Arduino UNO game engine with composite video output

Arduino IDE

Arduino Uno Rev3 SMD

<html><body>This is my game engine for the Arduino UNO. It allows the 8-bit micro to output composite video at 256x256 resolution, with scrolling tilemap graphics and 16x16 sprites. I have ported Manic Miner and Space Invaders across to run on it as demonstrations.The engine can display a maximum (currently) of 9 16x16 sprites, over a 32x32 grid of 8x8 pixel tiles. It allows for 4 way scrolling, and pixel based collision detection on one sprite. There is a lot of CPU time left over for game logic. Easily enough to update all the sprites and even all the tiles on the screen many times over every frame.I have also designed a shield for the UNO to make it easy to connect to a composite monitor or TV. The shield also has a footprint for an NES controller port, which can be used with the 2 demo games. The shield also has a simple amplifier circuit for the 2 channel PWM audio output to speaker. You can also just connect the audio output to your TV along with the video signal. The UNO is doing all the hard work though - it generates the image by "racing the beam" as there is not enough memory for a display buffer, but that means that everything runs at 50fps. It has to!Porting Manic Miner was a challenge, as the original game was for the 48K ZX spectrum, so I had to write tools to compress the data, levels and graphics. I had enough left over to add a title screen, and special ending screen lacking from the original. It includes all of the original levels and "special" features like the Solar Power Generator beams, spinning sun in the final cavern, Kong Beast, Eugene etc! It was fun to make, and just squeezes into the memory with a few bytes to spare!Porting Space Invaders was much faster, but I took time to recreate the original Arcade machine as closely as possible from the invader movement, to the game logic for when and how bombs are dropped, points from saucers, how the difficulty scales etc. So it should pretty much match the original! This was easy to fit, taking up only 13KB, including the game engine!</body></html>

Arduino UNO game engine with composite video output

Showing the old 8-bit micro can still run retro games with the best of them!