PixlBit

The arcades were my first gaming experiences, and I've alwasy had a soft spot for the arcade classics. Thanks to Atari, Namco, and the Arcade Archives series, my Nintendo Switch looks like the arcade of my fever dreams. But I've always enjoyed the look and feel of arcade cabinets. When I was a kid in Arizona, the local Ak-Chin commissary always had arcade cabinets like Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, and Ms. Pac-Man, plus arcades were at grocery stores, movie theaters, travel plazas, and of course, shopping malls. 

I always wanted one of the Coleco tabletop mini-arcade games. They had cases that attempted to replicate the look of the real arcade cabinets with the decals and the shape, and had official licensed versions of most of Namco's arcade games (the US license to which was held by Midway), Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr (the latter of which was actually a port of a Japanese version made by Nintendo itself), Frogger, and many other games. These games had pre-printed vacuum-fluorescent displays similar to the digital displays on old VCRs and CD players, but if you had one of these you had serious street cred. They went for 60 bucks and are now collectors' items. Other companies followed suit. 

In 2018, two big lines of replica arcade machines came out: the miniature MyArcade machines that you can buy for $20 apiece, and the bigger Arcade 1UP machines which usually have 5 games per machine, and there are also smaller countertop versions out now that are half the size and half the cost. The contemporary machines include all the old Namco and Atari standbys, plus Data East, Capcom, Midway, and Space Invaders

One company has been conspicuously missing from this little mini-arcade revival: Nintendo. Nintendo seems to have sorted out their previous legal issues with Ikegami Tsushinki to the point where the original Donkey Kong and Mario Bros arcade games are on the Switch as Arcade Archives titles, and I've faithfully bought those. Nintendo is notoriously guarded with their licensing. But I always loved the design of the original Donkey Kong cabinet, and it would be neat to have one in my home.

So I decided to do what Nintendon't, and build my own Donkey Kong mini-arcade cabinet.

A small electronics company in New York City called Adafruit Industries sells electronic kits and individual components for people interested in working with homemade Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects. You can build your own arcade sticks or emulator console, and you can even find cases shaped like a SNES or NES online.  One of the things they sell is a kit called a Cupcade, which includes most of the electronics components as well as acrylic pieces for a case to build your own mini-arcade machine that's slightly bigger than the MyArcade machines and includes a 2.8" LCD screen. These machines are powered by a Raspberry Pi 3 board, which is sold separately (you can have Adafruit include it in the kit for extra, but I bought one locally at Target.)

It took me about a week to finish, being done in spare time between my work shifts, and required me to re-learn how to solder, which took some doing as the first soldering iron I had, it turned out, wasn't really hot enough to melt the solder. I bought a much better iron and the project went more smoothly. One component had to be soldered in 40 places!  I also had to use terminal commands on my Macbook to download the Retropie emulator software as well as the drivers for the arcade board, video, and speakers that mount onto the Raspberry Pi. Once the basic electronics were soldered and found to work, much to my relief as I was nervous about how well my soldering went, I mounted them into the included mounts and built the case. I then painted the case in light blue and black with white trim - the same colors used in the Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, and printed off the DK marquee, bezel, side, and control panel decals on sticker paper from art I found on the Internet. It wasn't a 1-to-1 reproduction, but it came out pretty good after a bit of work and some modifications. 

Once the machine was actually built, I had to install games. This required a bit of tweaking and experimentation, as emulation is a very tricky science, and I had to make adjustments in the controls and display settings to make the games look good on the 2.8 inch screen. Unfortunately, some of the games wouldn't work no matter what I did, either due to missing files or other compatibility issues, but in the end, I made it look and play pretty damn good. 

The Games

Even though I painted it up as a Donkey Kong machine, my mini-arcade machine runs a program called Retropie and uses a 8GB SDXC card for storage, so I installed multiple games on it. Other than Nintendo's classics, which are my favorite arcade games of all time (sorry, Namco), all the games I installed on my machine are somewhat obscure titles. You can buy Namco and Atari games in countless different forms, and I wanted my machine to have more rare arcade treasures. Therefore I mostly avoided games that are easily available in legitimate MyArcade or Arcade1UP versions in favor of obscure classics. Other than Popeye, which has the issue of outside licensing, I also bought and continue to play the Switch versions of Nintendo's arcade classics. 

Donkey Kong (Nintendo)

Naturally, since I painted my machine to look like a DK machine, I put my favorite arcade game of all time on it. This is the real Donkey Kong ROM - all four levels, arcade sound effects (I had to have a separate sample pack for this.)

Donkey Kong Junior (Nintendo)

Platforming sequel where Mario is the bad guy.

Donkey Kong 3 (Nintendo) 

Instead of a platformer, this is a Galaga-type shooter starring an anonymous guy named Stanley who looks like Mr. Game and Watch.

Popeye (Nintendo)

Fun fact: Donkey Kong was originally supposed to be a Popeye game with Popeye, Olive, and Bluto filling the roles occupied by Mario, Pauline, and DK. When King Features turned him down, Miyamoto went on to create a hero that would go on to be even bigger than Popeye. After DK became a blockbuster, King finally granted the Popeye license to Nintendo. In this game, Popeye must grab falling objects thrown by Olive Oyl while avoiding Bluto and the Sea Hag. There is a can of spinach on every level that allows Popeye to knock Bluto into the water for a few seconds.

Vs. Balloon Fight (Nintendo)

Mostly included to keep up with the Nintendo theming of the cabinet, especially after every attempt at getting Mario Bros to run failed. I can't figure out how to turn on the single-screen mode so it's hard to see on the small screen.

