Update: Most Interesting Game In 64 Pixels

[Brad] has continued working on the Super Pixel Bros game. We saw a glimpse of this a few months ago but he’s added a lot since then. The game now has enemies; one type is similar to Bullet Bill, another type drops from the sky and walks toward you, kind of like a Goomba. Game play is quite responsive and it’s amazing what he has accomplished with such low resolution. In the video after the break [Brad] mentions that a friend is working on sound effects for jumps and block breaking. We’re assuming that the audio track in the background is already coming from the LEDBOY speaker.

Which reminds us, if you haven’t checked out the hardware, do so now. That enameled wire mess makes us shudder just a bit. There many be a kit version coming that will save you the point-to-point soldering madness. If that’s part of the fun for you keep an eye out for the forthcoming release of the hardware schematics.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avvba3prLlc]

25 thoughts on “Update: Most Interesting Game In 64 Pixels

  1. Interestingly, the Super Pixel Bros levels appear to be the perfect resolution of Betabrite LED signs.
    Each dot in the pictures could be a pixel of the sign.

    For anyone curious about Betabrite Signs, here’s their homepage: http://www.betabrite.com/

    The sign pictured on the front page is the Betabrite Prism sign.

    It would be awesome if somebody could figure out a way to display the entire level on the LED sign (maybe even make it playable in real time?)

  2. I don’t see why it can’t be ported to an arduino.. as long as it’s written in c or c++. You’ll have to change the low level portions but the game itself probably uses a lowlevel wrapper anyways.

  3. I like the concept but not the game. I can hardly make out what is being played. I’m sure the author has all the sequence memorized. If it is something simpler like pong or breakout. It would make a lot of sense.

    I like the idea of playing these games in a giant building using the in door light as “LED”.

  4. I’m glad homebrewing consoles is “in” thing now.. makes me feel better about wasting time on my pet projects..

    http://imagebin.ca/view/bB1HID2a.html — my wiring is pretty bad too.. but I have a real processor (H8/3069F), 5 buttons, glue logic (the LCD is mapped into the H8’s address space, so its really easy to program and doesn’t take a lot of cycles..), 2Mbyte of DRAM, 64K of NVRAM, audio amp and a DC-DC transformer in there; Most of his wiring seems to be for the screen :/

  5. Hi everyone, thanks for all the comments.

    Just to clarify a few things. I am a busy Dad now that we have two kids so I don’t have a huge amount of time to devote to these projects, but I add what I can when I do get a bit of free time.

    This game is programmed in assembly language (and some might say poorly at that…) on a pic18f4550 microcontroller. This game has been quite a learning experience for me and as such the code is not very efficient, but it seems to work okay (excpet for that bad guy that falls from the ceiling and doesnt move properly…

    I originally had it so that you would not go back to the start of the level, but I wanted to make the game a little more challenging, so I changed it.

    The gameboy wasn’t broken – but I have about a dozen more, I collect retro video games / consoles. and yes, it was more useful when it was in the gameboy, but i’ve had fun with it = )

    And as for the kit form – a couple of years ago I came up with the 8×8 game system which used an RG LED matrix and had games like pong, car race, adventure, painter and space invaders on it. I sold it as a kit for $20. So basically you would get all the parts and PCB and then solder it together yourself. Then you would upload a game and hopefully learn a little about programming in the process.

    I sold quite a few of those so I thought I’d see if people were interested in the one as a kit also.

    I will upload parts list, schematic and source code to my site as soon as I can get the time to sit down and get it all documented. In a nutshell you would need:

    8x pushbuttons
    1x 8×8 RGB LED matrix (common cathode)
    4x 74373
    1x pic 18f4550
    8x NPN transistor (2n2222a is good)
    16x 10k ohm resistor
    24x approx 100 – 150 ohm resistor
    1x 7805 regulator (if supply voltage exceeds 5v)
    a sprinkling of capacitors for good measure.

  6. Hi everyone, just an update. I have been learning a new programming language and as such have not worked on this in quite a while. Having said that, I am redesigning this game system so that it uses just two chips (as opposed to five at the moment)

    If there is enough interest I will get a whole heap of PCB’s made up so you can make one for yourself. I am also making more games for it such as pacman.

    thanks for looking! – God Bless.

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