Project FooBear is a mini horror survival game inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's (FNAF) series, written in CircuitPython and designed to run on Wio Terminal (a SAMD51 microcontroller with a 320x240 TFT display).
You are an intern working in a AI startup, which develops a humanoid robot codenamed "Foobear". (Because, you know, foobar.)
And one day you are ordered to stay in the company for the night, because apperently the security guy disappeared the previous day for no reason. A big demo is scheduled tomorrow, and the company cannot afford to have no one on watch. They voted the rookie should do it.
You also remembered hearing something about the robot may roam around the empty office after midnight.
You asked the boss about it, who simply said: "Relax, we are testing that thing. Reinforcement learning stuff, nothing to worry about. Just don't let anyone enter the control room. You can lock yourself in if you have to, but under NO circumstances overload the power!"
As the clock hits 12:00 AM, alone in the control room with the security monitor, you have a feeling that this may be the longest night of your life - or the shortest one.
0(b)-1----2
| | |
3----4----5--|
| | w 9(z)
6----7--d[8]-|
| Label | Description |
|---|---|
0 |
Demo Room (has a Bluetooth speaker in there) |
1 |
Developers' Office |
2 |
Cafeteria |
3 |
Meeting room |
4 |
Main hallway |
5 |
Server room |
6 |
Restroom |
7 |
Lobby |
8 |
Control room (where you are; power usage is shown and the security door can be locked) |
9 |
Air vent (has a electric bug zapper installed) |
b |
Bluetooth speaker |
d |
Security door |
w |
Window |
z |
Bug zapper |
All rooms but control room and air vent has scanner installed.
- You cannot leave the control room nor the company. Stay alive until 6:00 AM. (Each "hour" is ~40 seconds).
- Stop anything enters the control room.
- The control room has a door to lobby, connects the air vent with the server room, and has a mesh window between it and the server room (so you may hear things moving in there if any).
- The lines in the floor plan indicate passages, in which anyone can move from room to room.
- Speaking of which, the air vent is also big enough to crawl through...
- Use switch buttons to move focus to different rooms. The focused room will be highlighted.
- Use the scan button to scan "anomaly" in the focused room.
- If a non-
SCANspecial action is available, you can activate with the special action button. - You cannot activate a function if it's recharging (in cooldown).
- The right side of the control room icon shows the current power load. Scan and special actions consume power for recharging. If you cause too much power load at a point, the system will shut down and undergo emergency reboot. You will not to be able to see or do anything in the meantime...
Additional hints
- The Bluetooth speaker distracts
FooBear- for most of the time. - The door keeps
FooBearout, but keep the door closed will gradually increase power load. - The air vent zapper also keeps
FooBearout. This usually will scare the robot away for a while. FooBearwill get more aggresive to hunt you with each hour passed.- When
FooBearis in hunting mode, it will try to enter from either the door or the air vent. - When
FooBearis in hunting mode and get blocked at the door or zapped in the air vent, it may run away for a while (more likely when zapped) or change the hunting direction. FooBearwill not try to enter the control room when it's not hunting (simply roaming).FooBearwill very likely to hunt you more actively and move more quickly during the power outtage.- If you try to activate an action but it wouldn't work, it's either the action is in cooldown, or...your time is numbered.
Even more hints!
- Cheats and configuration by modifying
code.py:- Set
ANOMALY_ALWAYS_SHOWNtoTrueto show whereFooBearis. - Set
ANOMALY_ACTION_LOGtoTrueto print game event and action logs in the console, including howFooBearmoves and acts. - Set
ANOMALY_NOT_MOVINGtoTrueto make the robot not moving at all. (Automatically win). - Set
SKIP_TITLE_ANIMATIONtoTrueto skip the title animation after game booting up.
- Set
- You don't need to scan every room - just the room closest to the door and air vent. And listen to the sound clue:
FooBearlaughs when it is moving in hunting mode.- You would hear
FooBearwalking when it enters room 4, 5 or 7 (the nearest three to the control room). - You would hear clanging sound when
FooBearcrawls into the air vent. FooBearalso laughs and can be heard of walking at the same time when it enters the control room...
| Button | Function |
|---|---|
| Up, down, left, right | Move room focus |
| C | Scan (if available) |
| A | Special action (if available) |
This game is design for a the Wio Terminal, which is basically a SAMD51 microcontroller (which has DAC pins to play audio) with 512 KB RAM, 4 MB flash, a built-in 320x240 ILI9341 TFT and several buttons.
