Introducing: The Portable Ryugotchi

[kittyray]

Ryugotchi: Now Portable And Pocket-Sized!

We're all here and loving our Ryu, sipping the nostalgia of portable pixel pets of days yonder, but has something been missing all this time?


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[ID: screenshot from Discord
kittyray 11/28/2020
big brain idea: i can also use this to hide everything on the page except the ryu bar, so theoretically use my raspberry pi and black friday/cyber monday deals to make a portable ryugotchi
kittyray 11/29/2020
Okay, i�m going to make this happen
I�m going to be locked in the first level of my parents house for ten days, i gotta find something to do]



The long, hopefully not-too-boring version of the story is in the spoiler, but feel free to skip straight to the video.



For context �this� in the above screenshot was some tooling around I did with poking the Ryugotchi userbars, making them interactive with the keyboard, trying to look at all of them at once*, things like that. I could only ever manage all on a give page, which with a little cheating yielded this adorable nursery:

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[ID: screenshot of a 4x4 grid of Ryu userbars, all sleeping]


�But, kitty!� You cry out, �we live in the land of small portable computers that can connect to the internet and if I really wanted I could play with my Ryu from my phone!�

To that I say, hush, and look at this other small computer that can connect to the internet:
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[ID: picture of small circuit board with caption �Raspberry Pi Zero W: The Raspberry Pi Zero W extends the Pi Zero family and comes with added wireless LAN and Bluetooth connectivity�]

Plus, nothing can ever replicate the satisfaction of pressing a physical button and having it click.


CI60uAxlTDL

[ID: Video of a breadboard with a pushbutton switch, resistor, and green LED. The button is pressed with a satisfying click and the LED lights up.]

Anyway, buckle up for a post that�s three parts rambling story and one part (shitty) tutorial/build process.

Some of you may recall that I learned a bit about using a Raspberry Pi for my Potato Camera during the art challenge. I�m happy to report that I remembered almost none of that process and relied heavily on tutorial after tutorial and discussion thread after discussion thread. Due to that, I�m going to skip over the initial setup of installing raspbian and sshing, it�s pretty much the same story as the Potato Camera with a whole lot of �right, shit, now I remember�.

At one point I broke something and I�m still not quite sure how:
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[ID: bash terminal with the following output
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-bash: sudo: command not found
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-bash: sudo: command not found
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-bash: sudo: command not found]
For those not in the loop �sudo� is short for �superuser do� and is basically the way to make shit happen and it shouldn�t not be there.


Also this, which isn't totally relevant, but wanted an excuse to share:
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[ID/transcript: Discord conversation between me and Fabulous
kitty 12/04/2020

so the raspberry pi operating system when it's pre-loaded is called NOOBs for "new-out-of-box", but i was just watching a tutorial where it definitely sounded like he said "sd card preloaded with nudes"
Fab 12/04/2020
Haaahahahaha
Noobs is a funny acronym but I'm filing N.U.D.E.S away for future funny making
kitty 12/04/2020
yes, please
i'm trying to think of what it might stand for now
never underestimate determined entitled shitheads?
nnnnnnnnnnn uh was hoping another one would come just as quickly, lol
neopets users do everything something
neopets users don't even also something?]
i will leave it to you lol
NEOPETS USERS DESERVE EXCELLENT SOFTWARE]

PS thank you Fab for being my sounding board through all this!

The next step was getting things to actually react with the buttons. I had a couple false starts, but eventually had a working interaction!

CI6-X7NFXkH

[ID: Clip of a button on a breadboard being pressed and terminal output displaying "Button was pushed!"



At this point going from �button is pushed� to interact with my Ryu script was something I was wildly overthinking. I knew fine and dandy how to get Python to interact with GPIO but javascript was a whole different ball game. It only works with node, which I had never used before and was struggling to get to install properly on my pi and even then I wasn�t sure how to then make it work with a tampermonkey script. Most tutorials assumed you had full control over the stack and �i want to push buttons on a website� isn�t really an end use most people need or want. I was questioning this when I realized I was a big fucking dumbass and all I needed to do was map the GPIO keys to the same keyboard keys I had been using to control the Ryu buttons all along. I followed a couple of tutorials and successfully made myself a nice little 3-key-keyboard.

