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History of video games/Platforms/TinyDuino

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History edit

Background edit

 
Akron, Ohio - The provenance of the Tiny Arcade and the Tiny Pocket.
 
Early Tinyduino boards.

TinyCircuits was founded in 2011 as AkroSense,[1] and began attracting media attention under the TinyCircuits name by 2012 with the development of the TinyDuino platform.[2] By 2013 the company had shifted from handmade production to mass production in the fifth floor of a former B.F.Goodrich factory in Akron, Ohio.[3] By 2014 the TinyDuino was being integrated in gaming applications by third parties.[4] This was the origin of the company and the platform which would form the basis for TinyDuino Arcade and TinyDuino Pocket game consoles.

 
The Goodreach building in Akron, Ohio.

Development edit

A similar concept to the Tiny Pocket was seen in the TinyScreen Video Game Kit promoted during a 2014 Kickstarter.[5]

Following a well received prototype demo at the bay area Maker Faire in May 2015 the Tiny Arcade kickstarter launched in November 2015.[6]

Launch edit

The Tiny Arcade saw a full retail release in August 2018.[6]

The TinyPocket was later suplemented with the Thumby.

Technology edit

Compute edit

The Tiny Arcade is powered by a 32-bit SAMD21 ARM processor clocked at 48 megahertz.[7][8][9]

The SAMD21 processor includes 32 kilobytes of SRAM and 256 kilobytes of storage.[9]

Hardware edit

The Tiny Arcade uses an 0.96" OLED screen with a resolution of 96 by 64 pixels and 16 bit color depth.[7][9]

A rechargeable lithium battery powers the Tiny Arcade.[7]

All Tiny Circuits products and made in Akron, Ohio, with the company based out of a former rubber factory.[6]

Games edit

Games for the TinyArcade are typically open source and free.[7] A number of TinyArcade games can be seen on the official GitHub repository for the system.[10]

The developer Neo Retro made a number of indie games for the platform.[11]

Many early games for the system incorporated the word tiny in their titles, becoming a sort of unofficial naming theme, despite coming from different developers.

2016 edit

  • Tiny Run - Platformer[12]
  • Tiny Shooter - 2D horizontal space shooter[13]
  • Tiny Invaders - Fixed axis shooter similar to Space Invaders.[14]
  • Tinytris - Falling block puzzle game.[15]
  • Tiny Asteroids - Arcade shooter similar to the classic game Asteroids.[16]
  • Flappy Birdz - Clone of the mobile phone arcade style game Flappy Bird.[17]

2019 edit

  • Rayne the Rogue Part 2 - Arcade maze game[11][18]

2020 edit

Other TinyDuino Based Handhelds edit

 
A DIY TinyDuino based game console in 2015. This is different from the official TinyPocket. For more information on this specific handheld, read the guide on Spanish Wikiversity.

External Resources edit

References edit

  1. ↑ "About Us" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/pages/about-us. 
  2. ↑ "Change of Pace: TinyDuino Microcontroller Is Smaller Than a Quarter" (in en-us). Wired. https://www.wired.com/2012/09/tinyduino/. 
  3. ↑ "WKSU News: Exploradio: TinyCircuits and small-scale manufacturing". WKSU. https://archive.wksu.org/news/feature/exploradio/37690. 
  4. ↑ "Immersion: Video Game Biofeedback". Hackaday. 31 January 2014. https://hackaday.com/2014/01/31/immersion-video-game-biofeedback/. 
  5. ↑ Hurley, Leon. "Tiny Handheld Console Actually Plays Games" (in en-us). Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/tiny-handheld-console-actually-plays-games-1642834594. 
  6. ↑ a b c "About Us". TinyCircuits. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  7. ↑ a b c d "Tiny Arcade DIY Kit". TinyCircuits. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-Pocket-Arcade-ASM2026" (PDF). GitHub. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  9. ↑ a b c "Getting Started - TinyCircuits". learn.tinycircuits.com. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  10. ↑ "TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-Tiny-Arcade-Games". GitHub. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  11. ↑ a b "Customer Feature- Neo Retro Games" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/news/customer-feature-neo-retro-games. 
  12. ↑ "Tiny Run" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/178277575-tiny-run. 
  13. ↑ "Tiny Shooter" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/153847815-tiny-shooter. 
  14. ↑ "Tiny Invaders" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/169455239-tiny-invaders. 
  15. ↑ "Tinytris" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/171185479-tinytris. 
  16. ↑ "Tiny Asteroids" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/171197511-tiny-asteroids. 
  17. ↑ "Flappy Birdz" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/178269895-flappy-birdz. 
  18. ↑ "Rayne the Rogue Part 2" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/rayne-the-rogue-part-2. 
  19. ↑ "MAYKer Madness Winners!" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/news/mayker-madness-winners. 
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