@Aashish

thought the hardware phase was over but my old TFT screen died 🤡 so i had to order a replacement. it looked exactly the same from outside but internally it behaved completely differently. because of that the whole project got delayed for a bit and i had to go back into hardware debugging again instead of continuing the software side

got a replacement that looked identical but touch refused to work. turns out these cheap screens have different internal wiring depending on the batch. wrote a diagnostic script and figured out the pins were different. had to swap XP and YM to digital pins 8 and 9 and route XM and YP to analog A2 and A3 to wake it up

once it was alive it started reading garbage noise with the Z axis pressure hitting crazy numbers like -13681. added strict MINPRESSURE 5 and MAXPRESSURE 3500 limits in the C++ code to filter out the fake inputs.then realized the manufacturer slapped the touch digitizer upside down. tapping top left opened the bottom right app. just inverted the coordinates in the Arduino map() function and flipped the Y axis completely through software.i have also pushed all the changes made for the new display in this commit

if you want to compare what changed after replacing the hardware you can check it here Commit

after recalibrating everything on the new display the hardware is finally back to the same stage as before. now the touch feels accurate again the bridge is stable and i can finally continue building the actual UI instead of fighting the hardware 😭

today was mostly about connecting the hardware with the PC and making the whole bridge actually usable. the UI side was already working but getting Arduino and Python to talk properly and now the deck can actually trigger apps on the computer instead of just opening test screens.

• fixed a weird glitch where apps were automatically closing or returning back to the home screen after a few seconds even when i was not touching anything

• increased the touch sensitivity by tuning the MINPRESSURE value so random touches are ignored and only proper presses get detected

• built the first working Arduino to Python bridge so touch events from the TFT can directly control apps on the PC nd fixed touch mapping and serial communication bkzz wrong apps were opening due to incorrect touch coordinates and unstable data

• tested different app launch methods for Windows until browser apps desktop apps and installed apps all started opening correctly from the touchscreen

now the deck can actually trigger apps on the computer instead of just opening test screens.
(by the way ignore that poor flickering display recording🙃)

started building the main touchscreen interface using the same Arduino UNO R4 WiFi and 2.4 inch TFT display setup that i already used before. instead of jumping into the PC side first i wanted to get the hardware feeling right because if touch detection itself is not reliable then the whole project falls apart. so i first made a simple landscape UI with six app tiles and started testing how every touch was actually getting mapped on the screen.

the biggest issue was touch calibration. the display was rendering everything perfectly but the resistive touch layer was returning different raw values than expected. while mapping p.x and p.y using the map() function and checking each app boundary with the apps[i].x, apps[i].y, bw and bh values i noticed the touch coordinates were not lining up with the actual grid. because of that pressing one app was opening another one and some buttons only responded with extra pressure.

• spent most of the time tuning the MINPRESSURE threshold recalibrating the raw touch range and matching the mapped coordinates with the display rotation until every touch area finally started responding to the correct app.

the game is pretty much finished and very close to a fully playable version and most of the planned features are already done, bugs are also mostly fixed and right now everything feels stable during testing. there is still room for small improvements later but overall it finally feels like a complete game instead of just a project prototype

• i redesigned the player and tried giving it a look inspired by one of the Stardance⭐ star characters while still keeping it simple enough to draw with pixels on the display 😭

• I changed the text that previously displayed ‘scr’ and replaced it with the full word ‘Score’.

• fixed a visual bug where background stars were passing through the character and cutting parts of the sprite while moving across the screen

• fixed another issue where the smile and face pixels were not getting cleared properly while switching lanes and would sometimes get left behind on the screen and did some cleanup around collision and rendering code to make gameplay feel smoother and reduce weird visual glitches during longer runs

a proper lifeline system because instant game over was getting way too annoying lol. took inspiration straight from minecraft to sketch out the pixel art hearts using raw coordinates instead of images. completely wiped the spaceshoot name from the top bar so we now have empty space to draw the 3 hearts right inside the main ui loop

• basically swapped the instant death logic with a lives = 3 state check. if you hit an asteroid it just drops a life, clears the screen, and resets the obstacle back to the top. i also coded a health drop engine that randomly spawns a heart collectible every 350 score

• added a basic capped logic so if you catch a heart while already at max health nothing happens, but if you are low it refills the health and updates the top display instantly.

so finally coded a proper home screen menu today but damn fighting screen coordinates was painfull coz text was cliping into the gameplay scene. fixed the math to force everything into a single centered line, drew a messy sketch style custom border for a raw hand drawn look, and shifted the play button to the absolute bottom using explicit pixel offset positioning to give it brething room. also cleared the spaceshoot name text from the top bar on the gameplay screen to keep that exact pixel space empty for displaying the upcoming heart matrices and lives counter.

the plan is that now we are ready to implement that 3 lifelines system where hearts drop as collectbles around 600 score to refill lives instead of instant game over and plus maybe a temporary circle shield to absorb hits.

so today i finally got the main gameplay loop working properly after fixing some annoying screen flicker issues. here is what i got done

• designed 3 entirely different asteroid shapes using raw geometry matrices instead of just rendering basic boxes as before

• shifted the player spaceship 20 pixels down toward the bottom so you get a bit more reaction time

• hooked up EEPROM to save and load your highest score even after the board unplugs and brought back actual collision logic that triggers the red game over screen with your high score

so this is my the first devlog for this first project in stardance and honestly i thought i would start with actual game dev 😭 for this i am using an arduino uno R4 wifi and a 2.4 inch TFT touch display shield which mounts directly on top of the board. before building the game itself i had to spend quite a bit of time just testing the display, touch screen and libraries coz nothing was working perfectly from the start. lot of trial and eror and compile errors and random issues before finally getting things moving in the right direction.

• spent most of the time testing different libraries and examples coz i wasnt getting a proper setup initially and had to go through multiple errors before finding the right path

• finally decided to stick with MCUFRIEND_kbv for now after testing different options and checkjing which one gives better support for the shield

• started creating some very basic game elements first and used them for display and touch testing instead of just relying on simple demo screens

• worked on touch calibration, coordinates and pixel positioning so touches actually register in the correct place and left or right controls behave properly

• added a score system and also implemented difficulty scaling where speed increasess after every 100 score to make gameplay a bit challenging

• created separate screens for stuff like Game Over and Touch To Go so the game can properly show different states when you lose or restart

overall this was mostly a testing and setup session but it helped cleared a lot of confusion