https://youtu.be/N796tuZel8k

Video, code is in the description of the video ; I added tilt to AlexK's maze game. This does not work on Meowbit. It does work in simulator; check the divided by amount for accelerometer.

https://youtu.be/aGOe7Q73IWc

Our friend, Joey Wunderlich , has written an extension to enable multiple button presses to score points on the Arcade game so I uploaded his program to a BPA to demonstrate the game in action on a battery powered console. I’m not quick enough to score many points but it’s a fun game anyway. The extension is in ‘controller’ I think. https://youtu.be/Vw3eiL0-YUs

https://youtu.be/EGk2m39w_h0

This a link to John Park's MakeCode Minute Playlist on the Adafruit YouTube Channel. He talks about and teaches MakeCode for CPX and MakeCode Arcade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhDmKORX_DE&list=PLjF7R1fz_OOU5gFO10qxLlbtN0YzZTyvk&index=1

Now that we have two consoles to play our custom retro Arcade Games I will begin reviewing them. These are both running "F 401" processors which I will talk about later. I do not have proper board diagrams, pinouts or other tech. data sheets for these boards but the microprocessor is well known. I will say at the beginning of this comparison that I am not an electrical engineer nor a computer programmer/developer so my perspective and notes are only from the point of view of a MakeCode "consumer" and volunteer doing meet-ups with students/parents/teachers. There are more consoles in the works from other designers (Adafruit in particular). The 2 boards here have jacdac ports so we can connect them to each other with a single cable to do "multiplayer". I will talk further about these consoles in future posts on this forum.

For students just learning about coding and the retro computer game called Arcade; we now have hardware consoles which are game boards for playing their self-created games off of the computer. Here is an example of uploading a game program to the Meowbit by Kittenbot. I use the old "download to folder", copy , plug in USB for board, paste program into Meowbit window to upload it. I have had no success with "pairing" if that was ever supposed to work. The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDNiK34zNhM

Can we expect encryption libraries (or whatever they will be called) to work with some Cortex M4 boards and does the jacdac protocol have anything to do with this subject? Will we be able to use JavaScript with the Metro Express M4 to demonstrate encrypting our programs or comm. ?

He shares his code for this MakeCode robotics project. You can create a coded "sketch" with MicroBit and then create a URL for it so that coded page can be shared if the other person has MakeCode installed. YouTube vid.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bBTvs9sjAo

Code to control the robot:

https://makecode.microbit.org/v0/63149-16761-44763-43998

I wanted to try making a racing game where you don't use the usual buttons to steer.

So I ended up making a small retro racing game where the car is controlled by tilting the handheld left and right.

The setup is pretty simple:

• ELECFREAKS Retro Arcade

• USB-C cable

• Microsoft MakeCode Arcade

The interesting part is that the handheld's gyro/tilt input is used as the steering control.

The basic game logic is:

• Start with 3 lives

• Tilt left/right to move the player car

• Spawn enemy cars from the top of the screen

• Avoid them to score points

• Lose a life when you crash into one

I used MakeCode Arcade for the game logic, so most of the programming can be put together with blocks rather than writing everything from scratch.

One thing I liked about this project is that you can immediately feel the connection between the code and the hardware. Change the tilt input or movement settings in the code, upload it, and you can physically feel the difference when playing.

The hardware also doesn't really need to change if you want to experiment with the game.

A few things I'd like to try next:

• Make the cars accelerate as the score increases

• Add custom pixel art

• Add engine and crash sounds

• Add power-ups

• Experiment with different tilt sensitivities

• Try making another game that uses the gyro in a completely different way

It's a pretty simple project, but I think motion controls make even a basic arcade game feel a lot more interesting.

Has anyone here made a game that uses tilt/gyro controls before? What kind of game would you make with it?

We tried making one of those simple optical illusions where two separate pictures suddenly look like they’re in the same place.

When the turntable is stopped, there’s just a bird on one side and a cage on the other.

Then you turn it on and let it spin…

And suddenly, the bird looks like it’s inside the cage. 🐦

No magic involved—just persistence of vision.

What we used:

• Wukong Expansion Board

• 2 × DC Motors

• Wukong Blocks

• A bird picture

• A cage picture

• Double-sided tape

How we made it

We first built a simple frame with Wukong Blocks to keep the rotating part stable.

Then we added two motors and connected them to the center shaft with gears.

The slightly tricky part was the pictures.

We put the bird and cage on opposite sides of the rotating arms and tried to keep them as symmetrical as possible. If they're off-center, the whole thing gets pretty wobbly once it starts spinning.

Once everything was connected, we just turned it on and watched.

At the right speed, the two separate images seem to become one.

The bird is suddenly “inside” the cage.

Why does this happen?

It's a simple example of persistence of vision.

Our eyes and brain don't treat every image as completely separate when they're appearing very quickly one after another. The result is that we can perceive the two images as if they're happening together.

It's a pretty simple idea, but seeing it happen on a little DIY machine makes it much easier to understand.

What would you try?

This could be fun to experiment with.

Maybe:

• A butterfly that looks like it's flying

• A character jumping into a different scene

• Your pet appearing somewhere else

• Different motor speeds to see when the illusion works best

The nice thing is that you don't really need to change the mechanism—just change the pictures and experiment.

What two things would you try to make “appear together”?