Piga Software
Piga Software Logo under the GFDL and CC BY-SA; also available as an SVG.

"Free as in Freedom, Free as in Priceless"

Welcome to the home page of Piga Software: we are a cooperative of programmers developing free software for GNU/Linux and occasionally other systems, with a particular emphasis on game development. Our software is released under the GNU General Public License version 3, though some individual files within projects might be under other copyleft licenses and are listed in project copyright disclaimers. Some content from our games by MWM may also be available under the GFDL and CC BY-SA on their wiki database.

Although we have used Visual Basic 6, QBasic, Game Maker and even ZZT-oop, most current projects are built in Gambas - a free software BASIC-style OOP programming language consisting of an integrated development environment and run-time inspired by Visual Basic and Java that is well suited to rapid application development. Our particular areas of interest are strategy, adventure and platformers, first-person games and interactive narrative, often with a sense of humour; though we work on whatever suits us at the time, and some projects are developed for a specific use case, as well as general use applications.

More details on who we are and what we do can be found at PigaLore, the Piga Software Wiki; we are also active on the Gambas ONE and FreeGameDev forums.

August 12, 2014: Piga Software is now ten years old!

Software:

All Piga related files may be downloaded from our file server.

Latest Release: Nightfall (1.5.1)

  1. Donut Quest is a top-down action scroller for Microsoft Windows (or Wine) set in the Brogo web comic universe staring Ed Donut. (1.00)
  2. PigaVision is a free software tool for using the television out ports of video cards. It functions as a front-end interface for the XRandR and Xvattr applications. (1.2.0)
  3. Piga's Pumpkin Carving is a small amusment program that allows people to carve virtual Halloween jack-o'-lanterns. (2.5.5)
  4. Alexei: Part IX is a comedic free software point-and-click adventure game starring master thief Alexei Volkov, inspired by the early work of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. (1.2.8)
  5. Windys is a free software retro-styled action platformer featuring terminal-inspired multimedia and restaurant dark humour. (1.5.0)
  6. Piga's Thanksgiving Dinner Hunt is a small amusement program where the player catches turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. (1.5.0)
  7. Piga's Santa Drop Down is a Christmas-themed arcade game where the player controls Santa Claus as he gives coal to the naughty and gifts to the nice. (2.0.0)
  8. Piga's New Years Dodge 'Em is a New Years-themed endurance game where the player guides a hot air balloon away from fireworks whilst conserving fuel. (1.2.0)
  9. Over the Top is an arcade game demonstrating the carnage of the trench warfare of the Western Front during the First World War. (1.2.0)
  10. Hull Breach was made for the inaugural December 2020 LibreJam. It is a top down arcade game where an astronaut has to seal breaches in his ship using duct tape in zero gravity. First collecting the tape, the player than bounces from wall to wall to get to the leaks as they open up. (1.0.0)
  11. Hedged was first made for the April 2021 LibreJam. It is a first-person 3D maze game with a horror theme. Set in a snowy hedge garden reminiscent of The Shining, the player attempts to find the exit while evading his suddenly murderous wife. (1.2.0)
  12. Bring Them On was made for the August 2021 LibreJam. It is a top-down shooter game with a science fiction theme. Upon developing a teleportation device, the player is pursued by monsters from another plane of reality. (1.0.0)
  13. Mosquito was made for the December 2021 LibreJam. It is an arcade game based on quick reflexes. The player controls a prehistoric giant mosquito, preserved pregnant in amber and recently revived. It must feed on a human in order to resurrect its species, while avoiding having it all end in one quick smack. (1.0.0)
  14. Nightfall was made for Halloween 2022 and updated for Halloween 2023. It is a scrolling shooter where the player armed with a shotgun faces attacks from various monsters and has to dodge or shoot them, before facing a final battle with a horrifying vampire. Going on a kill streak transforms the player into a vicious beast. (1.5.1)
  15. Piga 3D Easter Egg Hunt was made for Easter 2023. It is a first-person 3D maze game set in a green garden filled with new life where the player seeks out easter eggs. (1.2.0)
  16. ASCIIlization was made for the June 2023 LibreJam. It is a terminal based hotseat mutliplayer turn based strategy game. Currently only training units and collecting resources is finished, so players instead compete for the higher score by harvesting resources and upgrading units. Units are assigned various tools to be used on different items. (0.5.1)
  17. Soul Capture is a utility that captures both the video and audio playback of OpenGL applications such as games; created in Gambas and working as a front-end for the glc capture program. ffmpeg is also required for encoding. (2.0.0)
  18. Gambas Examples is a collection of code and some programs to help the aspiring Gambas programmer, specifically game developers.

