Storytime

I always was a huge fan of handheld game consoles like the PSP, 3DS, PS Vita and so on and made it my hobby to build my own retro handheld game console from the hardware parts to the software. After many attempts, improvements and an endless list of things I learned I finally reached a point at which I want to hear what others think about it.

Hardware

The PCB can be found here: https://www.tindie.com/products/daviel/pigo-handheld-raspberry-pi-gaming-console/

Hardware-wise I made a whole custom board for the raspberry pi zero (and zero 2) which includes the following features:

• a Display port using SPI (320x240 60FPS)

• Battery charger module using USB-C with LED indicators

• battery measuring of state-of-charge

• a flat battery with 2000mah which lasts over 6 hours

• Sound chip for the speaker

• headphone jack

• a hardware clock which proceeds after the whole system is turned off

• 16 unique 3D-printed Buttons; one which could be used as a shortcut button for sound/display

• a voltage booster to give 5V to the Pi constantly

• A 3D-printed Case

• made SD card, USB and HDMI plugs available from outside the case

• the pi is plugged to the board without any soldering

• everything is made to be put together without any screws/soldering

Software

You can use the PiGo OS Image which can be found on Github.

Here are some details about PiGo OS:

• Open-source, customized and optimized Raspberry Pi OS (including everything you need to start)

• extremely lightweight launcher (based on Micropython and LVGL)

• a key mapper which can be used to adapt the button layout to the game

• compatible to Godot Engine, Love2D and many more

Games

Here is a list of games which work on the PiGo out-of-the-box:

• PicoWar (8-Bit RTS based on Godotengine)

• PicoRogue (8-Bit Roguelike)

• OpenTyrian

• PICO-8 (You will need to buy PICO-8)

• Love2D Demo

The games are listed on Github here. See the readme for details and download the games from the releases section.

There is also an explanation on how to make your own games. :)

Media

You can find more details, videos and screenshots on my mastodon.social account here.