Someone spent a year building a sci-fi starship simulator with 152 physical controls using ESP32-S3s

Credit: triggur Published Jul 28, 2026, 3:17 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary This Hand-built sci-fi spaceship bridge has 152 buttons, six screens, and custom ESP32-S3 USB boards. It runs an open-source Enigma engine, which supports ESP32-S3 console boards and a Python library for the game. The whole thing is designed to play Halcyon Dawn, a fanfic starship bridge game in the Old Man's War universe. Every so often, I come across a project that absolutely stuns me. Such is the case with this sci-fi starship simulator, which features tons of buttons, screens, and a whole lot of custom ESP32-S3-based USB boards to keep everything running. And the best bit is, the creator built pretty much everything by hand, including the very game this device was built to play. Halcyon Dawn is a game only the most diehard of tinkerers can play There's a lot to build Over on the ESP32 subreddit, user Triggur showed off their gigantic build. It's a control panel for a sci-fi starship, designed to play the creator's own game. It has 152 buttons on it, six screens, and a whole lot of passion poured into it: "Halcyon Dawn" is a fanfic starship bridge game set in John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" universe. For the last year this thing has been my labor of love. I designed and built every detail of the hardware and software from scratch This includes a few ESP32-S3-based USB console interface boards called "Enigma," which Triggur says are designed for general-purpose use, not for doing one specific thing. That allows Triggur to mix and match the boards with their future projects, which include escape room puzzles. Triggur also made a Python infrastructure library (also called "Enigma") that handles all the hardware, and the game "Halcyon Dawn," which you use the big control panel to play. In my eyes, Triggur just basically made their own super-advanced arcade cabinet from scratch. Incredibly impressive. If you want to marvel at their work, you can check out the creator's website and the source code for Enigma. And if you feel brave enough to make your own controller to play Halcyon Dawn, I wish you the best of luck.