Making Games

How to build your own games

This is an small guide to start making games for Miyoo (not for beginners). Thanks to crait for this guide and gameblabla for his updates.

SDL 1.2 keys (MiyooCFW 2.0.0 & above)

Physical button bindings for Miyoo 1'st gen consoles (Bittboy's in round brackets)

Button	SDLKey
A (A)	SDLK_LALT
B (B)	SDLK_LCTRL
X (TA)	SDLK_LSHIFT
Y (TB)	SDLK_SPACE
L1	SDLK_TAB
R1	SDLK_BACKSPACE
L2	SDLK_PAGEUP
R2	SDLK_PAGEDOWN
L3	SDLK_RALT
R3	SDLK_RSHIFT
RESET	SDLK_RCTRL
START	SDLK_RETURN
SELECT	SDLK_ESCAPE
UP/DOWN	SDLK_UP/DOWN
LEFT/RIGHT	SDLK_LEFT/RIGHT

To check correctness of this table use I/O tester on your handheld.

Step 1

Since we're working with Linux-based devices, you're going to need to run a Linux distribution. So, if you're on Windows, you'll need to install a Virtual Machine, Cygwin, WSL or something like that.

Recommended Linux distribution is Ubuntu 22.04

Step 2

The Miyoo uses a custom firmware based around buildroot and Linux. To compile programs for it, we'll need to get buildroot in order to cross-compile programs for the Miyoo.

For downloadable pre-built packages/binaries of the toolchain/SDK see here.

If you wish to compile the toolchain/SDK from source, see here

Step 3

Create a folder for your project with your game's source code and create a "Makefile" for it. Here's the one that crait used for the Midnight Wild game:

CHAINPREFIX= /opt/miyoo/
CROSS_COMPILE=$(CHAINPREFIX)/bin/arm-linux-

CC = $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc
CXX = $(CROSS_COMPILE)g++
STRIP = $(CROSS_COMPILE)strip
SYSROOT     := $(shell $(CC) --print-sysroot)
SDL_CFLAGS  := $(shell $(SYSROOT)/usr/bin/sdl-config --cflags)
SDL_LIBS    := $(shell $(SYSROOT)/usr/bin/sdl-config --libs)

OUTPUTNAME = midnightwild/midnightwild.elf

DEFINES = -DHAVE_STDINT_H -DVERSION_BITTBOY
INCLUDES = -Iinclude $(SDL_CFLAGS)
OPT_FLAGS  = -Ofast -fdata-sections -fdata-sections -fno-common -fno-PIC -flto
EXTRA_LDFLAGS = -lasound -lmikmod -lmodplug -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--gc-sections -flto -s

CFLAGS = $(DEFINES) $(INCLUDES) $(OPT_FLAGS) -std=gnu11 
CXXFLAGS = $(DEFINES) $(INCLUDES) $(OPT_FLAGS) -std=gnu++11 
LDFLAGS = -Wl,--start-group -lSDL -lSDL_image -lpng -ljpeg -lSDL_mixer -lfreetype -lSDL_ttf -logg -lvorbisidec -lmikmod -lmodplug -lm -pthread -lz -lstdc++ $(EXTRA_LDFLAGS) -Wl,--end-group

# Redream (main engine)
OBJS =  \
	src/main.o

.c.o:
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $@ $< 

.cpp.o:
	$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -o $@ $< 

all: $(OBJS)
	$(CC) -o $(OUTPUTNAME) $(OBJS) $(CFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS)

clean:
	rm -f $(OBJS) $(OUTPUTNAME)

Step 4

Build your software with "make" in the terminal and you should be good to go!

Do you want to find a good example of some source code for the BittBoy? Check out pingflood's IOTester: https://github.com/pingflood/iotester

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