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Classic Games (Games) Displays Hardware Hacking Build

1-Pixel Pac-Man 41

szczys writes: Retro games just aren't the same since the display technology resolution has exploded. I went the opposite direction and chose a display with less resolution than the original. This reinvention of Pac-Man uses a 32x32 RGB LED module which are made for LED billboards. This makes the player just one pixel. Add in an Atari joystick and we have a winner.This is a great programming challenge. If you've never looked at Pac-Man AI before, it's fascinating and worth your time!
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1-Pixel Pac-Man

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  • You can get GTA V working in 32x32 display next.
  • by hattig ( 47930 ) on Monday June 01, 2015 @12:42PM (#49815691) Journal

    Ah, but this will not be able to implement the ability to swing around corners that traditional pacman has, which lets you get away from chasing ghosts, just a little bit.

    Otherwise, it's a great project if you want to work with microcontrollers and embedded programming. Beats the obvious tetris clone at least. Sokoban might be another good game to implement. And Bejeweled.

    • It can if it's still tracking positions at the original resolution, with only the display down-scaled.

  • Atari 2600 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Still looks better than Pac Man on the 2600.

    • by GTRacer ( 234395 )
      The neighbor's dog dropping in my yard look better than Pac-Man on the 2600. Malign 2600 E.T. all you want - It looked ok for its time and if you could figure out the pit exit trick, it was a pretty twitchy platformer/adventure game. And yes, I've played it recently. Pretty much every time I ride E.T. at Universal in fact ^^
      • by Anonymous Coward

        I don't get all the ET hate. It was honestly my absolute favourite 2600 game. I didn't realize it was so maligned until I ran across all the bitching on the internet. Honestly, I wonder how many of the haters were even alive or owned a 2600 when this game was released. Most of the complainers seem to be teenagers. It seems like a bunch of bandwagon jumping or hipsterism.

  • As the market for smart-watches grows, game miniaturization along these lines may make for a pretty big market. I smell $'s.

    • by szczys ( 3402149 )
      The issue there is user input. In this case, the Atari joystick is half the fun. I've seen this same display used to play tetris with an IR remote control... it's not nearly as fun as with a joystick.
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        not nearly as fun as with a joystick

        But if you are stuck in an airport, queuing at the DMV, or in a boring meeting/lecture, being able to play a simple game on your watch is a great option. (Especially if you forgot your phone or its battery is low.)

        Being able to tap on the right, bottom, left, and top of the watch face for direction control is all you need. A simplified version of Pac-Man seems like an ideal game for a smart-watch.

  • Be careful where you demo that. It might be mistaken for a bomb! [wikipedia.org]
  • by Anonymous Coward

    They say they coded the original Pacman ghost behavior, but do they support the original bugs [gameinternals.com] as well?

  • A pixel is just one dot, or as Wikipedia puts it, the "smallest addressable element" of a digital display. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org] If each of the 32x32 elements can be turned on or off, then they each constitute a pixel.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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