Berzerk (Stern)

The famous game where you're in a maze being chased by robots with the AI and grace of ED-209 and a bouncing smiley face called Evil Otto.

Blue Print (Midway)

You must assemble a wacky shooting contraption to save your girlfriend from an alien by getting the parts from your neighbors, who may send you away with a bomb instead. This game was originally designed by Ashby Computer Graphics, which was founded by Tim and Chris Stamper and was the precursor to Rare.

Kangaroo (Sun Electronics)

Licensed in the US by Atari, it appeared on the 2600 and 5200 and even had its own segment on Saturday Supercade, a Saturday morning cartoon that also had segments from Donkey Kong, Frogger, Q*Bert, and Pitfall. Kangaroo is a platforming game similar to Donkey Kong, but with a boxing kangaroo as the main character. Sun Electronics, better known as Sunsoft, would go on to create Blaster Master on NES. 

Mr. Do! (Universal)

Despite looking and playing better than the similar Dig-Dug, which was released within a few months of Mr. Do!, Namco's bigger presence and marketing muscle ensured that Dig-Dug would remain better known. Instead of a bicycle pump, you get a bouncing energy ball to defeat enemies with. The apples can also be pushed laterally, unlike the rocks in Dig-Dug, and the enemies can push them on top of you.

Do! Run Run (Universal)

The fourth Mr. Do game, it was a return to form after the second and third games, which were a platformer and some kind of weird rollercoaster game.

Mega Zone (Konami)

A vertical-scrolling shooter that I remember from back in the day.

Pengo (Sega)

A penguin must avoid Sno-Bees in an ice block maze. Despite being fairly popular in the 80s, the last US release for Pengo was a version for Sega's Game Gear. There was a multiplayer Pengo made in 2010 that's available in Japan for the Switch.

Space Fury (Sega)

Sega's answer to Asteroids. One of the first shooting games to feature three-way fire.

Zaxxon (Sega)

A famous isometric scrolling shooter that simulated a 3-D perspective.

Pig-Out: Dine Like a Swine! (Leland)

 A cartoony 3-player platformer game. You're a pig kidnapped by the local butcher, and you must evade the butcher and his wolf henchmen in libraries, circuses, restaurants, and even a cave, eating food for calories (points) so you can be the biggest pig at the County Fair.

Mouse Trap (Exidy)

A Pac-Man like maze game where you're a mouse being chased by hungry cats. You can turn the tables on the cats by using bones to turn yourself into a dog for a few seconds. Unlike the power dots in Pac-Man, you can store and use the bones whenever you want by pressing a button. Mouse Trap had its own track on Buckner and Garcia's album, Pac-Man Fever.

Venture (Exidy)

Armed with a bow and arrow, you enter different themed rooms in an attempt to grab the treasures therein. Venture had a well-known port for the Colecovision.

The founder of Exidy, who still owns the company's IP, recently made the ROMS of Exidy's games available to the public provided they are not used for commercial purposes.

Star Castle (Cinematronics)

A multidirectional shooter like Asteroids where you must blast through three rotating barriers surrounding the "star castle" while homing drones attempt to destroy you. If the holes you shoot in the barriers align, the star castle can also shoot photon torpedoes at you. This game is one of those whose clones and imitators went on to be better known than the original. Pulsar II was a popular Star Castle clone on Apple II computers, made by Sirius Software (founded by the main programmer of the original Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana, Nasir Gebelli). Even better known was Howard Scott Warshaw's attempt to adapt Star Castle to the 2600. That game went on to become Atari's best-selling original (not an arcade license or made by Activision) 2600 game, Yars' Revenge.

Tapper (Midway)

The original Budweiser-licensed version of Tapper sold in bars. The version you usually see in Midway collections is Root Beer Tapper, a family-friendly, non-licensed version Midway made for regular arcades. 80s home versions of Tapper usually had licensing from Mountain Dew.

Tetris (Atari)

Everything with a screen plays Tetris, practically. The Atari version, made by Ed Logg, features four songs, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Kalinka," and "Troika," the latter of which sounds somewhat similar to the famous Korobeiniki popularized by the Game Boy release. This version was the basis for the infamous Tengen NES version that got pulled from shelves after Tengen lost a lawsuit to Nintendo, which held the Tetris license for Nintendo systems at the time.

War of the Bugs, or Monsterous Manouvers in a Mushroom Maze (Food and Fun Corp)

A knockoff of Centipede made using hacked a hacked Galaxian board. I actually saw this game in the wild a few times at arcades when I was a kid.

What's next?

I actually enjoyed making this once I figured out a few of the technical hurdles. I'm thinking of building another one and painting it in a different style. I've thought about selling completed machines, but the kits cost $94, plus $35 for the Raspberry Pi, and I'm not sure anybody would buy at the price I'd need to charge to turn any sort of profit. I'm considering entering my machine as an arts and crafts project at the Arizona State Fair this year. I might make gifts of these things to a couple of family and close friends.

I've also thought seriously about going big with this project, and building a full-sized arcade cocktail table. If you don't know what I'm talking about, cocktail tables are those arcade games whose screen is beneath a glass tabletop, with two sets of controls on either end and two people can sit at either end of the table and take turns (the game, when set to cocktail mode, will flip the persepctive for each players's turn.) The electronics of building such a device are fairly simple and would require only a reconditioned flat panel and could either be run off of a Raspberry Pi or a cheap Windows/MAME setup. I'd need only to have woodworking equipment to cut, sand, and paint the wooden parts of the table, and I know a glass cutter that I could hire to make the glass tabletop. It would look neat in my living room and be fun at parties.  I could also use a genuine JAMMA arcade board and harness, which are surprisingly inexpensive.