Vol.

13
Mar 2018
 Retr0rob received the special edition Arduventure!

Contents:

PLAY
(Soon to be fresh new games) W.I.P Games
Arduboy Game Review- Mar & Feb’2018 by @jerjer
5 Games I’d like to see on the Arduboy with @crait

LEARN
Mirco-City by @jhhoward
Pixel Page: Arduventure by @SiegfriedCroes
ProjectABE - Procastination & Progress with @FManga

EXPLORE
Libre gaming and Arduboy by @alexgleason
Questions with Developer @filmote
#arduboy - LinusTechTips

Page 2 of 29
 A welcome note:
Taking a pause from educational any articles this month, we instead take
inspiration from our guest contributors - how they started their projects,
how to keep yourself motivated through a project and ideas on what
would look good on the Arduboy.

A discussion on Libre gaming is also sparked- how important is that to

you? Speaking of gaming, the special edition Arduventure is shipping!
Kickstarter backers keep an eye out for shipping notifications via email.

The Magazine is always looking for new contributors, so if you have an

Arduboy project, do write to us!

-celinebins

Do you wish to contribute?

Have an interesting article you wish to share with
the Arduboy community? A cool project you did,
your experience on working on it? A funny joke?
We want to hear it!
Send arduboymag a message through the Arduboy
community page or a DM on Twitter!

Page 3 of 29
Thank you to this months contributors!

@filmote: In between writing articles for this magazine, Simon

has released two of his childhood favourites - Choplifter and
Karateka - both of which are on GitHub and on Erwin’s game
site.

@jerjer: Cohost of “Nintendomain Podcast,” aspiring amateur

games journalist and recent purchaser of an Arduboy.
Jereme enjoys visiting classic gaming conventions and
finding new and old portable handheld systems. He lives in
Illinois with his 2 cats and a Nintendo Switch.
Website: http://www.nintendomainpodcast.com

@crait: Creator of various Arduboy games such as Circuit

Dude and Train Dodge, crait has written tutorials on how to
get started with creating your own game, and developed
Arduboy Manager; an easy way to upload games to your
Arduboy without using the Arduino IDE. http://www.crait.net/

@jhhoward: James Howard is a professional game

developer by trade who enjoys the refreshing retro appeal
of developing for the Arduboy’s limited hardware. Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jameshhoward

@alexgleason: Writer of “The Candlewaster Chronicle” -

Libre software, political systems, content, philosophy, tech,
Earth, social justice, and frivolity. https://blog.candlewaster.co/

@FManga: JavaScript game programmer in Recife, Brazil,

Felipe is behind ProjectABE: https://felipemanga.github.io/
ProjectABE/

@Your name: This could be you.. Help contribute to the

Arduboy Magazine!

Page 4 of 29
Arduboy Company news:
What’s happening at headquarters?
@Celinebins

Chinese New Year delays

Apologies to everyone who pre-ordered
their Arduboys in Feb’2018! We were
a little understocked when the Linus
Tech Tips video got released but we
have finially shipped all units the past
few days. Please check your spam
folder if you did not receive a shipping
notification via email.

Now it’s time for Arduventure shipping! ;)

Where to buy Arduboy?

In order to better deliver the Arduboy to you, a distribution
model for sales has been currently implemented.
You can now purchase the Arduboy from a variety of different
retailers around the world!

Talk to us! Page 5 of 29

 ES
AM
by @Celinebins
PLAY:
G W.I.P
Soon to be FRESH NEW GAMES,
E W check out these WIP games..
Give the developers some en-
N
couragement and maybe even
a helping hand
H
ES

That will
get you
hooked
FR

Arduart - pixel
art creator
@CCC
ArduArt is a basic pixel art app for
the ArduBoy. Try it out and give
some feedback!

Battleships
@Botisaurus
Still some work needs to be done,
esp for sounds and music - have a
look and offer some help!

DDRBOY - dance
dance revolution
@tytydraco
Currently lacks music; focuses more
of reflexes, and your ability to keep
up with the buttons

Fight
@Freezingsnail
This game aims to be a simple turn
based player vs cpu fighting game
in an “arena” setting. Currently the
demo is playable but not complete.
to be continued next page >>
Page 6 of 29
 Elventure port
@ Arduboy Community
Created by TEAM a.r.g and then
forked by Pharap. It’s been a
community effort to get this game
ported.

lode runner
@filmote
Developer filmote is recreating Lode
Runner from BITD for the Arduboy.
Help to test the game! Check out
the community thread here.

rogueboy
@Dreamer2345
A small Rouge-lite Game in the
making from Nov last year. The
game is playable - give your
feedback after trying it!

uplink - hacking
simulator
@NightByte
You take the role of a hacker in a
(now) alternate reality of the early
2000’s.

