Bryan Cabalo
CS179J
Game Report
Game Theme
“
I will be implementing a simple game follow the leader. This game will be similar to the game “Simon”
where the person playing the game tries to follow and keep up with a
predetermined light pattern that shows up on the screen. The light pattern will flash according to
different note or beat changes in the song.
The user will then have to repeat the pattern. The pattern length extends after each
successful user given imitation of a pattern.
To win the game, successful completion of a full length light pattern
and a good memory will be required.
Tradeoffs in Features
and Implementation
Performance, power, size and cost are our design metrics I will use to determine tradeoffs in features and implementation.
Intel 8051 Microcontroller vs. FPGA
The Intel 8051 and the FPGA are both eligible choices for implementing the state machine of my game. The Intel 8051 require that one knows how to translate a state machine into C code and the FPGA requires that one knows how to translate a state machine into VHDL.
Colored and Lighted Keypad Interface
The default input for the game is a Playstation keypad. My project casing will have to be designed with a Playstation game pad socket. This socket connection accepts all Playstation 2 compatible game pads, dance pads, steering wheels, etc.
An alternative for the keypad used to control the game and give input feedback will consist of colored buttons that are lighted up when they are active. The user will be able to press these colored buttons to play with the game, much like the original Simon game. Since small size is a priority, this feature may be a conflict with the ideal design constraints.
Uploading Songs with the .mp3 Format
This is the main feature of the device. The game device will be able to take an uploaded song in .mp3 format from the computer, parse the .mp3 file for certain “action” sections of the song, and translate the “action” sections into a set of light patterns the user has to imitate using the colored keypad. This feature introduced is the most difficult to develop in my mind. I think the majority of design time and the time-to-market tradeoff depends on this feature alone. Research into a chip or IC capable of doing this is still being done.
Ideally, the device will play Justin Timberlake beats.
Speaker
A small speaker capable of playing polytoned music will be included in the design.
Performance
Since the game does not require very fast and intensive calculations, a very fast microcontroller is not necessary. The only stall or wait time in the system will be the length of time the .mp3 upload and processing/parsing will be. The other requirement affecting performance is the parallel processing between the music sounds and the light patterns generated on the device or on the screen. This is where an FPGA is very useful.
Power
The device may contain a convenient jack input for a wall power supply so that users may plug in the game into the wall provided that they have a power supply handy. The power supply should be able to provide at least 500mA of current and it should be capable of providing a voltage of 9V to power the system.
The device should be low power so that a typical cell phone battery is capable of powering the game for hours.
Recharable 1/3 AA size NiMH batteries may be the ideal independent power supply for the game. A user should be able recharge the batteries without having to remove the battery from the device. This requires special charging battery circuitry that will rise the unit cost of the device.
Size
My device shall be as compact as possible, fitting only the bare minimum components. The features that affect this design metric are the size of the rechargeable batteries, microcontroller and all the other components in the system.
Cost
The cost of the project must not exceed $50. I still have yet to look into prices for devices or IC’s that allow uploading and parsing of .mp3 formatted music data into the Intel 8051 microcontroller.
Selected Features and
Implementation
I plan to implement this project using the inexpensive Intel 8051 microcontroller since I only have elementary knowledge of FPGA’s at this point (I have not taken CS122A). I will program the state machine for the game in the C language and I may use a graphics library for my first prototype of the game to demo on a computer.
To fulfill the demand for a game oriented around popular music, I will try to implement the feature of uploading .mp3 formatted songs into the device. I have yet to investigate the available tools for this process. Research and implementation will take place this week.
The color keypad is not of great importance. More emphasis will be on implementing the Playstation gamepad with the design for the first prototype.