Tesla Vs. Edison Fighting Game: Now You’re Playing with Power!

Posted on 23/03/2016 by Conner Flynn

Dayton, Ohio based art collective Real Art had a great idea for a Mortal Kombat style video game so they got to work and built an arcade cabinet. But this version of Mortal Kombat is a little different. It’s called War of Currents and it pits Nikola Tesla against Thomas Edison. Ready?!? Fight!

Tesla and Edison are the only fighters and they feature appropriately-themed electric powers. It gets better though. Shocking in fact. When you charge up and use your super-move, it shocks the other player with real electricity. That’s thanks to a custom-built conductive joystick.

This game was built for the Dayton-based Proto BuildBar, which they describe as “part 3D printing lab, part electronic maker space, and part café.” They unveiled it at this year’s SXSW, and it was nominated for a SXSW Innovation Award. If Only Tesla and Edison were around to battle it out on this machine.

[via Laughing Squid via Nerd Approved]

Polycade Wall-mounted Arcade Machine: Worth a Thousand Games

Posted on 19/11/2015 by Lambert Varias

I’ve seen arcade machines in all sorts of sizes and forms, but the Polycade is the first wall-mounted one I’ve seen. It has enough room for two player controls, a separate 4-way joystick and two buttons for classic systems and a 28″ LED TV. But because it’s wall-mounted it’s only a third of the size of standard arcade machines.

The Polycade was designed by Tyler and Dylan Bushnell – sons of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell – along with their friend Charles Carden. The cabinet is 30″ wide, 52″ tall and sticks out 17″ off the wall. Like many modern arcade machines, it’s powered by the Raspberry Pi and runs RetroPie, so you can play games not just with MAME but from other classic systems as well. It comes in white, black, red, blue, brown or orange, and you can also have vinyl graphics applied to the cabinet.

The Polycade crew claims that the machine’s parts are “as easy to swap out as possible… even for the non-technically inclined person”, although they didn’t go into detail about its repairability.

Pledge at least $1350 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a fully assembled Polycade as a reward. You can also pledge at least $600 to get everything but the cabinet. Check out Polycade’s Instagram page for more photos and videos of the machine.

[via Damn Geeky]

Gamer Creates Awesome NASA Themed Arcade Cabinet

Posted on 16/11/2015 by Conner Flynn

Man, I wish I had the kind of talent it takes to create a cool arcade cabinet like this. But at least I can live vicarously through them. This NASA themed arcade cabinet looks like it belongs on the space station or at the very least in some NASA break room somewhere.

This beautiful gaming cabinet was created by Imgur user scoodidabop of Paradox Arcade Systems. They specialize in refurbishing and building custom arcade cabinets just like this one, which was built for the Houston Arcade Expo that took place this past weekend.

It is a real work of art. I love all of the lighting and details on the control panel and I can easily see a guy in a spacesuit playing games on this thing. Check out the control panel below, and then the full build log over on imgur.

[via Nerd Approved]

VEC9 Vector Arcade Cabinet: Vec to the Past

Posted on 14/10/2015 by Lambert Varias

What started as a drunken purchase turned into an anachronistic arcade game. In 2012, electrical engineer Andrew Reitano bought an Asteroids vector monitor on Craigslist. He wanted to see if he could make it display graphics, but with the help of Todd Bailey and Michael Dooley he ended up with VEC9.

The arcade cabinet is archaic in more ways than one. Not only does it have a decades old main display (shown below), its main controller is taken from an M1A1 Abrams tank. It also has a 640×480 monochrome display (shown above) that shows, among other things, enemy pilots screaming as you gun them down with your laser cannon and chain gun.

Speaking of enemies, the game’s story is darkly comedic. VEC9 was one of several heavily armed bombers sent by the USSR to orbit in a bid to win both the Cold War and the space race. The bombers’ pilots were cryogenically frozen, but only the pilot of bomber VEC9 woke up in the present day. Realizing that the USSR has fallen, the pilot assumes that it was the United States’ fault, so he sets out to avenge his state.

Here’s an early look at VEC9‘s gameplay:

VEC9 will be playable at Chicago’s Logan Arcade starting 11/7.

[via Motherboard via Engadget]

World’s Largest Working Arcade Cabinet Makes You Feel Like a Little Kid Again

Posted on 10/09/2015 by Conner Flynn

Many adults of today never knew the joy of growing up during the heyday of arcades. They have never known what it feels like to be small and play a game on a giant arcade cabinet. Jason Camberis’ 14-foot-tall arcade cabinet should bring back these memories for those who know what I’m talking about. Maybe create some new memories for those that don’t.

Camberis builds normal-sized arcade cabinets for a living, but he built this monster as an homage to his youth playing in arcades. This project is an amazing nostalgia generator for sure, but it also got him a place in the Guinness World Records.

It is a fully-functional two-player arcade machine with over-sized joysticks, giant buttons, and a huge screen. This thing is amazing. The idea itself is awesome. I bet it brings memories back for anyone who interacts with it. And others can get that feeling for the first time. I like the way Jason thinks.