Zig Climb
@Dreamer3
This is a port/version of ZigClimb. A
basic verison done to get a feel of
the screen size and D-pad is playble.

Want us to feature your game? Write in to us

with your game, how you made it, and any-
thing else you want the community to know!
Page 7 of 29
 Arduboy Game Review- Mar & Feb’2018
by @jerjer

Choplifter
@filmote
User filmote has ported a classic and
somewhat complex arcade style game to
the Arduboy. You operate a big ol chopper
tasked with rescuing soldiers who are stranded
on the field.
This game looks really good, with smooth
animation and tight, responsive controls. I
would recommend giving it a try, though you
may need to use the flashlight mode to load
new software on it when you’re done.

As you leave your base, you must

avoid incoming fire from tanks
and locate the soldiers running
around amongst the enemy.
Land your chopper, allow the
people to board, then hightail it
back to base as quickly as you
can.

Cutie E
@JuiceLizard
Cutie E is an… interesting game. Juice Lizard All I know is I never thought I’d see a “sexy
has illustrated a scantily-clad lady in the lady” on my Arduboy. But there she is. Right
background with images of buttons/dpad there behind the arrow.
directions on the screen.

As you correctly input each button, another

icon appears on the screen indicating
your next required press. I’m not sure if
you’re supposed to play to the beat of the
background music or if you’re supposed to
correctly complete the button sequence as
quickly as possible.

to be continued next page >>

Page 8 of 29
Evade 2
@ JayGarcia (and Modus Create team)
This is a fantastic game that really pushes the You have to do a reset trick to get different
Arduboy to its limits. It uses almost voxel-like software on your Arduboy, but it’s not too
graphics to depict a fully 3-dimensional space difficult. Here’s a video right here.
battle. I had a great time playing this and got
fairly far before eventually deciding to take a
break (I died).

I wanted to put a different game on in the

meantime and play that for a while… but
I couldn’t get the program to upload. I
tried the Arduino software (PC version) and
Arduboy Manager, but neither would finish
uploading the data.

To the best of my understanding, this program

is so huge it takes up all the memory available
on the Arduboy.
To be fair, I would understand if
you didn’t care too much and just
left Evade 2 on your Arduboy. It’s
seriously that fun.

KARATEKA V0.9
@filmote

Filmote made this game based off a
childhood favorite of the same name. In this
version of “Karateka,” you are a martial arts
fighter going head to head with a computer
opponent in the ring.
Filmote says this is not the final version of the
game, and there will be more content in a
future iteration.

The animation has a smooth, almost roto-

scoped appearance. The designer of the
original game, Jordan Mechner, would later
on create the beloved classic “Prince of
Persia.” Karateka looks great on the Arduboy.
The controls are a little strange, but I feel like
that’s probably staying true to the source
material. I’ve never played the original
Karateka, but I’ve played Prince of Persia, and
the controls had a similar feel.

to be continued next page >>

Page 9 of 29
Milipe
@Dreamer2345

Millipe, by user Dreamer2345, is a faithful
Centipede homage. In true arcade fashion,
you have an ongoing threat moving toward
you on the screen, and that threat gets faster
and more difficult as you complete each
successive stage.
cannon on your ship, you can easily access
the controls in this mode. I really enjoyed this,
holding the Arduboy differently made it a
novel experience.

One interesting thing about this version,

which by the way is complete with
mushrooms, is that it uses the landscape
formatted Arduboy screen in a Portrait
aspect ratio.

So, you must turn the whole system on its

side to play. Luckily, by using the d-pad
to control both the movement of and the

Micro-city
@jhhoward
When the SNES launched in North America
in 1991, one of the launch games was “Sim
City,” a port of a Macintosh game from 1989.
Arduboy user jhhoward has created a tribute,
“Micro-City.” From the moment I booted
this game up I knew I was in familiar territory.
Admittedly, this version lacks several features I
remember from the SNES edition.

But it’s still a blast to play. You can build your

city on several different map presets, trying
to zone everything correctly to maximize the
space. The more residents you have, the more
tax dollars you can collect. You get more
residents by building more residential zones, as
well as commercial and industrial zones to run
the economy and provide employment.

All in all, this is an enjoyable experience,

and I would be highly interested in seeing
a more faithful port that introduces
elements of chaos like natural disasters, or
crime, or pollution… all those things that made
the original classic so obsessively fun.

Read more about Micro-City

from the developer @jhhoward
in the next articles (Page 16)
to be continued next page >>
Page 10 of 29
Super Soldier
@DavidInwood
Wow. That’s the first thing I have to say about
this game. Maybe in an Owen Wilson kind
of way. But seriously, this side scrolling fighter
by user DavidInwood is very odd but the
creativity behind its oddity is fascinating.
I won’t ruin anything, but this part is pretty
entertaining and also mildly educational.
In the end, you fight and either save Fort
McMurray or you fail. This game is hilarious,
check it out!

