Uzebox Games

The Uzebox is a retro-minimalist homebrew game console, created in 2008 by Alec Bourque. It is based on an AVR 8-bit general purpose microcontroller made by Atmel. The particularity of the system is that it's based on an interrupt driven kernel and has no frame buffer. Functions such as video sync generation, tile rendering, and music mixing is done realtime by a background task so games can easily be developed in C. The design goal was to be as simple as possible, yet have good enough sound and graphics, while leaving enough resources to implement interesting games. Emphasis was put on making it easy and fun to assemble and program for any hobbyists. The final design contains only two chips: an ATmega644 and an AD725 RGB-to-NTSC converter. Ten years later, it still has an active development community comprised of people from all over the world, and boasts a collection of over 100 open-source games. The bootloader on the AVR can load and flash games stored on an SD card, and there is a full set of development tools available for it, including a cycle-perfect emulator that supports GDB debugging. The microcontroller is overclocked to run at 28.61818 MHz, and only has a total of 4 KB of RAM, and 64 KB of program memory.

Introduction

Bugz is an all-original 2D platformer, written specifically for the Uzebox. It has 21 levels, and the object is to collect all the cookies in each level without dying. If you can finish the level before the time bonus reaches zero, you'll get a higher score. Killing the bugs will also increase your score. Includes single player, and multiplayer modes.

Game Modes

• 1 PLAYER - race against the clock, and complete all levels for the highest score

• 2 PLAYER - players compete for the same cookies, but otherwise cannot interact with each other

• P1 VS P2 - players compete for the same cookies and can stomp on the other player's head (killing them like a bug)

Introduction

Laser Puzzle is a Uzebox implementation of a laser-based puzzle game. It has 40 levels, and the object is to place pieces on the board in such a way that the laser beam is deflected into one or two targets from the proper direction. Pieces that aren't fixed in place (indicated by a lock icon) may be dragged and dropped onto any blank square, or rotated to face any direction. In order to properly solve each puzzle, the laser beam must pass through all of the pieces that aren't blockers. This game is more kid-friendly than Laser Puzzle II.

Game Modes

• 1 player

Introduction

Laser Puzzle II is a Uzebox implementation of a laser-based puzzle game. Gameplay is very similar to Laser Puzzle, but there are additional tokens, and some behave differently. Tokens with a padlock overlay cannot be moved or rotated, but tokens with a rotation overlay can be rotated in place, but not moved. The laser itself is a now a token, there are two beam splitters, a double sided mirror, a checkpoint, combination mirror/target tokens, and a cell blocker (which doesn't block the laser). As one might expect, this provides for much more challenging game play! There are 60 levels, which include beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert challenges. The controls and instructions are included in the game, and the expert challenges can be extremely difficult to solve.

Game Modes

• 1 player

Introduction

Circuit Puzzle is a Uzebox implementation of an electricity-based puzzle game. Gameplay is similar to both of my Laser Puzzle games, but with many improvements to the user interface.

It has 60 levels, divided up into the following skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert.

For each circuit, arrange the tokens to form a continuous pathway from VCC to GND that lights up the designated LEDs. All tokens must be used, and there can be no loose ends, except on the SWITCH and GND tokens. There is a built-in rule checker to help. The normal rules of electrical current and LEDs apply. Avoid creating short circuits.

Game Modes

• 1 player