Turn Your Spare Parts into a Retro Space Game

We have grown so accustomed to having piles of cheap, powerful microcontroller development boards and single-board computers at our disposal that it’s easy to forget how good we have it. Things weren’t always this way, of course. Not so long ago, if you wanted anything so complex as a video game console, you either needed to buy what was available commercially, or dedicate the next few years (and your 401(k)) to its development.

But today, as Manish from TechWithPi demonstrated, a handheld game console can be whipped together in a few hours from start to finish using parts that you likely already have in your parts bin. With just three inexpensive modules, Manish made a retro-style space shooter game on a breadboard.

The build is centered around a miniature ESP8266 development board that runs all of the game logic and interacts with the rest of the hardware. That hardware consists of a 0.96-inch OLED display, an MPU6050 inertial measurement unit (IMU), and a push button all mounted on a breadboard. A rechargeable LiPo battery supplies the system with power.

The game was developed in Arduino IDE, and since it relied on existing libraries for interfacing with the display and the IMU, it was pretty straightforward to make. Leaning on this existing work allowed Manish to focus on the vision he had in mind rather than worrying about the low-level details.

To play the game, the player tilts the entire device from side to side. This uses information from the IMU to move the player’s ship left or right. When you’ve got an enemy ship in your sights, the button fires the blasters to destroy it and save the galaxy.

I don’t know about you, but seeing simple but useful projects like this one makes me feel a bit ashamed about all of the development boards I have sitting around collecting dust. Time to get building! If you come up with any interesting creations, be sure to let us know about them.