Pacman on a String

Project Overview

Our "Pacman on a String" is the original Pacman game, but set in the first dimension. The game features the player, "gems," and "wasps." The goal of the player is to acquire as many points as possible. Collecting gems will help the player earn more points. However, when hit with a wasp, the player will lose points as well as freeze in place.

Steps

1: Components

The Arduino Mego board was used for controlling all the game mechanics: the joystick, LED strip, gems, wasps, random appearance and disappearance, collision and game events, scoring. In order to connect the game information to the internet, we used a NodeMCU board. The events and scores are published to a MQTT channel. An Android App listens to this MQTT channel. It displays, updates, and saves the score board and leader board as the game progresses. The leader board is also kept in a cloud database, so whenever Android App starts up it will be up to date.

2: Building and Wiring

PINs 8, 9, 10, 11, and GND were used for controlling the joystick. Other pins controlled the start buttons and LEDs. For the NodeMCU board, PINs D5 and D6 were used. To have a more detailed look, check the photos section.

3: Game Code

Our game code is published in Github. Here is the NodeMCU code and the Android score board code. The CloudMQTT service created a channel that we used in the NodeMCU and Android app, and the Apex data store saved our leaderboard scores.

Game Rules and Maker Event

You are PacMan, a.k.a. the string of five blue dots that are able to move around. Your goal is to earn as many points as possible. To collect points, you first move the joystick up and down to move PacMan around. When PacMan is on a gem (the yellow, green, blue, or purple dots), shift the joystick to the left. The closer the gem is to PacMan's third dot, or the center of PacMan, the more points you score per gem. However, avoid the wasps (the red dots). They will cause you to lose points and remain stationary for five seconds. There's a 45 second time limit to the game. Play away!

We brought our project to the Oracle Maker Faire in October. Many people were drawn to our stand, playing round after round. Soon, Pacman on a String had the opportunity to tour around the world! It visited multiple countries including South Korea, India, and England. People worldwide competed for the number one spot on the Pacman on a String leaderboard!