I awake in the labyrinth, no memory of who I am. All I know is that I must find the key to the portal that will take me to the next part of this endless maze. Stalking its passages, I find a rusty sword and take it in hand. Further along, I find an old chest of armor. Now my enemies will never defeat me! I stalk endless corridors, searching for the key. As I turn a corner, I see one of my enemies coming towards me, axe in hand. We clash, weapons slashing! My enemy flees, but I let him go – I must continue my quest to find the key. No matter how long it takes me.
Peek through the portal into the world of Existential Crisis. In this unique and hand-crafted electronic dungeon crawl simulator, watch the valiant hero compete against his enemies to find weapons and other items to aid him in his ultimate quest: to find the key and open the portal before they do! Watch as he uses magic potions to heal himself or blast his foes. Sigh when he makes a wrong turn and misses the key. Groan when he is vanquished by his foes. And cheer when he unlocks the portal and completes his quest – only to find it start all over again!
Existential Crisis isn’t like other games, because I designed it so you can’t control the hero. We can peer through the window into his universe, but we can’t help as he struggles to find a way to survive long enough to complete his quest.
Simulation of role-playing adventure or Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs), similar to NetHack, using basic rules of Dungeons & Dragons with a feel similar to Gauntlet or Diablo.
The pictures and video do not fully capture the brilliant color when seeing it for yourself.
The project makes a visually interesting simulation of a character wandering through a maze, looking for a key and trying to find the door to exit, only to be stuck repeating this for all eternity. Other enemy players try to kill the main character, can pick-up and use items including the key to open the door, resetting the maze. When any character dies, within a matter of time, regenerated with randomly selected base stats; forever stuck looking for potions to stay alive a little longer only to find another key and another door.
This is a new version of an older project: https://www.hackster.io/bitsandbots/existential-crisis-aka-arduinorpg-fdf238
This simulation covers the basic motivation of fighting to stay alive in an effort to find the key hidden in the current map and then locate the door to exit.
Each player has hit-points, armor class, experience points, and can hold up to three items. Each map contains a key, and a randomly selected number of rewards, or items to help the player. Items available are: a potion of healing, a better weapon, better armor, or a magic scroll.
A 64 RGB LEDs in an 8×8 display is used as the ‘viewer’ into the World of the simulation, displaying only a quadrant section of the overall map at one time. As the primary player moves around the map, the ‘viewer’ display moves to the relevant section.
Color Code:
RED – Opponent Player Characters ( Enemies )
GREEN – Main Player Character ( Game Focus )
BLUE – Wall
WHITE – Door
YELLOW – Key
Mini-Animations:
Find a key
Find / Use armor
Find / Use weapon
Use a potion
Use magic
Open door using key
Player death
I have also included numbers 1 – 20 for showing the result of a simulated die roll. However, showing the number each time the player rolls is annoying so this animation has been disabled.
How the Simulation Works
On each turn, a player object executes the function WhatAreMyOptions
Move ( Direction Available: North, East, South, West ) A proximity-check to opponents is made to determine options. Short-term Memory of locations explored. Coordinates of recent moves are stored in the player object in an effort to reduce looping.
Attack: Each player rolls a 20-sided die trying to meet or exceed the Armor Class value of the opponent. Upon a successful hit, the player then rolls a 4-sided die for damage and applies any bonuses. The total damage is subtracted from the opponent’s hit points.
Check Inventory and Use Item.
Potential for Expansion using I2C (a two-wire protocol for connecting sensors and modules to a microcontroller)
Add additional microcontroller or Raspberry Pi for Neural Network.
Add better controls, such as push-buttons, and even sensors.
Add a sound-effects module
Additional visual displays.
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- Working with Multiple Sensors and Arduino
- Using a Raspberry Pi and USB Camera
- Using a Raspberry Pi for your own Inventory Management System
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