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

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!

<img alt"Prototype v0.2 Front" src="./Media/Prototype%20v0.2%20Front.jpg" width="300"> <img alt"Prototype v0.2 Back" src="./Media/Prototype%20v0.2%20Back.jpg" width="300">

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.

<img src="./Media/Case_Front_back.PNG" width="300" alt"Case front design model">

Prototype v0.2.1 (work in progress)

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

<img alt"Prototype v0.2.1 Front" src="./Media/Design_Proto_v0.2.1_front.png" width="300"> <img alt"Prototype v0.2.1 Back" src="./Media/Design_Proto_v0.2.1_back.png" width="300">

Improvements over v0.2:

• Hand soldering friendlier layout
• Fixed mono audio circuit
• Fixed backlight function
• Button placement
• etc.

Gamegirl v0.2.1 - Bill Of Materials (BOM)

(work in progress)

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