First off, a giant monster is attacking Fort

McMurray in Alberta, Canada. You
have to transform into a giant using
the power of the ancient gems. You
press buttons in a certain order and
your character cries : “Polar Bear!”
before growing into a massive power
ranger/alien.

Then, you have to fly to Fort McMurray

by selecting it on a map of North
America.

Tamaguino_AB
@Keyboard_Camper

User Keyboard_Camper migrated Alojz I haven’t killed Meatneck (what I call my pet)
Jakob’s Tamaguino to the Arduboy. I had yet, but there’s still time for that in the future.
never played that version before, but judging
by the comments section this
migration could not have been
easy.

What’s here is a delightful

hearkening back to Tamagotchi
and Neo Pets from the late 90’s/
Early 2000’s. I actually did have a
Tamagotchi so this game felt very
familiar. You care for a dinosaur,
feeding it apples and steak and
making sure it exercises regularly.

AirRaid - a Blitz Clone

@Dreamer2345
This is a little Blitz Clone, according to @ Almost like space invaders of the past. You
Dreamer2345. I haven’t played Blitz before, have to bomb buildings below, making sure
but the mechanics seem simple enough. It’s to keep them short enough your plane won’t
almost a reverse of many arcade games, bash into them.
because your character, a bomber plane, is
moving from left to right, down one row after
each trip across the screen.

to be continued next page >>

Page 11 of 29
The controls are easy to pick up,
the graphics are effective, and
it just feels great to play a game
like Rampage. With planes.

Chie Magari Ita - puzzle game

@obono
User @obono is back again with another fun There is a mode that offers help, though I’m
game in Chie Magari Ita. This is a puzzle game not sure exactly how it works. It didn’t help me
where you have to fit several pipe-shaped at all! I definitely recomment Chie Magari Ita.
pieces into a grid without overlapping their
edges. There are spot in the grid you have to
avoid overlapping, as well.

This seems fairly challenging, I

have been unable to beat the
game just yet. But it’s a lot of
fun. The interface is very clean
and I like that you can both
rotate and flip the puzzle pieces.
This gives the game a lot more
difficulty.

Unicorn Dash - an endless runner

@YossaVonK
Finally, we have @YossaVonK ‘s Unicorn Dash, The environment is well animated and fun to
an endless runner. Live out your dreams of traverse. The game keeps track of your score
endlessly running through the clouds as a so you can always push towards new unicorn
beautiful unicorn. goals. Recommended for both endless runner
and fantasy equestrian fans.
You collect stars and avoid blockades by
bounding over them. All the
while, I can only assume you are
vomiting rainbows. That’s what
unicorns do, right? But, puke
jokes aside, this is a fun game.

Like game reviews?

Be sure to subscribe to
NintenDomain Podcast’s
Youtube channel and be
notified for any new videos! Page 12 of 29
 5 Games I’d like to see on
the Arduboy
by @crait
The Arduboy has some amazing games and many of them have been made recently, like Dark
& Under and MicroCity. Don’t forget that Arduventure is coming very soon! With all the time I’ve
spent playing these kinds of games, I couldn’t help but fantasize about a few more of my favorite
kinds of games making their way to the platform. Whether they’re clones or not, here’s my list of
top 5 types of games that I’d like to see on the Arduboy:

5) Sorry! It’s possible to have a top-down shooter with

I absolutely LOVE the Sorry! game. It’s a simple procedurally generated levels with boss fights
board game where players take turns moving every so often.
their pieces across the boards. It’s a very basic
game with simple features beyond moving
pieces space-by-space. I think that this would
be incredibly easy to implement. Not only
would this be feasible on the Arduboy, there’d
be enough room left over to make it look
good.

One reason I love Sorry! so much is that there

is a lot of strategy involved in playing with
friends. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of agency
when choosing which piece you want to
move, when to overtake another player, and
who to take out when you have the option to
take out multiple players.