[via Core77 via Gizmodo]

Love Hulten’s PE358 & Battlecade: Game Boy & Game Twins

Posted on 25/08/2015 by Lambert Varias

Retro gadget maker Love Hulten recently showed off two of his latest creations, both of which are gaming systems. The PE358 is a Nintendo emulator inspired by the Game Boy Advance SP, while the Battlecade is a kickass two-player arcade machine inspired by the likes of Battleship.

The PE358 measures about 3.1″x 3.1″x 1.5″ and is based on a Raspberry Pi A+. The Battlecade on the other hand has two 12″ LCD screens back-to-back, a compartment to store the joysticks and power adapter and neatly folds into a suitcase. Both devices have walnut wood cases.

Sadly, Love isn’t selling the machines, though even if he were, I wouldn’t be able to afford them anyway. Nintendo should hire this guy already.

[via Uncrate]

Pac-Man Arcade Cabinet Wall Clock: Waka Clocka Game

Posted on 03/08/2015 by Lambert Varias

Time is a power pellet in this retro Pac-Man wall clock. Made to celebrate the yellow gobbler’s 35th birthday – the game was first released on May 22, 1980 – the ~2ft. tall clock has a handcrafted case that looks like the game’s original arcade cabinet.

The clock plays the game’s music and sound effects at the top of every hour, and its coin slots and marquee are backlit.

It also has a handmade Pac-Man sculpture on top, a 2D Pac-Man pendulum and his nemeses Pinky, Inky, Blinky and Clyde as clock weights.

You can order the Pac-Man arcade cabinet wall clock from Bradford Exchange for $200 (USD). Only 1,000 units will be available this year.

[via GamesRadar]

Retro-futuristic Arcade Cabinet: Pixelkabinett 42

Posted on 23/05/2015 by Lambert Varias

The Pixelkabinett 42 is Love Hulten’s latest furniture inspired retro-futuristic computer. It’s a two-player arcade cabinet based on “old industrial cabinets, vintage mixing consoles and early space travel.”

The cabinet itself is made of ash and American walnut. It has a light-up planetarium on the front and a Saturn-shaped speaker grill on its control panel. It also has a 19″ 4:3 LCD, two joysticks, 10 arcade buttons, a slider knob and two toggle switches. The nozzle-like feet can be added at no extra charge, but you can also pay extra to add a subwoofer, or to customize its color or the controller layout.

To run games, Love Hulten offers one of four JAMMA boards, or a computer with a MAME interface and a USB port so you can load your games of choice.

The Pixelkabinett 42 is limited to 50 units. You can order one from Love Hulten’s online shop for ~$4,100 (USD).

[via Gear Patrol]

Charity Arcade Accepts Any Coin Currency as Tokens: Insert Care

Posted on 19/03/2015 by Lambert Varias

If you’ve ever gone abroad you probably had spare coins from the country you visited. You can change it back to your country’s currency or keep it as a memento, but more often than not they’ll just end up stashed in your drawer, “for when you go back.” Sweden’s airport agency Swedavia and the Red Cross have a brilliant suggestion: use those foreign coins as arcade tokens.

Red Cross and Swedavia’s Charity Arcades are currently found at Stockholm Arlanda Airport and Göteborg Landvetter Airport. These interactive donation boxes will let you play Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga or Space Invaders in exchange for any coin. As you may have guessed, all of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.

Add Super Hexagon, Battletoads and I Wanna Be the Guy to the Charity Arcade and they’ll have enough money to end world hunger within an hour. That and destroyed cabinets.

[via Swedavia via Neatorama]

Flappy Bird Makes the Jump to Arcade Cabinets

Posted on 14/01/2015 by Alexandru Chiuariu

Flappy Bird was quite the phenomenon when it was launched, and the fact that its creator took it off the app stores short time after that made the game even more appealing, with iPhones featuring it selling for up to $10K on the black market.

Considering that it was downloaded 50 million times in the almost 10 months it was available, saying that Flappy Bird was a popular game would be a tremendous understatement. The reason the Vietnamese developer removed it from the app stores was the addictive nature of the game and its capability of bringing any productivity left in modern people to a sudden stop. Needless to say, Bay Tek Games, the creators of the Flappy Bird arcade cabinet, have no such remorse for the poor people who might end up playing the game for days on end.

With an effect that’s quite similar to the Hypnotoad, the Flappy Bird arcade cabinet sports a 42-inch display and a few large buttons, to keep things simple for the ones who aren’t into complex RTS or RPG games. According to the manufacturers, the Flappy Bird-licensed machine has “a game play that will have players coming back for more.”

The nastiest thing about this arcade machine is that it works with coins (or tokens you can buy with coins), so productivity is not the only thing it could ruin. Players get arcade tickets for each set of pipes they bypass, and can struggle to beat the daily or the all-time highscore.

Bay Tek Games hasn’t made public the price of the arcade cabinet, but I’m pretty sure it won’t come cheap. After all, the machine measures 37″ W x 40″ D x 91″H and weighs 300 pounds (370 including the padding necessary for transportation), so even getting it shipped to you will cost a bit. On top of that, I don’t see many individuals paying to have such a cabinet in their homes, so chances are that if people are going to see any of these, it’s going to be in poker bars and other similar locations. After all, the machine was built to make money for the ones who already have money, while offering the poor souls playing the game a very short-lived entertainment.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Flappy Bird-playing robot that outsmarts humans, or Swing Copters, the new game from the creator of Flappy Bird.

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