delay() runs super fast unless I remove a while loop that never runs

Question

I'm working on a small game on arduino but I'm facing some really odd behavior. When I run this code all of my leds flash on and off in less than a second even though delay(10000); should stop them for 10 seconds. However if I remove the while(game_running) block they go back to flashing every 10 seconds even though that block of code never actually runs.

int yellow = 12;
int green = 10;
int red = 9;
int blue = 11;

int debug = 13;

int sequence[1000];
int level = 0;

int game_running = false;

void setup() {                
  pinMode(yellow, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(blue, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(green, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(red, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(debug, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {


  // Pre Game light flash
  digitalWrite(yellow, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(green, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(red, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(blue, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(debug,HIGH);
  delay(10000);
  digitalWrite(debug,LOW);
  digitalWrite(yellow, LOW);
  digitalWrite(green, LOW);
  digitalWrite(red, LOW);
  digitalWrite(blue, LOW);
  delay(10000);

  game_running = false;
  level = 0;

  while(game_running) {

    sequence[level] = random(4); // Select next color

    // Blink LEDs
    for (int i=0; i < level; i++) {

       if(sequence[i] == 0) {
         digitalWrite(yellow, HIGH);
         delay(1000); 
         digitalWrite(yellow, LOW);
         delay(1000);
       } else if(sequence[i] == 1) {
         digitalWrite(green, HIGH);
         delay(1000); 
         digitalWrite(green, LOW);
         delay(1000);
       } else if(sequence[i] == 2) {
         digitalWrite(red, HIGH);
         delay(1000); 
         digitalWrite(red, LOW);
         delay(1000);
       } else {
         digitalWrite(blue, HIGH);
         delay(1000); 
         digitalWrite(blue, LOW);
         delay(1000);
       }
    }
    level += 1;
  }       
}

Answer 1

I will add an official answer just so that others can see it if they run into similar problems.

The issue is with the int sequence[1000] array, which eats up 2,000 bytes of data memory. The Uno only has 2,048 bytes of data memory so the instability is due to this memory hog of an array. Use a smaller number of array entries or switch to char (if you can) to use half the bytes of an int.

Answer 2

offtopic (but cannot put it in a comment):

I do not see any problem with your code (maybe it's in the circuit?)

You can rewrite the 10 s pregame flash as:

// Pre Game light flash
setAllLights(HIGH);
setAllLights(LOW);

void setAllLight(int state)
{
  digitalWrite(yellow, state);
  digitalWrite(green, state);
  digitalWrite(red, state);
  digitalWrite(blue, state);
  digitalWrite(debug, state);
  delay(10000);
}

You can even optimize this further by creating an array:

int[] lights = { yellow, green, red, blue, debug}

void SetAllLights(int state)
{
   for (int color = 0; color < sizeof(lights) / sizeof(int); color++)
   {
       digitalWrite(lights[color], state);
   }
}

You can rewrite the inside of the loop like:

switch (sequence[i]):
   case 0:
      flash(yellow);
      break;

   case 1:
      flash(green);
      break;

   case 2:
      flash(red);
      break;

   default:
      flash(blue);
      break;
}

void flash(int colorPin)
{
   digitalWrite(colorPin, HIGH);
   delay(1000); 
   digitalWrite(colorPin, LOW);
   delay(1000);
}