Even if someone doesn’t want to make Sorry!,

I think there are plenty of rudementary board
games that could be implemented, like
Candy Land, etc. Right now, there is Chess
and MicroCheckers on the Arduboy.
4) Metal Gear
Right now, I cannot really think of many
top-down shooting games on the Arduboy.
One popular one is Virus-79... BUT, the game
is pretty much exploration in order to save
people from zombies. I think it would be
awesome to have a Metal Gear-type game
that would be more focused on moving
through room-to-room, trying to reach the end
destination, taking out any soldiers you find
along the way. Weapon power-ups would be
easy to implement as would secret areas.
Metal Gear: Ghost Babel on the Gameboy
Color was a fantastic game that had a very
expansive environment with a cool story, but
the game doesn’t have to have a definitive
ending or story.
(Image by wikipedia)
3) Dig Dug / Boulder Dash
Alright, I’ll be honest. Dig Dug is one of my
favorite games of all time. I play it on my
arcade machine all the time... But I wasn’t
a big fan of the game on the Gameboy
Advance. Having a port on the go would
be cool, but with a horizontal screen layout,
the game is much harder to play. I talked
about the importance of comfortable screen
space utilitazation in issue #8 of the Arduboy
Magazine if you’re interested in reading about
how it can affect a game.
With that being said, maybe Dig Dug wouldn’t
be the best game to put on the Arduboy,
but there are definitely ways to re-use the
mechanics of digging around and dropping
rocks and such. There’s a popular game
called Boulder Dash that does this except in a
puzzle form.
to be continued next page >>
Page 13 of 29
Someone got me really excited when they
made a mock-up of an Arduboy version of
Dig Dug mock-up and posted it to Twitter. If
someone made a Dig Dug-like action game
for the Arduboy, I’d probably never take it off!
(Image from https://twitter.com/rockasoo)
2) Tamagotchi / Digimon
When I was growing up, I loved Tamagotchi.
I thought they were soooo cool! Bandai even
came out with Digimon Virtual Pet, which are
similar, except you can actually connect them
together to battle your dinosaur pets!
Eventually, the Digimon franchise evolved
into being more than just hatching and raising
pets, but the original game is more of what
I was hoping to see on the Arduboy. I was
obsessed with these digital pet toys... I had so
many.
I understand that there are some technical
limitations in creating this kind of program, but
having a Tamagotchi-type pet game would
be great. One of the issues would be being
able to shut down the Arduboy and have it
continue to work while asleep since there’s no
built-in clock, but there is now an expiremental
low-power or hibernation mode, which was
being spearheaded by Keyboard_Camper
and others.
(Image by Tamagotchi)
I know that community member Keyboard_
Camper created and released the Tamaguino
AB, but what if that idea was taken further?
What if you can actually do minigames or fight
with your pet? Or what about multiplayer?
That with the lower-power setting could make
either a very authentic Tamagotchi-like game
or very fun Digimon pet game!
1) Pinball
If you look for an Arduboy pinball game,
you’re going to have a bad time. As far as
I can tell, there is not a single pinball game
that was ever finished. Team a.r.g. did start
working on a game a few years ago with @
castpixel doing the beautiful artwork for it.
Unfortunatley, I believe that this game has
been put on hiatus for now.
HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that a pinball
game will never be made for the Arduboy!
I got hooked recently on playing Pokemon
Pinball and then went back to play Electronic
Arts’ Virtual Pinball for the Sega Genesis. Of
course, playing them with a touchscreen
phone just didn’t feel right. I need nice, tactile
buttons to really feel rewarding. An Arduboy
that I could carry around with a pinball game
would definitely cure the itch!
If the game
is generic
enough,
someone
could even
repurpose
reporpuse
the code and
create many
board themes,
which is one
thing I really
liked about
Virtual Pinball.
(Image from https://twitter.com/castpixel)
to be continued next page >>
Page 14 of 29
Bonus) Chicken Game
What game do you want to see
As a bonus, I’m going to joking include any
on the Arduboy?
chicken game. PLEASE make more chicken
games for the Arduboy!
If you are a pixel artist looking
to collaborate with developers,
Right now, I think that we only have Chicken
leave a note on the community
Launcher that I made as well as Chicken
pages!
Cross, created by community member
dragula96.

Circuit Dude is a top-down, tile-based puzzler with 100 levels.

Help Circuit Dude build his ultimate secret invention by plugging
in chips, moving blocks, rotating walls, and much more!

Get it on Steam here!

Page 15 of 29
LEARN:

MicroCity -
City simulation in your pocket
by @jhhoward

Inspiration
When I first got my hands on an Arduboy,
I wanted to create a game that would
push the hardware to its limits and target
a genre that had not yet been attempted
for the platform. I decided to make
MicroCity, a city building simulation game,
which was heavily inspired by the original
SimCity.

About the game

When playing MicroCity you first choose
one of three types of terrain: river, lake or
island. Next you can start building your
city by placing down areas for residential,
industrial and commercial zones and
connect them with roads. You will also
need to build a power station and lay
down power lines to supply your city with
electricity. Over time you will be able to
watch your city grow and will have to be
careful to balance your yearly budget to
keep funds in the bank.
police departments helps to reduce crime
in the area, and building fire departments
will help when fire outbreaks happen. The
key to building a successful city is careful
planning and strategy!
A tip when you first start: try lowering the
tax rate in the yearly budget to encourage
population growth in your city. Once your
city has grown larger, raise the tax rate
slowly to balance your budget.

