Game development for the Pi

[CarlosRS]

Hello,
I'm new on this forum so if moderators consider that this thread should be in other subforum feel free to move it.

As the title says I want to create native games for the Raspberry Pi Zero. In fact I would like to build a portable console using the Pi Zero and play my own 2D games on the go.

I have experience making games using engines like unity. I also built my own engine for windows and Linux in the past, so it's not a matter of how to create games but how to build properly for the Pi.

I recently discovered PyGame but it seems too constrained for me, so I don't know if it's the best tool for the job.

So the question is: what is the best approach to build 2D games for the Pi? Using PyGame, some game engine (you name it) or maybe building natively for Debian and try to run it on the pi (I don't have the Pi yet and don't know if it's as simple as that)?

Please take into account that I would like to use Pi's OpenGL capabilities and as much power as I can get from it.

On the other hand, if creating native Linux games is the solution maybe I could try to adapt my engine to the pi, but surely there is a good game engine that supports the Pi.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad English skills.

[ejolson]

I have experience making games using engines like unity. I also built my own engine for windows and Linux in the past, so it's not a matter of how to create games but how to build properly for the Pi.

I suspect the game engine you already wrote for Linux would be the easiest to port to the Pi. What programming language did you use? Was the same code cross platform on Microsoft Windows?

[CarlosRS]

It was built using C++ and yes the code Is cross platform windows-linux (Tested on Ubuntu 14.04).

I don't know how it would performance on the Pi's hardware though...

[mikronauts]

If you port it, you can benchmark it

It was built using C++ and yes the code Is cross platform windows-linux (Tested on Ubuntu 14.04).

I don't know how it would performance on the Pi's hardware though...

[Gavinmc42]

viewtopic.php?f=67&t=164818

Could try this?

[ghans]

I heard some good things about raylib :

www.raylib.com

ghans

[CarlosRS]

Thanks for your suggestions. I think I'll give a try to both engines.

[pavul]

I want to develop a game console using the raspberry, I was making a game library for java, that I used in mac/windows, yesterday I pass a .jar to the raspberry and it worked, what I would like to make is that when you turn on the raspberry then ejecute some kind of java program to list all games made with that library and then be able to play the games, im trying to implement pi4j to create the controls for that library, once I have an example I will post it here.

[ponyatov]

How is your progress?
Is any community forum exists especially for native game developers for Raspberry?

[Gavinmc42]

The Pi4 with OpenGL and shaders plus dual HDMI is now good enough for developing
But what software tools run on Pi4?
Most of those are 64bit?
64bit OS's are coming on Pi4 but not off the shelf yet.

Will we see Unity/Unreal on Pi4's?
It looks like the demand for the 4GB Pi4 is high, they are reasonable Desktops.

So perhaps it is time for a native Pi gamers forum?
Will there be a Pi section in Wireframe Mag?
Lots of old retro stuff but not much new stuff?
Are they all hanging out on different forums?