How easy (or hard) can it be to build a Flappy Bird style game using just an LED matrix? We started with a standard 16x16 LED panel but we thought giving the game more width will make it more fun. You can use any DUELink module with GPIOs to wire up the LED matrix. The Smart LED module is particularly good for signal conditioning. In this case, we opted to use PixoBit, which happened ot also have a buzzer that we can use.
The game needs a wall to go across. We will make the wall three pixels thick. Whenever we reach the end, we start a new wall with a new random gap and height for that gap. We will also use the sweep function to make a little sound.
fn wall()
_b=_b-_z # _z is the speed (difficulty), _b is wall position
if _b<=0
_b=31
_g=4+rnd(2) # new random gap
_h=2+rnd(6) # new gap height
if _z < 3 # the game gets harder as you play
_z=_z+0.5
end
Sweep(4, 1000, 5000, 255, 255, 200)
_s=_s+1 # Increase the score
end
for i=0 to 3 #the wall is 3 lines thick
Line(0x004000,_b+i,0,_b+i,_h)
Line(0x004000,_b+i,_h+_g,_b+i,16)
next
fend
Now we need a player, the bird! We are talking about pixels here so we have to get creative! Our “bird” will be just 2 diagonal pixels. The bird is going up then the right pixel is higher. If the bird is falling then the right pixel will be lower. We change the velocity variable _v based on button press and time.
fn plyr()
if BtnDown(20)
Beep(4, 2000, 20)
if _v>0:_v=_v-2:end
_t=-1
else
if _v<15:_v=_v+0.5:end
_t=1
end
Pixel(0x400040, _u, _v)
Pixel(0x400040, _u+1, _v+_t)
fend
The only thing left is to check for collision.
fn coll()
if _b != _u && _b != _u-1 :return:end
if _v<=_h:die():end
if _v>=_h+_g:die():end
fend
While not necessary for the game, we thought it would be very sweet to have an explosion!
We then show very large numbers that count the user down to try again. We will use the built in scaling feature of text.
fn die()
_s=0
for i=0 to 20
_x=(_u-2)+rnd(3)
_y=(_v-2)+rnd(3)
Pixel(rnd(64)<<16,_x,_y)
show()
Freq(4, ((30-i)*100) + 2000, 10, 0.5)
next
_b=31
_z=0.5
wait(100)
Clear(0)
Clear(0)
Texts("3",0x404000, 10, 1,2,2)
Show()
Sweep(4, 1000, 5000, 255, 255, 500)
Clear(0)
Texts("2",0x404000, 10, 1,2,2)
Show()
Sweep(4, 1000, 5000, 255, 255, 500)
Clear(0)
Texts("1",0x404000, 10,1, 2,2)
Show()
Sweep(4, 1000, 5000, 255, 255, 800)
Clear(0)
fend
We will finally keep track of the score and show it on the top left corner, using the built in tiny-font.
Altogether, the game looks like this.
Make your own and give it a try! The entire code is here on github.