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The retro game development engine for Go, inspired by Pico-8 and powered by Ebitengine.

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pi

Go Reference codecov Project Status: Active – The project has reached a stable, usable state and is being actively developed.

The retro game development engine for Go, inspired by Pico-8 and powered by Ebitengine.

Hello World example Controller example Keyboard example Palette swapping example

FAQ

Is this a new fantasy console?

No, it's not. It's rather a game development library with dev-tools which make it simple (and fun!) to write retro games in Go.

What is a retro game?

It's a game that resembles old 8-bit/16-bit games. This usually means:

  • (extremely) Low resolution (like 128x128 pixels)
  • Limited number of colors (like 16)
  • Very small number of assets (like 256 sprites, map having up to 8K tiles)
  • Small number lines of code (thousands rather than millions)
  • Sound effects and music made using predefined synth instruments and effects

What similarities does Pi have with Pico-8?

  • Most concepts are similar: game loop, drawing sprites and shapes, printing text, clipping, camera, palette swapping, handling user input. Some functions have even same names.
  • Screen resolution is small, and the number of colors is limited. Although in Pi you can change the resolution and palette.
  • You have one small sprite sheet.

Why would I use it?

Because it's the easiest way to write a game in Go. IMHO ;)

Is Pi ready to use?

Pi is under development. Only limited functionality is provided. API is not stable. See ROADMAP for details.

How to get started?

  1. Install dependencies
  2. Try examples from examples directory.
  3. Create a new game using provided Github template.
  4. Read the documentation.

How to edit PNG files like sprite-sheet.png and custom-font.png?

  • Use a pixel-art editor which supports indexed color mode, such as Aseprite or LibreSprite.
  • Palette for the game is stored inside sprite-sheet.png.

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