It Doesn't Work

This project was a grand (mis)adventure. First, I attempted to create what is known as a "Lights Out" puzzle, where all lights are on in a grid and you need to turn them all off. Pushing a button/light turns that one off and causes a state change to those adjacent to it. So, if they are on they'll turn off and if they are already off they'll infuriatingly turn on. I thought, "Hey, I've always wanted to know how to do this, I'll give it a try! It will probably be a little challenging, but it's basically just coding state changes so I kinda know the objective!" Here's a basic sketch of what I had in mind:

This is basically how the game works - the rules are easy but success is difficult and usually involves a lot of guesswork........

After several attempts at wiring and fitting a 3x3 grid of LEDs and corresponding buttons on the board, I realized I had made a major oversight: how was I going to individually program 18 components with the 13 pins of an Arduino?? I didn't know how to get the Arduino to recognize individual LEDs on a string attached to one data pin, which was rather essential. Also, it was kind of a mess at this point anyway.

Feeling only a moderate amount of discouragement, I decided to try to make a different game: Simon Says. Series of colors lights up, push the corresponding buttons in order. I thought, "This will be so much easier! I can just use a few LEDs, create a sequence, then track when the correct buttons are pushed!" If you're wondering how I'm going to do that last part, you probably know what's going to happen later.

Here's a simple sketch of my simple idea that definitely wouldn't be too complicated to make:

Simple mockup of LED and button sequences for victory

Ultimately I ended up adding a "start" button that triggers the sequence and game. I did not add a "victory" light for... reasons (you'll see). I placed everything on the breadboard like so:

Arrangement on breadboard

Schematic

I wanted to keep the board clean looking and leave space for people to push the buttons and clearly see the lights (aaaand limit the mess I had made at this point with the accumulating pile of difficult-to-read resistors) so I used "INPUT_PULLUP" instead of putting resistors between the buttons and pins.

For the code, I set up a variable called "score" and used a series of "if/else" statements to try to track correct button pushes. If incorrect, all the lights would flash and the game would reset. The problem is, for some reason I have yet to understand, "score" was not registering, so any button push triggered the reset state. I Googled and experimented and tested and isolated code to make sure it did what I wanted, all to no avail.

In the end, my frustration led me to the final version of the game: you can try playing Simon Says, but the buttons don't do what you want. Enjoy!

Here's the code I ended up using, including the remnants of the original "score" code I couldn't get to work.

	const int blueLED = 2;
	const int redLED = 3;
	const int greenLED = 4;
	const int blueButton = 8;
	const int redButton = 9;
	const int greenButton = 10;
	const int start = 12;
	/* Variable to record "correct" button pushes
	int score = 0; */
	void setup() {
	// put your setup code here, to run once:
	pinMode(blueLED, OUTPUT);
	pinMode(redLED, OUTPUT);
	pinMode(greenLED, OUTPUT);
	pinMode(blueButton, INPUT_PULLUP);
	pinMode(redButton, INPUT_PULLUP);
	pinMode(greenButton, INPUT_PULLUP);
	pinMode(start, INPUT_PULLUP);
	}
	void loop() {
	while (digitalRead(start) == HIGH) {
	// do nothing
	}
	digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	delay(200);
	while (digitalRead(start) == HIGH) {
	if ((digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW) && (digitalRead(redButton) == LOW)) {
	digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	digitalWrite(redLED,LOW);
	}
	else if ((digitalRead(redButton) == LOW) && (digitalRead(greenButton) == HIGH)){
	digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	}
	else {
	digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	}
	if (digitalRead(blueButton) == LOW) {
	digitalWrite(greenLED,HIGH);
	}
	else {
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	}
	//testing the same as the first "else if" as "if"
	if ((digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW) && (digitalRead(redButton) == HIGH)) {
	digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	}
	else {
	digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	}
	if ((digitalRead(blueButton) == LOW) && (digitalRead(redButton) == LOW) && (digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW)) {
	digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	delay(200);
	digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	return;
	}
	}
	}
	// original code I was trying to make work so it would progress with correct input and reset with incorrect
	//if (digitalRead(blueButton) == LOW) {
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	//score++;
	//}
	//else {
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	//}
	//if (digitalRead(redButton) == LOW) {
	//digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	//score++;
	//}
	//else if (digitalRead(redButton) == LOW && score != 3) {
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	//digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	//delay(200);
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	//digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	//return;
	//}
	//else {
	//digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	// }
	//if (digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW) {
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	//score++;
	//}
	//else if (digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW) {
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	//score++;
	//}
	//else if (digitalRead(greenButton) == LOW) {
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, HIGH);
	//digitalWrite(redLED, HIGH);
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
	//delay(200);
	//digitalWrite(blueLED, LOW);
	//digitalWrite(redLED, LOW);
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	//return;
	//}
	//else {
	//digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
	//}

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