Ok, the Arduino Esplora has been out about 3 weeks. It’s time we had some cool software for it and what better than a fun game. Today I publish a game for running on the Esplora with an Adafruit 1.8″ display.
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I was looking for a game that was more than the basics to show off the Esplora + Display combo. I found R0D0T’s code and with accelerometer, music, and display, it was a great match. As I use the Arduino IDE, I merged the code, changed the display library to Adafruit’s, and recreated a couple library routines that R0D0T had used but had no Adafruit equivalent. Then I had to map the buttons (which required Esplora library calls), and the accelerometer (which I originally used hardware but changed over to library calls). I mapped the SPI interface to the display and it worked! Some small tweeks to color and alignment but it is basically still R0D0T’s original (a tribute to his ninja-coding).
I strapped a 5V battery to it for portability. You can use USB power (keep a loose cord as you will be flicking your wrist). Orient the Esplora with the joystick at top and buttons below. Then the right button (top in landscape mode) is the “bonus effects” on button. The bonus effects are Jet Pack, Frog Legs, Testosterone, and Low gravity. After turning bonus on via the button, you strike a colored platform to get the bonus to activate.
This lovely little display breakout is the best way to add a small, colorful and bright display to any project. Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even a very small one with low memory and few pins available!
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