Raspberry Pi Sense HAT Games
Two games for the Raspberry Pi Sense HAT's 8x8 RGB LED
matrix and joystick, written in Python with its sense_hat library.
Play them in your browser: the same Python files,
run unchanged.
| Game | |
|---|
| Space Invaders | Move the laser cannon left and right, press the joystick in to fire, and clear all six invaders. |
| The Legend of Zelda | Walk Link through Tail Cave from Link's Awakening, picking up keys and opening doors. |
On a Raspberry Pi
With the Sense HAT fitted, run a game from the top of this repository:
python3 spaceInvaders/space_invaders.py
python3 legendOfZelda/legend_of_zelda.py
On a computer: the simulator
simulator/ holds a stand-in for the sense_hat library and a window to show it in, so the games run on a
Mac, Windows or Linux machine without a Pi. The games' code is not changed: the simulator puts its own
sense_hat first on the path, and the games import it as usual.
python3 simulator/run.py # pick a game
python3 simulator/run.py spaceInvaders # or name its folder
python3 simulator/run.py legendOfZelda
| Key | Joystick |
|---|
| Arrow keys | up, down, left, right (hold to repeat) |
| Enter or Space | press in |
You can also click the joystick in the window.
- Requirements: Python 3 with tkinter and nothing else. On a Mac with Homebrew's Python, tkinter comes
from
brew install python-tk.
- Colours: the stand-in stores colours in 16 bits as the real LEDs do, so a colour read back with
get_pixel() matches the hardware. Zelda relies on that to find doors and keys.
- The joystick: its callbacks run on a thread of their own, as on a Pi.
The stand-in's tests:
python3 -m unittest discover tests
In a browser: the web version
web/ is the page. It runs the games with Pyodide, which is Python compiled to
WebAssembly, in a background worker, against the same stand-in sense_hat.
- Threads: a browser has no threads, so
threading.Timer becomes a browser timer.
- Sleeping:
time.sleep() pauses only the worker, so the LEDs stay on screen while a game waits.
- Publishing: GitHub Actions publishes it to GitHub Pages on every push to
master
(.github/workflows/web.yml).
To try it locally:
python3 web/build.py site
python3 -m http.server -d site # then open http://localhost:8000
Layout
| Path | Holds |
|---|
spaceInvaders/, legendOfZelda/ | The games, their pixel art and the images they load. |
simulator/sense_hat/ | The stand-in sense_hat library, shared by the desktop and web versions. |
simulator/run.py | The desktop simulator's window. |
web/ | The web page, its Pyodide worker and the script that gathers the site. |
tests/ | Tests for the stand-in. |
