Introduction

Nova Strike is a 2D space shooter game implemented with an Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller.

The inspiration came from our love of video games and fond memories of playing space shooters on our TI-89 graphing calculators in high school (instead of paying attention in calculus class).

Our project is based on the revolutionary arcade game, Galaxian, made by Namco. The main goal of Galaxian is to pilot a spaceship and rid the galaxy of enemy spaceships. Successive waves of spaceships are more aggressive, making the game more challenging as it progresses.

A picture of our game

Nova Strike was completed as a design project for our ECE 476 microcontroller course (Cornell University, Spring 2004). It features a single player mode in which the player battles waves of enemies in an intense intergalactic shootout. A versus mode allows two players to go head-to-head in a contest for the title of "Space Ace." Players use Sega Genesis controllers to interact with the game, which can be played on a TV screen.

The design process focused on setting realistic goals for the amount of development time we had (1 month), and staying within the budget ($40.00).