Gameduino Shield

Gameduino: a game adapter for microcontrollers

Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino (or anything else with an SPI interface) built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers. The sound and graphics are definitely old-school, but thanks to the latest FPGA technology, the sprite capabilities are a step above those in machines from the past. The adapter is controlled via SPI read/write operations, and looks to the CPU like a 32Kbyte RAM. (Unlike many 8-bit machines, there are no restrictions on when you can access this RAM). There is even a handy reference poster (which you can download below) showing how the whole system works.

Features:

• Video output is 400x300 pixels in 512 colors
• All color processed internally at 15-bit precision
• Compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800x600 @ 72Hz)
• Background Graphics
  • 512x512 pixel character background
  • 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette
  • pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll
• Foreground Graphics
  • each sprite is 16x16 pixels with per-pixel transparency
  • each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors
  • four-way rotate and flip
  • 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line
  • pixel-perfect sprite collision detection
• Audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer
• 64 Independent Voices 10-8000 Hz
• Per-Voice Sine Wave or White Noise
• Sample Playback Channel

Documents:

• Example Code and Library
• Gameduino Reference Poster
• Gameduino Web Site
• Gameduino FAQ Forum