Next step was to get tampermonkey on the pi, copy my userscript over and I was ready to go! Only hiccup was that at the time, my options were limited to using an HDMI cable to connect to a big screen or using VNC to look at the desktop from my laptop. Not exactly the cute and mini portable options I�d been hoping for. I had bought two screens but one used up all the GPIO pins and the other required soldering, so I was a bit stuck. The latter wasn�t a total game over because at this point, I had all this buttons and resistors I planned on soldering together, but I also realized that thus far in my electronics career I�d either done solderless work or work with premade PCBs. I wasn�t ready to start designing my own, but I started looking into the costs of a soldering setup and a solderable breadboard, wasn�t really sure if I wanted to make the investment.

I started thinking of other options. I knew a lot of people used the Pi Zero as a mini game console for various emulators, so I looked into what screens they used. I found a very affordable one.



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[ID: A board with a small square screen with a joystick on the left and three buttons on the right]



The Waveshare 1.44 inch LCD HAT with three buttons and a joystick. The three buttons is what sold me. That was the exact number of buttons I needed for the Ryu project, it fit perfectly over the Pi Zero, no soldering was required, and I started dreaming of joystick possibilities.




I followed their tutorial several times to no avail. I followed other people�s tutorial to no avail. I spoke with somebody also struggling. I spoke with somebody who wrote one of the tutorials. Then I read an amazon review:
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[ID: A review with 3 out of 5 stars titled simply �Pain�. Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2018, Verified Purchase. The content of the review states only �Such a pain to program�.


And in pain I was. I followed several tutorials, even corresponded with the author of one, and had no luck. I decided to try a different approach and find an image preloaded to work with the screen. The first one was a bust, but the second one worked magic.

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[ID: The screen in the palm of my hand displaying a picture of a joystick and the word �Settings� in barely legible text overlaid. At the bottom is a menu bar with the options �MENU�, �SELECT�, �CREDITS�]


At this point you need to know that I had this plan to use an old Polly Pocket clamshell as a case for this thing. Bring in some more 90s nostalgia and make use of them finally. I had already been fidgeting with a Polly Pocket Car for a couple of days, I even took a couple pictures for scale, so it was a fitting surprise that the new OS had an open road as the default BG. I was ready to begin my journey!



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[ID: The Pi Screen on the desktop, the background is a view straight down an empty road. The Polly Pocket and car make a reappearance, this time facing toward the screen as if about to start heading down the road.]





Now to navigate to clraik again and be threatened by the Anime Girl With A Gun, this time in miniature format. I tried to find my most threatening Polly Pocket to fend her off, but turns out she was already out. Magic wand defeats a gun any day.

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[ID: The Pi Screen displaying my clraik profile page, but because I am not logged in the �Register Or Die� Anime Girl is pointing her gun at me. The screen is propped up in a pink Polly Pocket clamshell. Grass and some sort of stone path is visible. There is a yellow bench. Our friend the Faerie Polly Pocket is facing her off, holding her wand up in our defence.]


And here is where I ran into another headache. The version of Raspbian was too old to update chromium, which in turn was too old to install tampermonkey. My script worked fine if I entered it all manually, but doing that every time wasn�t going to work. It was a couple days of headaches of updating the right things while still being compatible with the screen (the latest distro of Raspbian is not), but there�s not really an interesting story to that and frankly it�s a lot of stuff that I�m not entirely sure why/how they worked, so not much for me to explain, either. Eventually, shit clicked.
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[ID: The waveshare screen displaying the Ryu userbar, cut off partway through]

The proportions were off, the bar was cut off, and there was extra strugg in the way but it was happening. Did a bit more twiddling and was able to display the Ryu and hearts/tools separately.

Only thing left was some sort of enclosure. I couldn't` find any for sale that fit the screen, but I did find a design on thingverse. Now a few years ago I was gifted a barely used but several-years-old 3D printer. I was living out of state at the time and it didn�t fit in my apartment, so I never moved it from my parents� house or played around with it much except a couple of the built-in example prints and one thing I did during a school break for part of a class assignment. For the most part, this thing lived in a box in the basement at my parents' house, which I have access to in my quaran-zone, so I had what was basically a new toy. There was a bit of a learning curve and some tweaks I needed to make to the design. Even had a failed attempt at engraving the ck logo, but in the end I got a mostly-functional case.
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[ID: 3D printer nozzle moving around with a label that reads: "WARNING HOT SURFACE]

And it's at this point I got really distracted trying to get the finishing touches and also stopped documenting as much. A few more trials and tribulations with printing, but things were mostly falling into place. I have a few more dreams and goals, but for now I'm pretty settled. I've rambled way too long here and nobody is going to read every word of this so I'm gonna add one more spoiler for a bunch of pics that didn't make it into the story.