Each type of building can affect its

neighbours. Areas highly populated with
industrial zones and around the power
plant have higher levels of pollution so are
less desirable for resident to live. Building

to be continued next page >>

Page 16 of 29
Development insights
The Arduboy has only 1KB of EEPROM
memory which a program can use to store
data, even when switched off, which is
perfect for high scores and save games. I
realised from the beginning that it would
be important to have the option to save
your city and continue playing later. It
wouldn’t be so fun if you had to rebuild
your city from scratch every time you play!
This meant I had to squeeze all the city
data into only 1KB of space.
This was the most challenging aspect of
making the game as I wanted to provide
as big a space as possible to be able to
build on. The game is played on a grid so
I settled on a space of 48x48 tiles, which
is tiny compared to SimCity but still large
enough for players to have fun with. A
simple approach would be to store one
byte per tile in the EEPROM, but there
simply isn’t enough space, plus there also
needs to be space for storing other things
such as the player’s funds and the month /
year of the simulation.
The solution I came up with was for a
layered approach: the bottom layer is
the terrain (a choice of three different
patterns), next a map of the road and
power lines, and finally the buildings at the
top.
The road and power line map is
compressed so that each tile is only 2
bits (one bit for road and one bit for
powerline). The buildings are stored in a
long list with space for 130 slots. This makes
it easier to step through each building to
simulate it, but the downside is that it is
possible to hit this hard limit and not be
able to build further.
Every second or so, the simulation checks
to see which buildings are connected
to the power grid. This is done using a
‘flood fill’ algorithm, which works in a
similar way to the fill / paint bucket tool
in Paint or Photoshop. When doing the
check, it ‘fills’ from each power station
outwards to connected power lines and
buildings. The algorithm needs quite a
bit of memory to achieve this (but only
temporarily) so I came up with a neat
solution: I use the memory that is reserved
for the screen contents for doing the fill.
(With the Arduboy2 library you can access
this by using ‘arduboy.getBuffer()’). This
is perfectly fine to do as long as you are
redrawing the whole screen every update.

Overall, it took about a month for me to develop

MicroCity and I had a lot of fun doing it!

MicroCity is open source and free to download here:

https://github.com/jhhoward/MicroCity/releases

Page 17 of 29
 In this segment of the
magazine we feature
work from pixel artists.
Do contact them if you
would like to work with
them or use their work.
Their contact information
is listed below.

In this month’s Pixel Page, we show case the pixel art of

Arduventure (created by SiegfriedCroes) to give you a
teaser on what to expect. We’ve hidden the map and
bosses though. ;)

Arduventure is a classic top-down 8-Bit RPG with original

monochrome graphics and musical score. Collect items,
weapons, armor, amulets and magic to fight enemies in
turn-based battle system. Explore a massive world map
larger than the one in Zelda: Links Awakening!

Find out more about Arduventure and how to reprogram

the Arduboy for Arduventure here:
http://arduboy.com/arduventure/

Guide your hero around Arduventure

world to collect fragments of a blade
that you need to forge

Page 18 of 29
The sample textures
displayed here in a
part of the map

Arduventure units are being shipped out

from OR, USA in early - mid March!

Check your spam folder if you’ve not

received a tracking number in the next
week.

Artisit: @ SiegfriedCroes

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SiegfriedCroes

Page 19 of 29
 ProjectABE -
Procastination & Progress
by @FManga
Initially released as an online ArduBoy
Emulator, ProjectABE has been steadily
out-growing that description. It runs in
the browser or as a stand-alone app for
Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Android;
it’s an emulator, debugger, IDE, image
converter, and a game uploader. I’ve
been asked a few times why I made it
and where it’s going. To both questions,
honestly: I have no idea.
I work as a JavaScript game programmer
in Recife, Brazil. Out of curiosity, I decided
to look into “this Arduino thing everyone’s
talking about” and I stumbled upon
the AVR instruction set documentation.
I wondered: can regular expressions
translate this automatically into
JavaScript?
Soon, descriptions of opcodes like
“Rd ← Rd + Rr”
were being translated into
“reg[1] = reg[1] + reg[2]”.
These are joined to form blocks that
browsers compile into native, fast code.
This process is somewhat slow, but, luckily,
AVR processors have a peculiarity: a
harvard architecture and instructions in
a ROM. This means that blocks only have
to be made once, before a game starts.
Unlike interpreter or dynarec emulators,
ProjectABE’s core is a static recompiler.
Then I found out about the Arduboy. I
implemented a screen, some buttons
and was greeted with… nothing. Much
debugging ensued. A few weeks later,
most of the Arduboy’s games were
playable. Later came some sound
support. And the latest update got a
working serial port.
In this case, the key to getting the project
to where it is now was this: don’t do the
important things first. Instead, priorities
were defined by: what do I feel like
coding, today? Emulators often require
long periods of work before any payoff.
Doing something that
can be considered fluff
is a great way to stay
motivated and keep the
code flowing.
One could say that
support for sound is
important but I’d have
given up long ago if it
wasn’t for unplanned
fluff like skins.
to be continued next page >>
Page 20 of 29
It’s not a motto you’d see on a flag, but it
works for ProjectABE: Procrastination and
Progress.
One might think that this would lead to
feature-creep, but there’s a difference.
Feature-creep moves the goal-posts to
the detriment of a project, but fluff moves
them while keeping the ball rolling.
If I’d started ProjectABE while looking at
the list of features it has now, I’d have
given up on day 1.

