bigeagleowl / mind-the-rocks

A multi player micro:bit game - all start together and see who can avoid the rocks for the longest!

Mind-the-Rocks!

This is a multiplayer game for the BBC micro:bit where you have to avoid the falling rocks. The player who avoids the rocks for the longest wins - simple eh!

How do I Play?

When the game starts, you will see the spinning clock finger on the display. When this stops you are off and running, and the rocks will start dropping from the top of the screen. You are the pixel in the middle of the bottom row. You have to avoid the falling rocks by using the 2 microbit buttons. Button A (on left) moves you to the left and button B (on right) moves you to the right. (Well it would not make sense if it was the other way round.) If a rock hits you, it is game over. The game them restarts - what fun! Oh yes, the rocks fall faster and faster!

I Want to Play with My Friends

1. Check everyone has Mind the Rocks on their microbit.

We Now Need to Register All the Players Who Want to Join In

2. Get everyone to reset their microbits using the reset button (which is the button on the opposite side to the LEDs).  
3. When you see the spinning clock finger, press and hold the button A (on left). When it sees others doing the same with their microbits, it lights a LED for each player who joins. Wait till your microbit displays the correct number of players.
4. When all have joined let go of button A. It will tell you which player number you are, and then it will start the game :-)

Now you Play!

5. When a rock hits you you will see the skull image, and your microbit will wait till all players have finished.
6. The microbit will display the number of the player who won. Here's hoping that is you!
7. It automatically restarts the game so that you can all have more fun!

Where Did the Inspiration Come From?

I attended an Oxford Codebar (their twitter) session on Python programming for microbits where I was demoing the A Shaky Start Talk Timer. There, one of the cool Python Mentors was coding up a block drop type game for the microbit. If that was you I would love to credit you here. This got me thinking that I could write a multi-player version so here it is :-)

Teachers & Coding Mentors

You are very welcome to use this to help make coding fun - in fact that is the whole point. If you have an idea for an improvement, just add an issue describing your suggestion :-)

Tech Stack

This is written in MicroPython.

How to Install

Here is how to compile and copy a MicroPython script (in this case mindtherocksformicrobit.py) or hex file (grab from the latest release) file to your microbit :-)

Trivia

I coded up the very first version of the game whilst on holiday in the Northumberland National Park. When looking up from the screen I could see the wonderful hills of the upper Coquetdale valley.

mind-the-rocks's Issues

If two multiplayer games are going on at same time they interfere with each other

Set 2 multi player game of. The start a separate multi player game. They interfere with each other.

Multiplayer sign-up needs to be more responsive

Multiplayer sign-up needs to be more responsive. Currently the screen is updated once per second with the number of microbits that have joined.

Make a video of how it works

To go global it needs a video :-)

On game startup the player moves to left by one

On game startup the player moves to left by one, when not commanded by the player.

Add message for educators - they are free to use this :-)

Add message for educators - they are free to use this :-)

Tech Stack

Describe tech stack and instructions on how to compile.

Better handle a player dropping out of the game part way through

If a player drops out of the game part through this can cause the other microbits to wait for ever.

Star burst for winner

It would be nice to have a star burst effect on the winner's screen!

Make the site beautiful

Make the site beautiful :-)

In multiplayer one player controls the rocks and the other is avoiding

One player could control when the rocks are dropped and the other player trues to avoid the rocks.

Suggested by Bobby age 7.

Players to all play same game

Currently the players in multiplayer mode get a different version of the game. It would be great if they all played the same version of the game. An idea to do this is seed the random rock generator on each microbit with the same seed, using the lowest player integer that is transmitted - that is the theory.

Multiplayer mode - need to reminded which player you are

Multiplayer mode - need to reminded which player you are. Your player number is only displayed once at the start.

Can the ship scroll off one side and round to the other

More fun to have the ship loop off one side and appear on the other.

Add tilt control hint suggestion to encourage users to use the accelerometers

Instead of using button A & B to control the player's position, add the tilt control hint suggestion, to encourage players to make some coding changes to switch the game over to tilt control using the accelerometers. What is not to like!

Initializing for multiplayer mode is awkward

Initializing for multiplayer mode is awkward. Having to press reset and then button A immediately is awkward

Hard to get 4 players registered for multiplayer.

Hard to get 4 players registered for multiplayer. One option to make multiplayer the default mode with auto register.

Code Quality

The first version was hacked together and needs to be rewritten to make a more maintainable version.

Second register attempt causes other microbits to see one microbit

If when registering for multi player, on microbit tries again then the other will see this an new device and not realize the old registration has lapsed.

Make the game harder as it progresses

The game can be made harder by either increasing the probability of rocks and increasing the rate at which they fall.

The Rocks to speed up more quickly

Results of user research is that speeding up by 5 ms per rock drop makes the better.

Make it clearer which pixel is the player

Make it clearer which pixel is the player. Maybe altering the intensity of the LEDs might make this clearer.

Single player mode broken

This is a regression following the change for multiplayer to all play the same game

In multiplayer mode the game doesn't start at exactly the same time for all players

In multiplayer mode the game doesn't start at exactly the for all players. The game starts for each player when they release button A. Players do this at different times, hence the game starts at different times. They should all start at the same time.

Add the instructions on how to use

Add the instructions on how to use it - enough said I think!