GTA VI Countdown Clock

A physical countdown-to-Grand Theft Auto VI clock for the ESP32, driving a 2.42" SSD1309 OLED — with a full cinematic boot sequence, a split-flap departure board, and rotating info strips. Set-and-forget: it grabs the time over WiFi once, then free-runs on the ESP32's internal clock and quietly re-syncs itself once a day.

Counting down to November 19, 2026.

Heads up: This is a hobby project and a fan tribute. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive. Grand Theft Auto and related marks belong to their respective owners. See Legal.

_{The whole boot sequence, real hardware, real time. ▶ Watch the full 1-minute video on YouTube · or download it}

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Features

Cinematic boot sequence — a nostalgic power-on that plays every reset:

1. BIOS POST self-test — an old-PC style boot screen that prints line by line (CPU ... OK, MEMORY 64K ... OK, WANTED CTRL ... OK). The WIFI LINK and NTP SYNC lines show real connection status as it links in the background.
2. Rockstar R★ publisher card — big, centered, with a neon flicker, panning out to reveal "ROCKSTAR GAMES."
3. GTA VI title card — the "grand theft auto" wordmark holds on its own.
4. Pull-back into the world — the VI logo recedes into a Miami/Vice City scene (synthwave sun, skyline, palms, scrolling road) as a car drives up the road.
5. Logo finale — the scene drops away, the VI swells back to full screen, then flickers out into the clock.

Split-flap departure board — the main clock face shows DD : HH : MM : SS in boxed cells with a mechanical flap flash on each digit change. Handles 3-digit day counts.

Rotating bottom strips (cycle continuously):

• Facts ticker — scrolls live computed facts: days / weeks / hours remaining, release date.
• 6-star wanted meter — GTA VI's six-star system; fills roughly one star every ~24 days so all six light up right at launch.
• Bullet impacts — bullets fly in one at a time and hit, leaving cracked holes with impact flashes.

Periodic drive-by — every few minutes the Miami scene returns and a car swerves through the lanes for a few seconds, then back to the clock.

Self-managing time — syncs NTP once at boot, then runs on the internal RTC with WiFi off to save power. Re-syncs every 24 hours: if it's on a known network it corrects any drift; if not, it keeps its current time and tries again next cycle. Good for portable/battery use.

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Gallery

The clock face — a split-flap departure board counting down to launch:

The boot sequence, frame by frame:

1. BIOS POST self-test	2. Rockstar publisher card
3. Title card	4. Pull-back into Vice City

And the six-star wanted meter, one of the rotating bottom strips — it fills a star roughly every 24 days, so all six light up right at launch:

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Hardware

Part	Notes
ESP32 WROOM-32 dev board	The classic 30/38-pin ESP32. 2.4 GHz WiFi only.
2.42" OLED, SSD1309 driver, 128×64	7-pin SPI mode. 3.3 V logic (many modules are 5 V tolerant).
Dupont wires	6 connections (see wiring).
USB cable / power	5 V via the dev board, or a LiPo (see Power).

This targets the SSD1309. The very similar SSD1306 0.96"/1.3" displays use a different U8g2 constructor and resolution — you'd need to change the constructor line if you use one.

Wiring (SPI)

OLED pin	ESP32 GPIO	Sketch define
CS	GPIO 5	PIN_CS
DC	GPIO 15	PIN_DC
RES/RST	GPIO 4	PIN_RST
SDA/MOSI	GPIO 23	(hardware VSPI)
SCK/CLK	GPIO 18	(hardware VSPI)
VCC	3V3	—
GND	GND	—

The sketch uses hardware VSPI, so MOSI/SCK are fixed at GPIO 23/18. CS, DC, and RST are configurable at the top of the sketch.

See docs/WIRING.md for a full pinout and troubleshooting.

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Quick start

1. Install the Arduino IDE (2.x) and add ESP32 board support:
   • File → Preferences → Additional Boards Manager URLs: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json
   • Tools → Board → Boards Manager → install esp32 by Espressif.
2. Install the U8g2 library — Tools → Manage Libraries → search U8g2 (by oliver) → Install.
3. Open GTA6_SplitFlap/GTA6_SplitFlap.ino.
4. Set your WiFi at the top of the sketch:

   #define WIFI_SSID     "YOUR_WIFI_SSID"
   #define WIFI_PASSWORD "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD"

5. Set your timezone — the default is US Eastern Standard (-5 * 3600). Change GMT_OFFSET_SEC for your zone. (See Configuration.)
6. Select Tools → Board → ESP32 Dev Module, pick your COM port, and Upload.
7. Open Serial Monitor at 115200 to watch the boot log (WiFi OK, NTP OK).