Fluff #1: Skins

When you load a game, you see it in an
Arduboy (original image by TeamARG).
Want to play a vertical game? Press
F3 and switch to a Microcard. Feel like
playing on radiation-contaminated
hardware? Or on an egg? Keep pressing
F3.
They still have a lot of rough edges, but
can be (and have been) used to write
and debug games. I don’t expect anyone
to drop their favourite IDE’s and switch,
though. ProjectABE’s IDE is mostly intended
for debugging and tries to get along with
whatever other editor is being used.

Somewhere along development, the

mentality shifted from “does this work?”
to “hey, this can be useful” and an IDE,
debugger, and compiler in the cloud were
added.

Fluff #2: Drag a PNG into the IDE and it will get converted into code
and ASCII art
Once you’re done editing, debugging, Simply add “?hex=http://site/yourgame.
and testing your game, you can show it hex” to the URL and share that as a “Play
off! People no longer need to download, Online” link in the forum or in an iframe. If
unzip, compile, and upload your game just they’re playing in the offline app, they can
to see it. easily upload the game to their arduboy
by pressing the U key.

Fluff #3: Press R to start/stop recording an animated GIF of your

game. Press P to take a PNG screenshot
Speaking of the forums, this may seem
obvious to some, but it needs to be said:
they’re a good way to ask for help, report
bugs or ask for new features. Turns out the
Arduboy forum has its fair share of lurkers.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ll
never know what bothers you if you don’t
speak up!

Features like joypad support and the bare

skin with no scaling only exist because @
Keyboad_Camper and @PureSpider asked
for them. to be continued next page >>
Page 21 of 29
Fluff #4: What was the Konami Code, again?
Since fluff actually helps move
the project along, crazy ideas
like CRT screen effects (as
suggested by @eried) are
welcome. There still are plenty
of important features (and
surprise fluff features!) in the
roadmap so expect lots of
updates. Also expect bugs as
there’s no “stable releases”,
they’re all bleeding edge.

New features are always

discussed and announced
in the forum thread and a
continuously updated manual is available
on github. Actually, everything is on
github. ProjectABE is open source!

Website refresh! New feature!

Not sure how to start using your Arduboy? Never used Arduino before and
want to find out if there is another, easy way to load games to your Arduboy?

Reference this Uploading guide!