You may try to migrate this game to other SAMD21/51 boards with the display and buttons attached, but bear in mind that the code uses ~80% RAM and the files (main code, driver, fonts and audio) require ~3.7 MB storage.
- Connect the device to USB port and flash the CircuitPython 9.x firmware to the device (Instruction). Newer firmware may work but not tested.
- Copy everything under
CIRCUITPYto theCIRCUITPYdrive representing the device storage, withcode.pyat the root. - Press reset again/replug the device and the game should start loading and running automatically.
This game can be played without audio - but it will be less fun and harder to play.
Also note that very occasionally the device may stop playing audio with unknown reason. Check the wiring and restart the device should work.
Connect the DAC0 pin (pin 11 on Wio Terminal) and any GND pin (for example, pin 9) to a speaker via 3.5mm jack. Check CircuitPython's instruction of how to connect a 3.5mm jack (ignore the button).
Personally I use a 3.5mm TRRS breakout board:
| Wio Terminal Pin | Wire |
|---|---|
| 11 (DAC0) | TIP |
| 9 (GND) | RING1 (TRRS) or RING2 (TRS) |
I also add a potentiometer between DAC0 and TIP so that the volumn can be reduced for earphones.
This FNAF fan game was conceived quite a few years ago, with the primary coding completed between 2021 and 2022. The code, more than 1,000 lines long, is built around a complex synchronous process runtime in which I can add behaviors as callback functions and control them in the ways and intervals I want.
Of course, I had to re-invent the gameplay and rules since it's not possible to recreate all in-game mechanics of any of the first four FNAF games; but the inspirons are evidant. I also can't help to "borrow" many of the FNAF sound effects (I did considered to use Half Life sound effects instead. And judging from the file names of FNAF sound effects, they are probably not original too. This project is not intended to be commercialized anyway). This game utilizes CircuitPython's audiomixer module to play multiple audio files asynchronously over the same audio output (including the looping background ambience sound), which works surprising well.
This project uses 4 CircuitPython display-related drivers, 2 sizes of Terminus font files (converted to PCF) and 21 .wav audio files (16-bit mono, 22.5 KHz, trimmed shorter from original files).
The original plan was to build a "table-top-like mini arcade", with a physical, decorated model room built in front of the Wio Terminal (the "tablet" you're using) as the control room itself. The serve-controlled door on the left actually opens and closes (with a blue LED lights up when it is "locked"), and 5 RGB LEDs representing the room interior/scanner/zapper lights. It should feel like you are actually sitting in the control room, and observe things happening around you. You can see the scanner light shines white or red dependint on the results adjacent to the control room. Finally, all LEDs will light up in red when you are dead, and in green when you survived.
A large translucent "window" is installed at the far end of the control room looking into the server room; my plan was to install a Freddy-like silhouette standing behind the window, and put two LEDs in front of it and at the back. When the "anomaly" is in the server room and being "scanned", the back LED lights up in red, and if not, the front LED lights up in white (so you won't see the silhouette). No moving parts required! That was the theory anyway. This game would have to be played in near-blackness so that you won't see the silhouette exposed by external illumination.
I did connect and test all the electronic parts as a completed system:
- A SG-90 servo
- A blue LED
- 5 NeoPixel modules
- One analog joystick module
- Two push buttons
All of them were powered directly from the Wio Termainl (which is connected to 5V 2A DC input with its USB Type-C cable), although I found it a bit struggling to drive the servo. Power them from an external source did not work that well.
But in the end, I just couldn't find enough motivattion and satisfaction to finish it; it's more difficult for me to build, and I found it simply not immersive enough. The game can run completely without all the external devices anyway - the room is just an augmented extension of the game itself - so eventually I decided to leave it as it is.
- Firmware/driver:
- General:
- Display:
- Audio:
- CircuitPython Audio Out
- audioio
- audiomixer
- Convert Sound Files in Audacity
- Audio files are borrowed from FNAF 1 and FNAF 2 with minor modifications