A mini Cyclone game consisting of an Arduino, an LED ring, and button, plus a scoreboard on a 16x2 LCD.

2024 Tiny Games Contest: Mini Cyclone Tests Reaction Time

August 29, 2024 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Round and round goes the red LED, and if you can push the button when it overlaps the green LED, then you win. Cyclone is almost too simple of a game, and that’s probably part of why it’s so addictive.

Want to make one for your desk? All it takes is an Arduino Nano R3 or comparable microcontroller, an RGB LED ring with 12 LEDs, a 16×2 LCD, a buzzer, and a momentary push button switch.

Interestingly, there aren’t successive levels with increasing speed, but each round begins with a randomized speed value. Of course, this can all be easily changed in the code, which is modified from [Joern Weise]’s original.

This is a tinier version of [mircemk]’s original project, which uses a 60-LED ring and does contain levels. As usual with [mircemk]’s builds, this project is mounted on their trademark 3 mm PVC board and covered with peel-and-stick wallpaper. Be sure to check out the demo and build video after the break.

Don’t forget! You have until Tuesday, September 10th to enter the 2024 Tiny Games Contest, so get crackin’!

Continue reading “2024 Tiny Games Contest: Mini Cyclone Tests Reaction Time” →

The blind maze -- a box with three buttons and three light-up panels that indicate walls.

2024 Tiny Games Contest: Blind Maze Is Fun For All

August 29, 2024 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

If you think about it, even difficult mazes on paper are pretty easy. You can see all the places you can and can’t go, and if you use a pencil instead of a pen, well, that’s almost like cheating.

However, using a pencil is pretty much a necessity to play [penumbriel]’s Blind Maze. In this game, you can’t even see the maze, or where you are. Well, that’s not exactly true — you can “touch” the wall (or lack thereof) in front of you and to the sides, but that’s it. So you’re going to need that pencil to draw out a map as you go along.

This game runs on an Arduino Nano and a 18650 cell. There are three LEDs deep within the enclosure, which is meant to give the depth of walls. But, even the vision-impaired can play the Blind Maze, because there’s haptic feedback thanks to a small vibration motor.

If you want to play in hard mode, there’s a hidden paperclip-accessible switch that turns off the LEDs. This way, you have to rely on hitting the walls with your head. Be sure to check out the video below.

Continue reading “2024 Tiny Games Contest: Blind Maze Is Fun For All” →

A Non-Musical Use Case For 8-Track

August 28, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 23 Comments

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when magnetic tape was the primary way of listening to and recording audio. Most of us are familiar with the cassette tape, a four-track system that plays first one side of the tape, then the other. There was the eight-track tape as well which did not have quite as much popularity or longevity but did have a few interesting features that [Serial Hobbyism] took advantage of to make an interactive game.

The defining feature of the eight-track system, beyond the obvious eight tracks on the tape, is that the tape runs in a continuous loop, never needing to be stopped or flipped over. Instead, four buttons select pairs of the eight tracks, moving a head immediately to make the switch on-the-fly. [Serial Hobbyism]’s game plays a trivia-style audio recording and asks the player to answer questions by pushing one of the four “program” buttons to switch tracks. If the correct track is selected, the recorded audio congratulates the player and then continues on with the game. Likewise, if an incorrect track is selected, the recording notes that and the game continues.

Another interesting feature of this game is that it can be played without modifying an eight-track player, as the selectable tracks are a core function of this technology. They can be used in a similar way as cassette tapes to store computer data and a data recorder similar to the eight-track system was used on the Voyager space probes, although these only bear a passing resemblance.

Continue reading “A Non-Musical Use Case For 8-Track” →

A Game Of Snake On A LEGO Mechanical Computer

August 23, 2024 by Dan Maloney 6 Comments

Really, [OzzieGerff] had us at “LEGO.” But then he took it to another place entirely and built a completely mechanical, nearly 100% LEGO version of Snake. And it’s just as cool as it sounds.

Mind you, it’s a little hard to grok how this whole contraption works, which has been in the works for a while, but we’ll try to summarize as best we can. The most important aspect of this build is that there are no electronics at all — everything is done with mechanical linkages, with some Technics pneumatic components and a couple of electric motors to provide the oomph. The three main components are the input section, which consists of a two-axis joystick, a tail buffer, which keeps track of the length of the snake’s tail as gameplay progresses, and the largest component, the 16×16 display.

The joystick translates user inputs into pneumatic signals which pass through a mechanical filtering unit that prevents the head of the snake from doubling back on itself. The filtered inputs then pass into the screen reader, a complex device that probes the status of a given pixel on the display and determines the status of the snake’s head. If it touches a snake pixel, the game’s over. Hitting a blank pixel moves the head of the snake by one and takes one pixel off the end, while a food pixel extends the snake’s length.

