I wonder how long it would take me to build a star wars cockpit cabinet style arcade game using our cnc table and an assortment of microcontrollers.
I just want to do vector dogfights and trench runs.
0 Boosts
0 Likes
@freakazoid it was an idle thought, I haven't really considered displays.
I'd love to do a real vector display, but a modern screen with crt emulation is probably a more responsible choice.
I'm also not actually super interested in "star wars" as the game, that's just the easiest shorthand for the kind of game I want, and would want to implement myself.
@ajroach42 I have super fond memories of playing Space Duel at the YMCA I had after school day care at in 1982-83. That's also where I first saw the movie TRON, when they rolled out the TV & VHS cart on a rainy afternoon.
Direct descendant of Asteroids, at least 4 colors, and the only multiplayer vector game Atari ever made.
@freakazoid I think I've played that one, but I can't be certain. Atari made some really excellent arcade games for a little while.
@ajroach42 it's doable if you have a Vectrex to start with
@th that's not a cockpit cabinet though. The cockpit is important.
@ajroach42 @th I've seen people mod the arcade1up star wars cab into a cockpit , but to be honest if you just got a GRS yoke (or Alan 1 if you really want authenticity) and built one out of a random pc/pi/whatever you'd get the same experience
The plans for the cockpit design itself are knocking around
@ajroach42 oops I misread that as cocktail cabinet, which is a much more achievable goal. The Vectrex yoke is just barely fast enough for the original StarWars to be playable, ESB required turning up the corner radius. And of course it isn't in color either.
@th I don't know where my vectrix is. It was last seen in my spaceship set, but that's been torn down and turned into office space.
@ajroach42 Were you thinking about an actual vector screen of some kind? Setting up a large enough one that can be driven from MCUs would be a project all its own.
Seems like an FPGA might be the way to go. There are plenty of modern MCUs that could draw lines in a framebuffer, but an FPGA would give you the headroom to add whatever kinds of effects you want to make it look like an old vector CRT with persistence, fading (or blurring if it's a storage tube), etc.