Gameduino shield

Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino - or anything else with an SPI interface - built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers.

The sound and graphics are definitely old-school, but thanks to the latest FPGA technology, the sprite capabilities are a step above those in machines from the past.

You'll need controllers (most likely) for gaming, we suggest using Nunchuck with a Nunchucky Breakout

Video output is 400x300 pixels in 512 colors:

• all color processed internally at 15-bit precision
• compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800x600 @ 72Hz)
• background graphics
  • 512x512 pixel character background
  • 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette
  • pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll
• foreground graphics
  • each sprite is 16x16 pixels with per-pixel transparency
  • each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors
  • four-way rotate and flip
  • 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line
  • pixel-perfect sprite collision detection

Audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer

• 64 independent voices 10-8000 Hz
• per-voice sine wave or white noise
• sample playback channel

The adapter is controlled via SPI read/write operations, and looks to the CPU like a 32Kbyte RAM. (Unlike many 8-bit machines, there are no restrictions on when you can access this RAM). There is a handy reference poster showing how the whole system works, and a set of sample programs and library.