This contest has ended and the winners have been announced. Thank you all for participating!
Be sure to check out all the other amazing projects that joined this challenge.
Sometimes the tightest constraints inspire the highest creativity. The Tiny Games challenge invites you to have the most fun with the most minimal setup. Whether that’s tiny size, tiny parts count, or tiny code, we want you to show us that big fun can come in small packages.
The top three entrants will receive a $150 gift certificate courtesy of DigiKey, our contest's sponsor, so show us how much fun you can have with the least!
Honorable Mention Categories:
- One Dimensional: Everyone has an LED strip kicking around somewhere. Show us how we can put that to use to make an engaging game that plays only in one dimension.
- The Classics: You know: Pong, Snake, Tetris, or maybe even Hunt the Wumpus. In this category, we’re looking for modern implementations of a classic tiny game of yesteryear.
- The Controls: With some games, it’s the controls that make them fun. If your tiny game has innovative user interfaces, this is for you.
- Pocket Arcade: You want to bring your games with you everywhere, right? This category is for DIY tiny games that you can carry around every day
- Fancy!: This category is for the polish, the fit-and-finish, and the shininess. If your game looks fantastic, it’s fancy.
Rules:
- All games must be electronic, playable, and fun. We’re going to let you define “fun”.
- We want to learn from you. Document your project as well as you can so that we can follow along.
- All entrants must agree to have the design published on Hackaday.
- Employees and contractors of DigiKey, Supply Frame, Siemens, Arduino, and their immediate family members are ineligible to win, but are still encouraged to enter.
- Rules and categories are subject to change and judges' decisions are final.
Examples
Need some inspiration? Here are some projects to check out that should get your ideas flowing:
- When we think of LED strip games, we think of Twang. But Twang was built on [Robin Baumgarten]’s Line Wobbler, and we’ve seen a number of interesting variations. Maybe you’ll show us yours?
- Sticking on the linear theme, [treibair] set up a project for 1D games. This hasn’t seen much love in the last five years. It’s time!
- Pong is another game that’s seen the LED-strip treatment, but we’ve seen it go even further. [Mischka]’s monoPong uses only a handful of 5 mm LEDs and CMOS chips!
- Pacman is an absolute classic game. Former editor [Mike Szczys]’s 1-Pixel Pacman is a standout, not just because it looks good, but also for recreating the arcade game’s rules down to the last ghost.
- Have you played Joust? No, not the arcade game, but the accelerometer augmented game of tag. It’s absolutely hilarious in a small group of nerds.
- Snakes on a 16x2 LCD? [Visrealm]’s project goes maxi-minimalist by running on a breadboard computer.
- But that’s not the lowest resolution we’ve ever seen. [Doug McInnes]’s Hunt the Lunpus runs on two seven-segment displays!
- [Bobricius]’s LedCade definitely looks the part. Using the PCB as the arcade cabinet makes this build extra refined.
- [João Vilaça]’s Tetris and Breakout platform was built up out of stuff he had lying around in his junk box, but nonetheless provided maximum fun.
how do I submit?