Projects

Applications:

  1. Piga Animator is a project to create a suite of 2D animation tools based on machinimatic techniques using digital puppetry and the implementation of procedural elements.
    • Sprite Stage handles sprite-based layered cell animation.
    • Cutout Coliseum is for segmented cutout animation.
    • Speech Generator allows the production of speech files for automated lip flaps, subtitling and text-to-speech.
    • Character Creator will allow for the defining of digital puppets with model sheets and defined traits.

Systems:

  1. Gambas Performance System is a free software system to create virtual agents and actors for games and animation projects; this can include semi-autonomous digital puppets or fully independent game entities controlled by artificial intelligence.
  2. Gambas Tile System is a free software tiling system for two dimensional games that allows for the creation of scalable, adaptive and low over-head tile worlds. Fixed screen version used in Hull Breach.
  3. Gambas Physics System is a free software light-weight physics system for basic simulations of collisions, motions and forces.
  4. Crustacean of Bethany is a prospective project to create a partial Gambas (BASIC) to Lazarus (Free Pascal) and vice versa converter tool for simple graphical user interface (GUI) programs.

Engines:

  1. Gambas Platform Engine is a free software platform game engine written in Gambas. It was first used in Windys, and a new version with an expanded array of features is under current development.
  2. PS Tech is a project to write a first-person 3D engine in Gambas with OpenGL 2.1 (revision one alpha, revision two beta used in Hedged an 3D Easter Egg Hunt).
  3. Gambas Projection Engine is a 2.5D game engine project that provides grid-based simulated three dimensional spaces ala Dungeon Master, as well as more experimental pseudo-3D effects such as graphical scaling.
  4. Gambas Terminal Engine is a two dimensional game engine for the use of single screen text-based terminal games using Gambas Genie (PigaLore) is a project to create a free software real-time strategy game engine primarily inspired by Ensemble Studios' Genie Engine, but also taking in ideas from other engines and games. It was previously showcased in the form of the Lamp Refugee technical demo (Source Release 2).

The Organization:

Piga Software Members

Other Contributors

Fancy yourself on this list? Get in touch and we shall see how you can help!

Screenshots:

Other Languages

Visual Basic 6 - 3D Example ZZT - Rockville QBasic 4.5 - Free Empires: Age of War
Game Maker 6 - Billy Bear Game Maker 5 - Harry Rabit's Easter Egg Hunt Donut Quest
Game Maker 5 - Defend and Conquer Game Maker 6 - Office Drone

Gambas

PigaVision Piga's Pumpkin Carving Walk About Gambas Example
Alexei: Part IX Windys Soul Capture DONKEY.GB
Piga's Thanksgiving Dinner Hunt Piga's Santa Drop Down Piga's New Years Dodge 'Em Over the Top
Hull Breach Hedged Bring Them On
Mosquito Nightall Piga 3D Easter Egg Hunt ASCIIlization

Projects

Free Empires Development Shot Lamp Refugee technical demo for Gambas Genie Piga Nation
Alexei: Part XIII Childish Cannoneer Gambas Projection Engine
Piga Animator - Sprite Stage Piga Animator - Cutout Coliseum PS Tech