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Gaming on Raspberry Pi

#MakeItMondays in the MILL: Gaming on Raspberry Pi!

Raspberry Pi is a wonderful little $35 linux computer–and it’s a lot of fun. Sure there is a lot of applications for physical computing or learning to code, but Pi also a handy open-source gaming machine! If you are interested in retro emulation, there are specialized distributions such as RetroPie (my RetroPie notes). However, there are plenty of gaming opportunities on the standard Pi operating system, Rasbian. Rasbian is a free and open-source OS, and most of the applications available are as well, which means no cost for you, so give these games a try!

Built in games

These can be found in the Menu, under the Games category:

  • Minecraft Pi: RPI ships with a special edition of the popular game Minecraft with a programming console for learning Python. Check out Getting Started with Minecraft Pi.
  • Python Games. A set of a dozen simple games writen in the Python programming language. This means you can play the games–and easily learn to edit them yourself. The source code for each is in /home/pi/python_games. Check out Al Sweigart’s Making Games with Python & Pygame to learn Python while making games!

Install packages

Linux distributions have package managers designed to automatically install and update in software in a safe and secure way. Rasbian is based on Debian linux and uses the apt utility on the command line. To use it, open Terminal, and type sudo apt install package-name (replacing package-name with the actual application name). You can search for package names using sudo apt-cache search. If you want more information, check Linux’s built in manual by typing man apt.

Debian’s repositories have a lot of fun games (here’s a decent list for Pi, or a database of all linux games). Keep in mind not all will run well on Pi given the low spec hardware, but it is all free, so why not give them a try? (p.s. remove packages using sudo apt remove package-name) Here are a few options:

  • Classic KDE games: kblocks kbreakout kapman kmines kgoldrunner kdiamond kspaceduel kpat
  • Arcade-like classics: frozen-bubble, xgalaga, snake4, battleball, tint, freesweep, pingus, chromium-bsu
  • Classic point-n-click adventures: flight-of-the-amazon-queen, beneath-a-steel-sky, drascula, lure-of-the-temptress
  • Tux classics: supertux (Mario inspired platformer), supertuxkart (Mario kart like races, might not work on current Rasbian), extremetuxracer (downhill penguin race)
  • Rogue-like: games-rogue (group of rogue-like games, including angband, crawl, moria, and slashem), crawl-tiles (classic rogue-like with graphics)
  • Others: freeciv (Civilization builder), openttd (Transport Tycoon), lincity (sim city), endless-sky (space exploration), freeorion (space conquest)
  • Create levels: there are many games inspired by commercial classics that fans create open engines and free content for, such as freedink (zelda-like),flare (action rpg), or freedoom (free DOOM game base).
  • Cat that follows your mouse: oneko (is this a game? well it’s amusing anyway…)

Web emulator

The Internet Archive has thousands of old games preserved in their digital library. They make them available in a browser based emulator, so you can play them anywhere, but Pi is just right for many of these retro games! Yes, you can play Oregon Trail right now, or check out these collections:

Commandline fun

The Terminal is a powerful command line interface in Linux. So why not use it for some fun?

  • Classic BSD Games: install bsdgames to get access to dozens of classics. Type the name of the game in the terminal to start playing, for example, tetris-bsd. Check the list for the names.
  • Text adventure: try the original colossal-cave-adventure
  • Rogue-like: enter the retro world of text-based RPGs with nethack, slashem, omega-rpg, crawl, angband, or moria
  • Wise cow: install cowsay and fortune to access the wisdom of the command line. Try cowsay "Hello" or fortune, then advance to fortune | cowsay or fortune | cowsay -f dragon.

OpenGL

On rpi2 with the newest version of Raspbian Stretch, you can enable a new hardware OpenGL driver. Run sudo raspi-config, look in Advanced > GL Driver. Select the new driver, then select finish and reboot the pi.

Try it out with a few OpenGL games, such as neverball and oolite.