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Stretch goals:

Get a small battery so I�m not lugging around a powerbank 5x the size of the rest of it. A lot of people use these as small gaming devices, but that power involves soldering, and I don�t have a setup for that (yet). rip in pieces makerspaces
Clean up the case some more, plus i really wanna engrave a ryu or the ck logo to the back, but I was having issues getting the 3D modeling software I�d previously used to work and Blender has a steep learning curve.
Scrape the parent list and use the joystick to scroll through and interact with other Ryu.
Not really a goal, but because my phone plan doesn�t support personal hotspots, I was pretty limited with how far I could travel with it (either within my house or some place I could update the wifi config file) or just actually take it places.
Get a refresh button working. The page auto-reloads at :00 and :30, but sometimes if there's a disconnect or other loading issues the only option is to reboot. I'm running chromium in kiosk mode and it seems to block F5, but other people seem to have the issue, I just didn't go through it all yet.
Somehow isolate the Ryu from their background/scene and then use the pi camera to Ryugotchi Go (RyuGOtchi?)








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Thank you to Fab for listening to me ramble about all my mishaps and to Bat for being the catalyst to this nonsense.

Here is a list of almost every guide/blog/tutorial I reference through this. Some were not ultimately helpful or went unused, and I probably missed some, but credit where credit is due.


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(installing tamper monkey through command line)

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[Flordibel]

Kitty this is so!!! Dang!!! Cool!!! Ohmigosh!

I've yelled about this already to you but the inventiveness and creativity here just makes my jaw drop! You took this and ran with it. And made a custom case?!? And so well-documented. Omg. Fhhfkdkslfn. Yes. Yes. Good. I like this content.

EDIT: Could I get the ryu on the tree background as an 1hr repeatable loop to play on my TV? Kind of like the Christmas Fireplace show on Netflix?

[kittyray]

The case is mostly the design I found on thingverse, but I tweaked a couple things, which, as a mostly newbie at this, felt like a big accomplishment.

But seriously thank you so much. I have a habit of running wild with a project idea when given the time and space, which I definitely had in this circumstance, and I've been so excited to share here. ;-;

[xmilo]

Awesome job kittyray! Looks dope!

Maybe for an upgrade, you can map the buttons to each of the action in the Ryugotchi directly!

[Fabulous]

ok when you first dropped this wizard idea of making an actual tamagotchi out of the ryugotchi I thought it's BRILLIANT superb astounding

but I did not for a second think it would actually materialize into an actual, tangible, physical thing?? with such satisfying clicking and live feeding and poop scooping your actual fucking Ryu????

this is such an accomplishment, like you kept running into random problems big and small which would've made lesser mortals give up BUT YOU DID NOT!

you're brilliant, thank you for letting me bask in your glow im smarter for it

anyway let us know when you mass produce a cK themed version cos I need to add this to my keychain plz I'm begging u

[kittyray]

@xilo
I mapped it directly to the userbar buttons, but I must confess, it took me way too long when the Ryu first came it to realize that the left/right ones were for selecting and only the center one was an action.
Fabulous
Thank you. I'm gonna cry. ;-;

Honestly would probably be not too much for somebody to take this and make their own version. Really the only thing unique to me is that it goes to my profile in particular.

[Ice]

Holy shit this is so fucking cool and impressive to the nth degree! I applaud your determination and gadgetry wizardry! And your documentation skills, because man documenting your process of doing anything sucks. The finished product (for now) is adorable and makes my heart all warm and fuzzy to look at. :$

[Guil]

Wow thats amazing!! Sounds like it was a fun project too!!!

[Goddammit]

Friend, I am in awe :encouragement:

I second wanting to know when you decide to make your riches off this :D

[Nattiee]

What the actual fuck sorcery is this?!
How amazing. you're amazing. I don't even have words to properly ;dskfj;asdkfjasdfjiswjfais;f

[Erik.]

Hoooooooooo Woooow Kitty this is amazing!!! You are simply brilliant :O So, when are they gonna come on the market? :P

[Beth77]

Amazing, Amazing, Amazing!!! awesome job Kitty!!!

[Buizel]

This is so cool!! :) Reading through all the work put into this and the dedication is truly amazing.

:applause::applause::applause: Great work Kitty! :applause::applause::applause:

[Mario2302]

:o WOW :o

i'm amazed at your skills (and actually did read every word in that opening post ;))
This is really amazing!