Keeping track of the length of the snake is the job of the buffer, which uses Technics tank tracks and levers. Setting a one is done by flipping the lever to one side as it passes under the write head; a read head further down the track senses which way the lever is flipped and translates it into a pneumatic signal. The buffer has four channels, one for each possible direction the snake’s head could be moving. The signals drive a screen writer, which moves a pyramidal follower across a series of push-rods that flip the corresponding pixel on the display to show the proper icon. Simplicity itself? No, but the video below will make things a lot clearer.

It doesn’t look like [Ozzie] is quite done with this game, as he doesn’t show any actual gameplay yet. We’d love to see and hear that — we suspect it’ll make quite a racket. We’ll be keeping an eye out for this one, but while we wait, check out this rope braiding machine or watch Lego break steel.

Continue reading “A Game Of Snake On A LEGO Mechanical Computer” →

Atari Announces The Atari 7800+ Nostalgia Console

August 21, 2024 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

Following the trend of re-releasing every single game console as some kind of modern re-imagining or merely an ARM-SBC-with-emulator slapped into a nice looking enclosure, we now got the announcement from Atari that they will soon be releasing the Atari 7800+.

It’s now up for pre-order for a cool $130 USD or a mega bundle with wired controllers for $170 and shipping by Winter 2024. Rather than it being a cute-but-non-functional facsimile like recent miniature Nintendo and Commodore-themed releases, this particular console is 80% of the size of the original 7800 console, and accepts 2600 and 7800 cartridges, including a range of newly released cartridges.

On the outside you find the cartridge slot, an HDMI video/audio output, a USB-C port (for power) and DE-9 (incorrectly listed as DB-9) controller ports, with wireless controllers also being an option. Inside you find a (2014-vintage) Rockchip RK3128 SoC with a quad core Cortex-A7 that runs presumably some flavor of Linux with the Stella 2600 emulator and ProSystem 7800 emulator. This very likely means that compatibility with 2600 and 7800 titles is the same as for these emulators.

Bundled with the console is a new 7800 cartridge for the game Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest, and a number of other new games are also up for pre-order at the Atari site. These games are claimed to be compatible with original Atari consoles, which might make it the biggest game release year for the 7800 since its launch, as it only had 59 official games released for it.

Given the backwards compatibility of this new system, you have to wonder how folks who purchased the 2600+ last year are feeling right about now. Then again, the iconic faux-wood trim of the earlier console might be worth the price of admission alone.

A Lunar Lander-meets-Flappy-Bird game where you must rescue puppies from a Moon base, on an OLED display.

2024 Tiny Games Contest: Save The Stranded Puppies Of Moon Base P!

August 19, 2024 by Kristina Panos 4 Comments

Usually, if something is tiny, it’s probably pretty cute to boot. [Luke J. Barker]’s lunar navigation game is no exception to this unwritten rule. And as far as contest rules go, this one seems to fit rather nicely, as it is tiny on more than one level.

Moon Base P (for Puppies) is built upon a XIAO ESP32-C3, an SSD1306 OLED display, and a single button to keep the BOM tidy. In this riveting side-scroller which sort of marries Lunar Lander and Flappy Bird, the top bar is always yellow and displays fuel and such, and the bottom is a rough, blue lunar surface over which you must maneuver your lunar lander. Keep pressing the button to stay up and avoid mountains, or let off the gas to cool the engine.

Fly that thing over the terrain, avoiding stray meteors and picking up free fuel, and then land gently at Moon Base P to save the stranded puppies. But you must keep flying — touch down anywhere but where you’re supposed to, and it’s game over! Once you’ve picked up the puppies, you must fly them safely onward to the rescue pod in order to win. Don’t miss the walk-through and demo after the break.

Continue reading “2024 Tiny Games Contest: Save The Stranded Puppies Of Moon Base P!” →

Zero-dimensional PONG game built on a perfboard.

2024 Tiny Games Contest: Coming At Ya With Zero-Dimensional PONG

August 18, 2024 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

A decade is a long time to carry around a project idea in your head. Fortunately, the Tiny Games Contest happens to coincide with [Senile Data Systems]’s getting back into ATMega programming, so they can finally make their zero-dimensional PONG dreams come true (and have the chance at great prizes, too, of course).

If you don’t already get what’s going on here, zero-dimensional PONG takes 1D PONG and turns it on the short side. Imagine the light coming toward you, then moving away toward your opponent, and you have the basic idea. So, how is this done? Pulse-width modulation controls the brightness of the LED, and, well, you have to be pretty fast, although there is a small margin for the inevitable error.

In the video after the break, you can watch [SDS] play themselves using a red/green LED. Player one must press the button when red is fully lit and green is off, and player two goes when green is fully lit and red is off. The cool thing is that this game uses sockets, so it can use any LED. There are nine difficulty levels to control the PWM speed, so one can really test one’s reaction time.

If you want to build one of these, you’ll need an ATtiny2313 or something similar, a couple of buttons, a display, and the optional but fun buzzer. The well-commented code is available through [Senile Data Systems]’s site.

Continue reading “2024 Tiny Games Contest: Coming At Ya With Zero-Dimensional PONG” →