I had a HUZZAH32 (Adafruit's ESP32 dev board) lying around, so I decided to use this as the base for my prototype. The firmware should be optimized for low latency, and very customizable (e.g.

It should support the Nintendo Switch by emulating a Pro Controller.It should be Bluetooth and able to report itself as a gamepad or keyboard.There should be a button for each of the normal Tetris gameplay actions, plus an extra for Zone (a fancy feature from Tetris Effect).It would use arcade buttons that light up.I actually started on this project a few months ago, working on a basic proof-of-concept to make sure I could actually complete this. I settled on a gamepad designed to play Tetris with, since then I would actually get some utility out of it once completed, plus it would look cool on a shelf. I decided to incorporate everything I've learned thus far into this project, and include PCB design as an addition. And there's a big component I've been missing from my skill set that would be invaluable for future projects: PCB design! Proto board is great and all, but after prototyping the design and validating that it works, I might want to clean it up and make it more permanent - so designing a custom PCB would be ideal in this scenario. It's been very fun, and I've learned a lot so far: embedded software design, how to solder actually-well, enclosure design, and of course how this all fits in to my existing skill set.īut there is, of course, always something new to learn. If you've been following my posts recently, you're probably aware that I have been diving head first into hardware over the past couple months, from modding existing commercial hardware to creating things entirely of my own.

How to create your own game controller