Do share if you make future updates and reach new goals from your goal list ;)

[kittyray]

Mario2302

I'll probably share if I do any major overhauls. I feel like I didn't express in my original post just how much fun I had with this. I have a couple other projects going on now (plus I want to participate in the winter creativity event and maybe the pokemon one but I don't really know what I'm doing there), but there's a decent chance I'll come back to this.

I also just... really like it. I've been keeping it on at my desk and checking in every so often. And actually using something is the first step to making improvements.

I also want to dig in more to why the screen worked with the image where it finally did and figure out what other unnecessary files are just sitting around so I can clean it up a bit. Also learn.

[Double.Trouble]

This is so cool!

I'm always impressed by people who can tinker and make things like this.

[m5chu]

THIS IS AMAZING!! Im very stunned by your project's creativity and execution!! Thank you for sharing this

[Hall]

I'm in awe of the things you create. This is amazing!

[Da Plushee Boree]

This is so awesome i'm speechless :0!!!!!
All the effort and creativiry on this is huge! And i'm sure you're ready to accomplish whatever you wish!

(give us a hint when you start selling these! Ohmygosh!)

[kittyray]

This is so awesome i'm speechless :0!!!!!
All the effort and creativiry on this is huge! And i'm sure you're ready to accomplish whatever you wish!

(give us a hint when you start selling these! Ohmygosh!)

omg i wish, that could be so much fun

I did briefly consider trying to make something downloadable for people who wanted to build their own, but it was a lot of work and my quarantine ended, so I had less time to put into it. Maybe some day!

[rio]

Omg kittyray you legend, this is amazing. Holy mofo. I am bowing

[Alister]

Hare I just saw your comment about wanting to sprite swap a Ryu with a tamagotchi and it reminded me of this piece of genius wizardry from kittyray :D

[Hare]

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oh holy crap, no way????

...more incentive to actually file my damn tax return, holy moly?? and maybe hit up the library's printing lab...after i get my vaccination!

this is so cool omg...kitty, you're so cool!!

also unrelated but your nails are so pretty and healthy, how the heck do you do it -- signed, a guy with awful short nails

[kittyray]

Aaaaah, Alister, thank you for thinking of me. ;_; I've made some improvements since making this post and have been tinkering with adding a camera, though my sporadic updates have mostly been in my bake-off thread because originally was going to combine it with the potato camera project. I mean, I probably still will, but all in good time.

Hare thank you! This was a really fun project to work on and I enjoy revisiting it. If you want to tackle your own version, I'd love to see it. After Allister tagged me I went back to find your post in the other thread and I know absolutely nothing about modern day tamagotchi and sprite swapping, so that'd be cool to see, too!

can't help you on the nails, for the past year my nail care routine has been "ignore them until they break"



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[Hare]

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can't help you on the nails, for the past year my nail care routine has been "ignore them until they break"



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i am very, very low energy (spoons, if you know the term--you often include alt texts in spoilers so i get the vibe you're a bit more 'with' disability terms and needs than most??), but i'm genuinely inspired by this! while i can't at all guarantee an attempt will come to full fruition, i'm definitely eager to at least try!! i have a vaccination coming up in about two weeks, i think?? and then it has to take effect. so it'll be a while, but...i will try!! our library has a printing lab i've always wanted to use!

i'm also def gonna look into the tama sprite swapping at least! that's much more easily doable for me since i collect tamas and have a small stockpile i can work with! i know you can access debug features with nothing but a pencil (seriously!), but i think that's mostly for affecting how the tama reads time.


also dang! i got my nails long-ish once, but then i broke one and wound up frantically biting down the rest to match...d'oh...
i want long, beautiful nails so bad, but as soon as they get even a little long, i wind up cutting them as short as i can ;; and the whole time i'm thinking 'nooooo let them gro[Only registered and activated users can see links] *clip* aaaa nooo *clip, clip* friiiick' ahaha

[kittyray]

Hare I'm familiar with the term and have gone through spells of low-spoonage, so I empathize. You can always take it at your own pace and leave things in the "thinking about considering it" category for a long time. I look forward to whatever you can manage, and always feel free to share progress. It would be so cool for this thread to turn into a shared activity.

And please share if you sprite-swap, too, would love to see new things!

My nails grow pretty fast, but I also use them a lot, so they're always broken off at weird angles and in general pretty uneven so like I'll end up with pinkies that are little talons and index fingers/thumbs where my skin is a little too exposed. I have so much pretty polish, but idk how to shape them to look nice.


(this goes for anybody reading back on this thread, too!)