[Nakul] wanted to build a video game, and with a few projects worth of Arduino experience decided he could finally attain his goal. He used a character LCD display to make his game, and instead of a text-based adventure, he went with a graphical side scroller.
The display for this space-based side scroller isn’t a graphical display like a CRT or a graphic LCD. Instead, [Nakul] is using the ubiquitous Hitachi HD44780 character LCD display. Normally these are used to display text, but they all have the ability to display custom 5 by 8 pixel characters. The code puts these custom characters – a spaceship, missile, and barrier – into the display’s memory and uses them as the sprites for the video game.
You can grab [Nakul]‘s code over on his git or check out the action videos below.

http://hackaday.com/2013/07/23/a-vid...cd-characters/