Example:

Intellar ImpulsePlay

Portable ESP32-S3 companion with tilt-driven impulse physics, a match-3 ball game, and IMU-animated eyes.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vLsGOB6HffI

Repository: https://github.com/intellar/ImpulsePlay

git clone https://github.com/intellar/ImpulsePlay.git

Blog: intellar.ca — related projects: Animated eye OLED, Intellar Engine.

Features

• Ball mode — up to 12 balls, gravity and inertia from a BMI160 IMU, touch grab/throw, color matching, explosive bombs, high score on LittleFS
• impulse_physics — fixed-timestep 2D impulse collisions, wall bounces, squash & stretch on impact
• Eyes mode — cartoon eyes with tilt, squash, blink, and idle animations (experimental; on-screen mode toggle is disabled in firmware)
• UI — battery voltage, FPS overlay, in-game menu

Hardware

Component	Notes
MCU	ESP32-S3 Super Mini (4 MB flash, PSRAM)
Display	ILI9341 240×320, SPI + XPT2046 touch
IMU	BMI160 on I2C
Power	LiPo with voltage divider on ADC

Pinout (default build)

GPIO	Function
11	TFT MOSI
12	TFT SCLK
13	TFT MISO
9	TFT DC
8	TFT RST
5	TFT CS
4	Backlight
1	Touch CS
6	IMU SDA
7	IMU SCL
2	Battery ADC (divider ×2)

Pins are defined in Firmware/platformio.ini via TFT_eSPI build flags.

Enclosure CAD

Source enclosure: CAD/Case_v0.FCStd (FreeCAD). Slicer outputs (*.gcode, *.3mf, Fusion backups *.FCBak) are gitignored.

Build and upload

Requires PlatformIO.

pio run -d Firmware
pio run -d Firmware -t upload

Serial monitor (115200 baud):

pio device monitor -b 115200 -d Firmware

Optional upload port:

pio run -d Firmware -t upload --upload-port COMx

Environment: esp32-s3-supermini-n4r2

Gameplay (ball mode)

• Touch empty space to spawn a ball; touch a ball to drag it
• Quick release to throw; drag to the top-left 50×50 px zone to delete
• Match 3+ same-color touching balls to score
• ~10% of new balls are explosive (white); tap to arm, 2 s fuse
• 15 s patience timer — make a match before game over
• Menu (gear, top-right): Game vs Simulation mode, reset high score

Project layout

ImpulsePlay/
├── Firmware/
│   ├── platformio.ini
│   ├── include/          # Headers (physics_engine, ball/eyes animation, …)
│   ├── src/              # Application source
│   └── test/             # Host unit tests for physics_engine
├── CAD/                  # Enclosure source (FreeCAD)
├── LICENSE               # MIT
└── README.md

Physics tests (host)

pio test -d Firmware -e native

If no native environment is configured, compile the test file on a desktop toolchain:

g++ -std=c++17 -I Firmware/include Firmware/test/physics_engine_collision_test.cpp -lm -o physics_test && ./physics_test

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Support

Intellar store