Recreating the game of Flappy Bird with AVR

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If you’re missing Flappy Bird, just whip out an Arduino, some components and code, and get playing.

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There have been quite a number of hardware crossovers in the gaming world as of late, with various physical incarnations of Dong Nguyen’s Flappy Bird taking the world by storm. After the Super Mario-like game was pulled from app stores last year, the market experienced an uptick in cloned apps and makeshift recreations hoping to cure the public’s addiction and fill the void in our leisure time. And as expected, it wasn’t before long that Makers joined the party by exercising their imagination to bring it to life.

Most notably, Fawn Qui gained mainstream popularity last year with her mockup in a cardboard box, which was built around an Arduino, three motors and a magnet sensor. Qiu’s iteration used a scrolling background with two controls to move the bird up and down to avoid obstacles, while any wrong move would cause the box lid to close and to emit a “game over” sound.

Now, more Makers have have launched their own Atmel based versions. Take Aron Bordin, for example, who has taken a more minimalistic approach using simply an ATmega2560 powered board and 16×16 LED Matrix. Aside from the ‘duino, the only other components necessary were a push button and a 1K resistor attached to a breadboard to control the flapping. The project was coded using both the Timer Object and Led Matrix Helper libraries, while a few easy-to-follow steps and diagrams can be found on its official page.

Those Flappy Bird fanatics looking for a little more complexity will enjoy another rendition from Maker “huy,” who essentially swapped out the aforementioned 16×16 matrix for a Nokia LCD screen. In similar fashion, the unit is driven by an Arduino — this time an Uno (ATmega328) — along with a single push button commissioned for commands. The code and the project’s simple pair of steps can be found on its Hackaday.io log.

Then, there’s SuperDuino. Created by Maker Mohsin Farooq, it’s a coin cell operated, Arduino-compatible board with a built-in 1.7-inch color display and a three-axis accelerometer. Powered by an ATmega328, the project was a suitable match for a wide-range of DIY games, gadgets and wearable devices. As you can imagine, this includes a game controller for Flappy Bird.