For this assignment, I wanted to create a sort of minefield using p5 that you could navigate (as a blue dot with a trail) using a gyroscope. I turned the minefield into a calming blue field of dots that don’t explode when you run over them, mostly because I was having enough difficulty creating the player and chose to ignore adding too much detail to the scene.
My main issues with this assignment arose with my serial, naturally. I tried to make a complex connection, but after spending ages attempting to make it work, I decided that maybe I needed to try making a more basic interaction and work upwards from there. I was still hopeful that my serial control issues were just due to my own oversights. So instead of trying to create a mouse using a gyro, I chose to start with getting data from a photo sensor, which I had used before, and using those numbers to drive the distance that the dot travels every time the player hits the space bar. So essentially, the game would be to be able to manipulate light and shadow on the sensor accurately to ensure that the player doesn’t run into a friendly blue flower (or mine) in their travels from one side of the screen to the other. The player would also be using their arrow keys (up and down) to determine the direction of the player.
Obviously, my problem actually didn’t lie in the complexity of my code, and my use of the photo sensor didn’t work out. Instead, I made/collaged from different random walker codes I found to create a code that would move the player at random speed intervals in quick succession. The game would be to use the up/down/side keys to navigate the board vertically. This took me a very long time to successfully create, and the result is a little disappointing, but kind of weirdly fun to play with.
Be warned, the player moves very fast, even at its slowest.
Here’s the code: