Video game for the Trinket! Shared on the Adafruit Forums: “So, I wrote this little game, loosely based on Space Invaders and Battlestar Galactica. It uses a Trinket, one button and a 2×16 LCD panel from Parallax. It is simple, but shows what can be done with these cool little boards and it doesn’t involve thermometers or motors (though, that is cool by itself.)” More details on the Half Byte Blog:
Having found some cool 2×16 LCD panels for five bucks each at Radio Shack, these Trinkets and a bunch of parts, I set out to make a game for my step son. I’m still working on a game concept that will keep his interest, but I did a proof of concept game based on Space Invaders (my all time favorite game.) So, how can one make a Space Invaders on a TWO line by SIXTEEN character display? Well…you need to be creative. AND…you have to fit it, along with a necessary library, into under 5.1K.
So…what did I do? Well, found an old notebook I kept from my TRS-80 days. Looked at some old Tiny Basic game code and…coded.
First, I needed an idea. The display I am using, from Parallax, allows for eight special characters. So, I played around with a few designs and one of them looked like the Battlestar Galactica. After some thought, I had the idea: The Galactica’s Viper squadrons are out on patrol. The Galactica was in a fierce battle that has rendered it nearly immovable, it can only hyperjump. It’s turrets are all damaged, save the forward bank, she can only shoot from her forward cannons. A Cylon has discovered the Galactica and is taking runs at it. Problem is, the Cylon is jumping randomly, making a direct hit nearly impossible. If, however, the Galactica does manage to destroy the Cylon, the Galactica then hyperjumps too. Then, it all happens again.
Cool, huh?
So, I set out to code it. I put code together to read a switch, move a character back and forth and come up with an interrupt mechanism for the button.
Turns out, it was simpler than I thought. I had some hiccups with the Arduino IDE (which involved upgrading the toolchain, upgrading part of it again, some choice words…) but got them ironed out and, now, the Colonials are fighting the nasty Cylons again….
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