One of the way to upload is to use PorjectABE

Page 22 of 29
EXPLORE:
Libre gaming and Arduboy
by @alexgleason
Alex first post in the community featured his blog article about gaming consoles that
respect your freedom, with Arduboy leading the pack. So for this issue we reached out to
him to find out more about “Libre gaming”.
There is so much to say I’m not sure where
to begin. I don’t like the world that we’ve
built; that we’ve allowed other people to
build while we stood by and watched. I
feel hopeful and optimistic, but we have
to take action to heal ourselves.
There is so much wrong, it’s hard to focus
on just one thing. This is especially true of
issues that interconnect, but for the sake
of Arduboy I’ll just write about culture.
One of my favorite things about humans is
their creativity and imagination. Since the
beginning of time people have created
stories and art which they passed through
the generations. As free-culture activist
Nina Paley once said, “everything is a
derivative work.” She shows the evolution
of sculptures over eons; their derivations
across cultures are clear. The idea that we
were not allowed to share art, music, and
stories was unfathomable. Now restricting
ideas has become culturally celebrated
and codified into copyright law. Even
worse, the penalty for breaking this
contract could be prison.
Originally, copyright law was meant to
benefit society. In feudal times, entire
books were handwritten, and had to be
copied by hand. Then the printing press
came along, but they were very expensive
and only certain people (publishers)
owned them. The idea was that we’d
force the publishers to pay the authors,
and in exchange the authors would have
resources to make more books. Having
more books benefits society, so this was a
good deal. It didn’t harm common people
at all, because common people couldn’t
mass produce books anyway.
Fast forward to the information age, and
now we have the ability to spread culture
to the entire world at no cost. Furthermore,
everyone who connects to the Internet
is a publisher. The conditions of the deal
have changed, and now society is worse
off that the spread of knowledge and
creativity is restricted. We could educate
the world for free, but anyone who’s tried
has just been fined or jailed (or worse, eg:
Aaron Swartz). This impacts our culture,
because it prevents people from freely
expressing ideas. Paley makes the point
that proprietary culture is often forced
on us, Christmas music in America for
example, but then we are not even
allowed to regurgitate the works we didn’t
consent to hearing. It’s a form of thought
control that Paley compares to brain
damage since it’s the literal repression of
creative expressions.
to be continued next page >>
Page 23 of 29
People rush to defend copyright by
talking about money: how can an author
or artist live without copyright? But that
is a secondary issue; my concern is with
freedom and ownership, not money. I
don’t believe that art is a reflection of
the self, but rather that art is a reflection
of the universe through which the self
is a medium. This is because all of our
thoughts, experiences, and actions
are determined by the outside world.
Intellectual property, produced by the
universe, is public property (not private
property) so I fundamentally disagree with
the idea that a single person can own
an expression. And because I think that
“intellectual property” is all public, I think
that everyone should have the freedom
to change and adapt it. I know that some
readers still will not accept this. They will
say that we can’t destroy an industry for
a philosophy, but we have before when it
was virtuous, like in the case of cigarettes,
and at the extreme level, sex trafficking
and slavery. I’m not comparing the
severity of these things, just pointing out
the extreme end of the spectrum. At any
rate, profit is not a good reason to uphold
a morally bereft system.
Video games are a unique creative
medium that sit between software
and traditional art. Certain issues with
software also affect games. With the
advent of Facebook, the new social norm
is to relinquish our privacy to software
companies. Now gaming is the same,
with PC games like Bionic Commando
forcing players to be connected to the
Internet at all times to play while players
are spied on in the background. The Free
Software Foundation contends that all
software must be “libre” (ie liberated),
which means that people have the ability
to study the software’s source code,
modify it, and redistribute the software. This
would enable users to assert control over
the software they run, and remove any
malicious features, as well as improve the
program. So much of our society relies on
software, from banks to voting machines,
so it’s clear why libre software is beneficial
to everyone, not just programmers,
because it would enable normal people
to learn how things work and improve
them. Libre games would benefit from this
as well. Proprietary games, which relegate
their users to the role of “consumer,” don’t
share that optimism. Their idea is that no
one should have the ability to learn from
games or improve them. I find that position
offensive, amoral, and anti-social.
There is a movement around libre
software, most notably the GNU/Linux
community. For their own freedom and
privacy, libre software users refuse to
touch proprietary software like Windows,
Photoshop, and Chrome; they use libre
alternatives like GNU/Linux, GIMP, and
Firefox. These same advocates make
exceptions for proprietary games, though,
because libre alternatives are sparse.
Also, the term “Open Source” gets thrown
around in the gaming community without
real commitment to the cause. I recently
scoured the Internet for open source
handhelds and found 8 which claimed the
title, but only 1, the Arduboy, actually met
the standards of Open Source.
The Arduboy community feels like a safe
place away from proprietary culture. I
think some people are here because
they like the novelty of the system or the
DIY nature of the community. I’m here
because the Arduboy community aligns
with my political beliefs. I believe that we
should be able to freely share with one-
another, and that copying is not stealing
since copying doesn’t take anything
away. Since forming this view, I’ve lost the
nostalgic satisfaction of popping Link’s
Awakening into my Game Boy, but lately
I’ve felt inspired again playing Mystic
Balloon on my Arduboy. The Arduboy
community learns from each other and
shares their knowledge and creations. This
is what a free culture looks like.
Most Arduboy games are libre; they use
a libre license and include the game’s
to be continued next page >>
Page 24 of 29
source code. Discerning which games
were libre was a bit difficult, so Erwin and I
recently added licenses to Erwin’s Arduboy
Repo (arduboy.ried.cl) along with a filter
to discover only libre games. I have also
been petitioning Arduboy game makers
to add a license to their work so people
interested in free culture can discover
their games. I hope that others will join
me in making the Arduboy an explicitly
libre gaming platform. We can do that by
tagging libre games, adding libre licenses
to our repos, and distributing the source
code along with our works. I see Arduboy
as a platform that puts players in control,
not corporations.
I know that Arduboy has a different
target audience that Nintendo, Xbox,
and PlayStation, but I wouldn’t discount
it as a contender. People who are serious
about freedom will reject these proprietary
systems and choose a gaming device
that’s designed to give the user control
rather than deprive them of it. Sure, it
can’t play AAA titles, but players with a
strong political conviction will choose the
Arduboy every time. For the freedom and
privacy it grants us, it’s worth the meager
sacrifice.
Licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0. No attribution is
required, but you’re free to attribute Arduboy
Magazine or Alex Gleason if you want.

Website refresh! New feature!

New games have been added to the featured games on the front page
- congrats to Micro-City, CastleBoy, SanSan, Evade 2 and Unicorn Dash
for being amazing and engaging!

