mAh battery

Build your own!

Prototype v0.2 (released)

v0.2 is the current development platform with multiple working prototypes in the field. It works but it's not perfect, yet!

Gamegirl v0.2 - Schematic

• Gamegirl_v0.2_Schematic.pdf

Gamegirl v0.2 - Bill Of Materials (BOM)

• Octopart - Gamegirl v0.2 BOM

Minimal assembly variant

In this assembly variant you will get a working prototype without battery/charging and audio functionality. You can use it only while the Raspberry Pi Zero is connected to a USB power supply!

• Gamegirl v0.2 BOM - minimal assembly variant

Full assembly variant

This assembly variant requires some circuit modifications to get audio output!

• Gamegirl v0.2 BOM - full assembly variant

Gamegirl Case v0.2

A 3D printable case design is currently in work.

Prototype v0.2.1 (Awaiting Prototype board)

v0.2.1 incorporates multiple improvements and fixes over v0.2. If you do not have a v0.2, you should wait for this!

Improvements over v0.2:

• Friendlier hand solderable layout (All component footprints have been expanded for soldering without a heatgun)
• Fixed mono audio circuit (better pre and post filtering)
• Fixed backlight function
• Button placement and labeling to reflect standard Nintendo layout
• MCP23S17 GPIO Expander replaced Charlieplexed buttons
• Labeled most
• Ability to add common inexpensive WiFi adpater directly to the board (depreciated due to Zero W)
• Replaced battery charger and 5v booster ICs with a 3-in-1 IC, ETA9740 ** Rpi Zero will run directly from battery (Rpi stability has been tested down to 3.0V) ** Increased charging current from 500mA to 2A or 3A ** 5V Boost will operate in USB-OTG mode for accessories
• Added dedicated charging micro USB port (Rpi ports will be covered)
• Added multiple power decoupling capacitors for better power filtering
• Added Safe Soft-Shutdown circuit
• Replaced latching switch with momentary switch
• (Optional) Low Battery shutdown
• (Optional) Low Noise LDO for audio amp (Must cut 3.3v trace when using)

Gamegirl v0.2.1 - Bill Of Materials (BOM)

BOM

Gamegirl Case v0.2.1

(work in progress)

Setup

Install the latest Lakka image on an SD Card

Gamegirl Raspberry Pi Zero images:

• Nightly Builds
• Build r21684 (November 29, 2016)
• Build r21570 (August 23, 2016)

Instructions:

• How to write a image to an SD card on Windows & Mac OS

First boot

As of nightly build 20170110005640-r25097, the system will take longer to boot as it is expanding the SD card partition and running other first boot operations. Subsequent boots will be faster.

Installing your games

How-to on lakka.tv

Team

David Perrenoud	Jean-André Santoni - Github	Rodney Yates

• [Jean-André] from France is the software guy of this project. He is the main Lakka developer and a top 5 RetroArch contributor.
• [David] from Switzerland is the hardware guy.
• [Rodney] from US is the PCB designer.

Contributing

Join us on our Discord Chat Channel!

Project Task Tracker

Trello page

#License

All hardware is covered under OSHW.

All software is covered under GNU-GPL 3.0.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE."