Close Encounters of the Fixed Kind

Check out the source code for Close Encounters of the Fixed Kind in GitHub: https://github.com/chiguire/fixedkind_ggj2020

A game made for the Global Game Jam 2020, in Brighton, UK, with care. January 31st - February 2nd, 2020. The theme of the jam was “Repair”.

Made by Ciro Durán.

For Zunilda and Sonia, who I keep in my mind and heart constantly.

Close Encounters of the Fixed Kind is a game where you have to fix a machine that communicates with aliens. It is inspired by this iconic Close Encounters of the Third Kind scene.

The idea to incorporate the repair theme was to include some dials and buttons that would allow to fix an otherwise out of tune machine, but time only allowed to make the core gameplay loop, which is following the button sequence shown first by the game.

Hardware requirements

This game requires the following hardware:

• Arduino Uno board
• RGB matrix shield for Arduino (although the screen can be connected directly by pins, but life is short)
• RGB LED matrix screen, 32x32
• Arduino Mega board
• Adafruit Music Maker shield, with MIDI mode on
• Speaker
• Neotrellis board with buttons (x1)
• Breadboard with two buttons
• A Raspberry Pi that connects both Arduinos through USB. Note: a PC was used to develop this, but since the director is written in Processing, there’s no reason to think it cannot work on the Pi