One ButtonRing
Idea and concept
After creating the RFID board game, I wondered how many electronic components I used to build it. Is it really necessary for the electronics of a logic game to be so complex? Couldn’t it be simpler?
As I thought about this, I decided to try another extreme: What if I made another puzzle game that was made with as few parts as possible?
So i grabbed
- a push button
- a Nopixel LED ring
- an arduino
- a couple of pieces of cable and a plate connected to a 9-volt battery.
I soldered them together and designed a housing for them, which I then 3D printed.
I also wrote six different logic games, as well as a game selection menu and a save system.
How to play with it?
The only interface is the push button, with which two interactions are possible:
- Short press
- Holding it down and releasing it at the right time
The two interactions are associated with different functions in each game.
After turning it on, the player selects a save point: ‘short press’ is for stepping the selection, ‘holding’ if for choosing the save slot and runing the game. Then, entering the game selection menu, the 6 games are marked by RGBYPC colors. The functions of the button here are the same: ‘short press’ is for stepping the selection, ‘holding’ is for choosing the game and run it.
The general instructions of the games are the following:
- Every game is an intuitive game, meaning, you have to figure out what the task is, what the goal is to be achieved. Once you’ve figured it out, it’s pretty easy to get there.
- If an LED pixel turns white or goes out completely, you did something right and got closer to the goal.
- Each game consists of 3 rounds.
- Each round is randomly generated, but the goal is always the same. (In that one game.)
- You can’t lose the games nor spoil them. Only stagnation and progress are possible.
- Most games are related to color mixing.
- It is best proceeding in RGBYPC order.
The games are more interesting to play than to read about them, so I don’t want to describe the specific gameplay. I plan to rewrite them to be playable from the webbrowser. In the meantime, here is a video of the first round of the red game:
The total playtime of the six games is approx. 1-1.5 hours, or approx. 20 minutes, once you know what to achieve in the games.