Arcade

A modular retro arcade platform written in C++20. The core program loads graphics libraries and games dynamically at runtime as shared objects (.so), so you can swap the renderer or the game on the fly without restarting.

Games	Renderers
🟡 Pac-Man · 🐍 Snake · 🏍️ Tron (bonus)	SFML · SDL2 · ncurses

The architecture is plugin-based: ./arcade is just a thin core that opens a renderer shared library (passed as an argument) and then loads game libraries through a common interface (IGame / IRenderer). This means renderers and games are completely decoupled and interchangeable.

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Requirements

You need a Linux system (or WSL on Windows) with an X11 display available, plus a C++20 toolchain and the development packages for each renderer.

Tool / Library	Purpose	Minimum
g++	C++20 compiler	GCC 10+
make	Build system	any
SFML	SFML renderer	2.5+
SDL2 + SDL2_ttf + SDL2_image	SDL2 renderer	2.0+
ncurses	terminal renderer	any

Display note: the program requires a graphical environment (the DISPLAY environment variable must be set). It will refuse to run from a pure TTY.

Install the dependencies

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential \
    libsfml-dev \
    libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libsdl2-image-dev \
    libncurses-dev

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y gcc-c++ make \
    SFML-devel \
    SDL2-devel SDL2_ttf-devel SDL2_image-devel \
    ncurses-devel

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel sfml sdl2 sdl2_ttf sdl2_image ncurses

Windows

Use WSL2 with an Ubuntu distribution and a working X server (WSLg on Windows 11 works out of the box), then follow the Debian/Ubuntu steps above.

macOS (via Homebrew, requires XQuartz for X11)

brew install sfml sdl2 sdl2_ttf sdl2_image ncurses

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Build

Clone the repository and build everything (the core, all renderers and all games):

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/arcade.git
cd arcade
make

Useful targets:

Command	Builds
make / make all	Core + all renderers + all games
make core	Only the ./arcade core binary
make graphicals	Only the renderer libraries (SFML, SDL2, ncurses)
make games	Only the game libraries (Pac-Man, Tron, Snake)
make clean	Remove object files
make fclean	Remove objects, binary and .so libraries
make re	Full rebuild

The renderer and game shared libraries are produced in the lib/ directory.

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Run

Launch the core with the path to the renderer library you want to start with:

./arcade ./lib/arcade_sfml.so      # start with SFML
./arcade ./lib/arcade_sdl2.so      # start with SDL2
./arcade ./lib/arcade_ncurses.so   # start with ncurses

From the menu you can enter your player name, pick a game and a renderer, and start playing. Press Tab at any time to cycle through the available renderers live.

Controls

Key	Action
Tab	Switch renderer on the fly
Arrow keys	Navigate menu / move player
Enter	Confirm / select
Escape	Back / quit

Per-game notes:

• Snake — arrow keys to steer, Space to boost.
• Tron (2 players) — Player 1: arrow keys · Player 2: Z Q S D.
• Pac-Man — arrow keys to move.

High scores are stored per player in the Scores/ directory.

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Project structure

arcade/
├── src/
│   ├── main.cpp            # entry point
│   ├── Core/               # plugin loader & main loop
│   ├── Menu/               # interactive menu
│   ├── Parsing/            # argument / config parsing
│   ├── Renderers/          # SFML, SDL2, ncurses backends
│   └── Games/              # Pac-Man, Snake, Tron (+ shared Utils)
├── include/                # public interfaces (IGame, IRenderer, Event, ...)
├── lib/                    # compiled .so libraries (generated)
├── assets/                 # textures, fonts and sounds
├── doc/                    # architecture manual & integration guide
├── bonus/                  # bonus content (e.g. Minesweeper)
└── Makefile

Documentation

See the doc/ directory for the architecture manual, the library integration guide and the class diagram. If you want to write your own renderer or game, implement the IRenderer / IGame interfaces in include/ and drop the resulting .so into lib/.

License

This project was originally built as part of the Epitech curriculum. Feel free to read, learn from and adapt it.