A new kind of Digivice

[Inklog]

Morning to everyone, as a great fan of Digimon series, I started since child to play with hand made digivice with my friends and as soon I discovered ebay I started to buy and collect digivices (when the prices weren't so crazy xD).


After several years, I thought that what I had built as a child with simple cardboard and a lot of imagination could become really true.
The aim of this project it's build a new type of digivice (not a clone), with similar interactions (feed, sleep, clean, game, battle, stats, ecc) but with an important thing: you can start the game with your personal digimon (the same that you could use in other digivices), also with one that you make by yourself.

Currently I have already started working on it, I made a raw prototype with an arduino nano with 128*64px i2c display, a 5-way joystick (i ended my normal button) and other things:

Here the prototype on breadboard:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fz776muxy1l2t68/prototype.jpg?dl=0

Here the raw portable prototype:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qjho41h2lccxrms/vid_prototype_1.mp4?dl=0
(yes, it's a tiny Metalgreymon running around the screen x,D)

The final version will have a better design witha a 3D printed shell and a keychain strap to bring it everywhere (i took the idea from D-ark terminal) and also an optimized custom PCB board (arduino is only for prototyping).

The code inside still raw, I'm working in my freetime to improve it and make the final result more similar to actual digivice because they are easy to understand quicly (i'm gona show the menu interaction and other stuff in an update of this post next time).

So I'm writing here to know if anyone could be interested for this project, to understand better if could be a bigger project or to stay a personal work.

Thanks!

 

[Velocifaptor]

If it's actually doable, I'm interested.

 

[Punknap]

Literally made an account just to say this looks really sick man.

 

[xSHiNOx]

impressive. would play a full color digimon v-pet game. surprised bandai hasn't made a full color v-pet yet but they made a full color tamagotchi? smh

 

[Inklog]

Punknap: Hahaha thanks man! You found the right post at right time

Velocifaptor: thanks for interest man!

xSHiNOx: they are 2 different market, Digivices aren't poupolar as the normal tamagotchi also because tamagotchi it's selled worldwide, and Digivices are closed to Japan only D:

Actually in my project display is only monochrome oled, but could be with blue illumination (like mine) or white (much better), color tft display use a different protocol to show images or sprite and i'm not so able to use them, but it could be possible (also using 3D model maybe). Another thing is that i'm gona use different illumination pattern trough RGB led to show notification instead of a buzzer speaker (less work to make sounds ).

The actual aim is to create 2 prototype fully working and giveaway 1 of them by the beginning of September.

After this I'll try to update this post each Saturday to encourage myself to improve this project.

 

[Punknap]

I am so looking forward to this!

 

[Da_Duke2000]

Send me a PM on this. I think we have a lot to discuss.

 

[lonelydistance]

Wow, this is really cool. I can't wait to see how the project turns out!
This makes me want to try my hand at a Quest-based digivice...

 

[pepito123]

That looks great.
I have some experience with this stuff. If i have time, i might help you.
Love that people around the world experience the need to do stuff by themselves! hope the best of lucks!

 

[Gigamon23]

Really quite impressive! Keep it up!

 

[Inklog]

Thanks guys for the support! I'm trying to understand better how I can manage the digievolutions trough code, but at this stage i'm running the 94% of total internal arduino nano memory and the many read/copy process to upload code inside it's stressful and I ended to broke the portable prototype -_-".
I've made another one portable for develop when I'm not home and I thing I'm gonna try use micro sd to load the entire code to reduce stress. This could be an interesting thing because i can made a "virgin" digivice where anyone can get a custom code with a custom set of digimon.

So, I take this opportunity to ask you if you have any idea for the name of this new type of digivice

Saturday I'm going to update the post with the list and a video that show the actual functions of the digivice and the idea of the final design that I thought.

 

[BladeSabre]

This is really cool!

It normally takes a long time to wear out the flash memory. If it's really getting to that point, could you just build the prototype so the Nano is replaceable?
https://cybergibbons.com/uncategorized/arduino-misconceptions-5-youll-wear-out-the-flash-memory/

 

[Inklog]

Thanks BladeSabre, at this point maybe i can use external sd only to read image libraries that the code inside arduino have to display... I need to study a little more this point

 

[BladeSabre]

Ah yes, I forgot you said the size is also getting too much for it!

 

[NineTailz]

I think itÂ’d be cool if we could interface this with a PC, to store our own digimon island full of ones we found while using the digivice, maybe through USB? We could even call it the Digi-Drive, since itÂ’d connect like a flash drive! It could charge the same way, and we could store 6 digimon on it at once? Like the Digivice from Dusk/Dawn! Honestly this whole project has me super excited

 

[Inklog]

@BladeSabre: eh, the nano (or general arduino) don't offer much space for bigger code xD I'm thinking to make a custom pcb with a larger memory inside so the problem will fixed.
I've ordered some SD shield to make some experiment.

@NineTailz: i think it will be a great idea, actually it could be charged during data transfer using a lipo battery with a controller so the double function it's not a problem, maybe i need more experience in the field to create a whole world, but it's a cool thing! And the name Digi-Drive it's not bad at all, it could be a shorter name instead of "Digimon Data Drive" -> "Digi-Drive"

 

[Drac0rex]

Really great idea! Don't give up! I have a lot of experience with microcontrollers and coding, so if you need another hand hit me up, this is a really cool project! I hope all the dreams your younger self had come to fruition

 

[whitescoot]

i think i've seen this before.. is it based on tamaguino?
https://alojzjakob.github.io/Tamaguino/

 

[Gennaimon]

i think i've seen this before.. is it based on tamaguino?
https://alojzjakob.github.io/Tamaguino/

Original version yes, although it is being fully re-written. Using the D-Pet in development as a source to base this on.

 

[TheOddRaspu]

Nice! I made a Tamaguino (not written, just flashed some other guy's code) and it's very nice to build yourself something that cool.

Interesting things to have on mind:

- Standby mode
- Saving progress on eeprom
- Avoiding background details (to increase memory for other functions)

I could work on a 3d case for it, i'm not a great designer but I still can do some things. =P

Good luck! I'll be following!