First power-on should be somewhere with WiFi so it can grab the time. After that it free-runs and self-corrects.

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Configuration

All at the top of GTA6_SplitFlap.ino:

Define	Default	What it does
WIFI_SSID / WIFI_PASSWORD	placeholders	Your 2.4 GHz network.
GMT_OFFSET_SEC	-5 * 3600 (EST)	Timezone offset in seconds. E.g. Pacific = -8*3600, UTC = 0, Central Europe = 1*3600.
DAYLIGHT_OFFSET	3600	DST offset. Set to 0 if you don't want DST applied.
GTA6_RELEASE_UTC	1795064400	Target epoch — Nov 19 2026, 00:00 EST. Change to count down to anything.
CONTRAST	230	OLED brightness 0–255 (dimmed a little to reduce burn-in).
SPI_CLOCK	8000000	SPI bus speed. 8 MHz is smooth; can try 16 MHz.
DRIVEBY_INTERVAL_MS	3 min	How often the drive-by scene plays.
NTP_RESYNC_MS	24 h	How often it wakes WiFi to re-sync the clock.

Counting down to something else? Change GTA6_RELEASE_UTC to your target's Unix timestamp (UTC). Plenty of online epoch converters; just remember it's in UTC and the display applies your GMT_OFFSET_SEC.

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Power & battery

By default the clock:

• uses WiFi only for the initial NTP sync and a brief window every 24 h,
• runs the rest of the time on the ESP32's internal RTC with the radio off.

Rough current draw:

• WiFi active (brief sync windows): spiky, 150–250 mA
• Normal running, radio off: ~60 mA (CPU + OLED)

On a LiPo, expect roughly:

Battery	Approx. runtime (radio off after sync)
500 mAh	~7 h
1000 mAh	~14 h
2500 mAh	~35 h

The internal RTC drifts a little (seconds to ~a minute per day), which is irrelevant for a countdown measured in days — and it gets corrected on the next 24 h re-sync when it's back on a known network.

Note: If it first boots with no WiFi ever reached, it has no time to count from and shows fallback values until it reaches a network once. Do the first power-on at home.

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How it works (brief)

• Display: U8g2 in full-buffer mode over hardware SPI. All graphics — logos, car, scene, stars — are hand-built 1-bit XBM bitmaps drawn with a small nearest-neighbor scaler (plus an outline-preserving variant so thin logos don't break when shrunk).
• Time: configTime() + NTP, then time() against the target epoch to compute days/hours/minutes/seconds every tick.
• Boot sequence: a single frame loop with timed phases; WiFi/NTP are polled non-blocking each frame so the animation never stalls waiting on the network.

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Repo layout

GTA6_SplitFlap/GTA6_SplitFlap.ino   the firmware (single sketch)
docs/WIRING.md                      full pinout + troubleshooting
docs/images/                        photos / screenshots
hardware/                           notes, optional case files
LICENSE                             MIT
CONTRIBUTING.md                     how to help

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Roadmap / ideas

• ILI9341 color TFT version (Miami palette in full color)
• 3D-printed desk-wedge case, finished in translucent resin
• Optional real Newswire-style headlines via a self-hosted JSON feed
• Configurable target date without recompiling

PRs and forks welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

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Credits

Built by dspl1236.

Thanks to olikraus/u8g2 for the display library and the ESP32 Arduino core team.

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Legal

This is an unofficial, non-commercial fan project. It is not affiliated with, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, or any of their subsidiaries.

Grand Theft Auto, GTA, GTA VI, the Rockstar Games logo, and all related names, marks, and imagery are trademarks and/or copyrights of their respective owners. References here are used for identification and tribute purposes only.

The code in this repository is released under the MIT License. This license covers the original source code only — it does not grant any rights to third-party trademarks or brand assets. The recreated logos/scenes are original pixel art made for this project as an homage; if you fork this, use them at your own discretion and don't imply official endorsement.

Release date shown (Nov 19 2026) reflects publicly announced information at the time of writing and may change.