Installation

Prerequisites

PIGO8 requires:

Go 1.21 or later (download)
A C compiler for CGO (required by the underlying Ebitengine):
- macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
- Linux: GCC (sudo apt install gcc or equivalent)
- Windows: TDM-GCC or MinGW-w64

Installing PIGO8

Create a new Go module and add PIGO8:

mkdir my-game && cd my-game
go mod init my-game
go get github.com/drpaneas/pigo8

Verifying Installation

Create a main.go file:

package main

import p8 "github.com/drpaneas/pigo8"

type game struct{}

func (g *game) Init()   {}
func (g *game) Update() {}
func (g *game) Draw()   { p8.Cls(1) }

func main() {
    p8.InsertGame(&game{})
    p8.Play()
}

Run it:

go run .

You should see a window with a dark blue background. Press Enter to open the pause menu, and select "Quit" to exit.

Project Structure

A typical PIGO8 project looks like:

my-game/
├── main.go              # Game code
├── embed.go             # Resource embedding (auto-generated)
├── spritesheet.json     # Sprite definitions
├── map.json             # Tile map data
├── palette.hex          # Custom color palette (optional)
├── music1.wav           # Sound effects (optional)
└── go.mod

Platform-Specific Notes

macOS Apple Silicon

Works out of the box. No additional configuration needed.

Linux

Install these dependencies for audio and graphics:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install libasound2-dev libgl1-mesa-dev xorg-dev

# Fedora
sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel mesa-libGL-devel xorg-x11-server-devel

Windows

Use PowerShell or CMD. If you encounter CGO errors, ensure your compiler is in PATH.

WebAssembly

See the Web Export guide for browser deployment.

PIGO8 Documentation