Deadline Dodge

Deadline Dodge, an old school 8x9 LED matrix game made only with logic gates and other 7400-series ICs

By Hurley1340 and SnkSynthesis

See Gallery.

Concept

We wanted a fun visual final project for our digital logic design class. However we had some constraints:

• only allowed to use 7400-series ICs for logic
• A deadline for project completion (hence the name deadline-dodge)

With those 2 things in consideration, we came up with the following concept:

• An 8x9 LED matrix
• Rocks psuedorandomly spawn in one of the 8 columns (denoted by illuminated red LEDs)
• The player has to dodge these rocks by moving left, right, or standing still (via left and right buttons)
• A collision between the player and one of the rocks will end the game (which clear the screen)
• The game speeds up over time
• Player position can be reset to starting position by pressing LOAD button
• The objective of the player is to surive without getting hit by rocks as long as possible

Implementation

• Uses only 7400-series ICs for logic.
• We designed and simulated our circuitry using Multisim (.ms14 files can be found in the folders of this repository)
• Most of the circuitry was made on breadboards
• The LED matrix was soldered on a perfboard and connected to the breadboard circuit via jumper wires.
• We used shift registers to manipulate our LED matrix with the outputs of each shift register being wired to a single LED.

Overall Schematic

This is a block-level schematic that shows the overall logic in blocks for simplicity.

NOTE: Right-click image and open in new tab to view schematic better

Outline

To understand the individual logic blocks mentioned in the game, we suggest recommend viewing the following folders in order:

1. lfsr-decoder-logic - Psuedorandomly selects a column to spawn a rock in (rock will descend each clock cycle)
2. speed-logic - Decides how fast rocks spawn and fall
3. player-movement-logic - Translates input given by player into movement
4. collision-logic - Detects whether there is a collision between the player and a rock

Gallery

View demonstration video

NOTE: 2 of the 8 columns are not connected due to time constraints we had while filming but those 2 columns are operational

Demonstration Video

View holding circuit image