A couple of years ago I started building my own handheld game console. What began as a Raspberry Pi project eventually became something considerably more involved, going through two complete iterations before arriving at something I was genuinely happy with.
The first version ran on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a graphical interface written in C++ using Raylib. It worked, and for a first attempt it held up well. Over time though, the limitations became clear. The sealed casing had no ventilation, causing the hardware to overheat during longer sessions. The software developed memory leaks, and button input was unreliable. Rather than continuing to patch over a flawed foundation, the better approach was to start fresh.
The second version was rebuilt from the ground up on a Radxa Rock 5C. The software was rewritten entirely in Flutter, which turned out to be an excellent fit for this kind of project. It handles touch input natively, produces smooth animations, and made it possible to build something that genuinely feels like an integrated operating system rather than a script running on a development board. The console boots directly into a custom game launcher with no visible desktop, with a full settings panel covering brightness, volume, WiFi, and CPU performance mode built in. Physical button input is handled by a background C program that reads GPIO signals and converts them into standard keypresses, meaning any ARM64 Linux game can be added to the library without modification.
The hardware side included designing a custom PCB for button input, a 3D printed casing redesigned from scratch to fit the larger 8 inch 1280x800 display, and an active cooling solution that keeps temperatures stable under load.
A full technical report covering both builds is available, along with the complete source code.
Report and source code: lubker.dk/gameconsole
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