Page 25 of 29
 Questions
In this section we’ll ask
the same questions to with game
a different developer in developers
every new issue.
by @celinebins
This issue we interview @filmote, co-developer for
the well received ‘Dark & Under’ game, and other
games including ‘Dominoes All Fives’, ‘Pipes’, ‘1943’,
‘Karateka’ and .. almost there .. ‘Lode Runner’. Also
regular article contributor to this magazine!

1. Where did you find out about
Arduboy the first time?
Before I discovered the Arduboy, I was
developing games on a custom Arduino-
based device I built using a Smart GPU
2 screen. The problem was, I was doing
it alone and no one else had the same
equipment so there were no other games
to play. Then I discovered a post on the
Arduino forum where someone mentioned
a thing called an Arduboy.. what’s that,
I asked myself? A quick search and an
online purchase and I had two on their
way.
3. Did you have app / game
development experience before
Arduboy?
I am the wrong side of 45 and have been
a developer for twenty of those years. I
started my career developing on IBM’s
System/36 and AS/400 before moving on
to a raft of languages including Delphi,
Visual Basic, C# and Java. I currently work
on a Java-based fraud detection system
that is used in banks across the world. A
lot of it is consulting and I get itchy fingers
when I cannot develop.. as such the
Arduboy cops a pounding at night.

2. What is the first program/game you
created for Arduboy?
When I bought my Arduboy, I had almost
completed a version of Dominoes on the
Arduino rig. I quickly converted this to the
Arduboy and in doing so learnt a lot about
the environment and how to save memory
and to optimise a game for 1bit black and
white. The original Dominoes version was
running on an Arduino Mega and had a
480 x 320 pixels colour screen and handled
two players plus the computer. The
Arduboy version is stripped right back and
only allows one player.
4. What programs do you use for
creating Arduboy apps/games?
I am using Microsoft’s VS Code at the
moment but have tried others including
Platform I/O. I like the layout of VS Code
and my only gripe is the inability to click on
a compilation error and have you taken
directly to that line of code. Maybe a
future release?
I am also running an Arduboy emulator in
sim-avr for testing. This allows me to make
rapid changes and simply run them on the
to be continued next page >>
Page 26 of 29
computer without having to upload them
to the physical Arduboy.
I have used Excel to design graphics for
my games.. what, doesn’t everyone? I
have a template that you can design
the graphics on and it automatically
creates the PROGMEM data. I like that I
can use familiar copy and paste functions
and have all the relate graphics in a
single document. You can play with my
template here > https://github.com/
filmote/SpriteTemplate
5. What do you read to learn how to
code for Arduboy?
The forum and other people’s code.
Once you have learnt the C++ syntax –
and believe me I am still learning some
of the more esoteric stuff – you will learn
lots of different ways of writing games
by inspecting other people’s code and
asking questions on the forum.
6. What app/game do you currently
have on your Arduboy.
I currently have a half-developed game
that I am working on (see question 8,
below). But prior to that, I was playing
MicroCity by James Howard.
7. What app/program is your favorite?
Of all the great games I have played
on the Arduboy, ‘Ard Drivin’ is by far my
favourite. Really nice graphics and just
good fun.
8. What is the next app/program for
Arduboy we can expect?
I am currently working on a version of Lode
Runner. Like previous games I have made,
it is a remake of a game that I used to play
BITD. I remember spending hours (days?)
playing Lode Runner on my old Apple ][.
9. What app/game would you love to
see on the Arduboy?
A really good first-person shooter.
Obviously the graphic limitations would be
the killer here.
10. What is your best tip for other
people who want to start creating
apps/games for Arduboy?
Even if you have programming
experience, work through the tutorials
on the forum. Once complete, try
developing a simple game before
attempting that Galaga re-write.
There is a forum of people who will help
you if you get stuck but try to work it out
yourself before deferring to the brains trust.
Want to find out more about @
filmote’s work, visit his website
here.
Are you a developer and want to
be featured here? Reach out to
the Magazine through Twitter DM
@arduboymag
Page 27 of 29
#arduboy:

Arduboy on LinusTechTips!

Arduboy and the Tetris

Mircocard were featured in
Linus Tech Tip’s Handy Tech
under $100 on 17th Feb!

To everyone who bought

an Arduboy / Microcard
after watching this video -
Welcome to the community!

If you’ve not watched the video, click on the image.

What does Linus think of the two devices?

Arduboy: The unit itself is super light but still feels durable with a metal back,
polycarbonate front, and subjectively pretty fantastic buttons! ... Not bad for $49

Mircocard: It’s a little bit dear at $54 but as fun little retro toys go, it is pretty
awesome. Great gift idea.
Have a favourite Youtuber you’d like to see
cover the Arduboy? Write to us!
Page 28 of 29
 Thank you!
Thank you for reading the Magazine!
Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did putting it together.

We want to know how to make the next volume better

than the last, so write in to us to tell us what you think!
https://twitter.com/arduboymag