Fun & Games

Here’s a great Phidgets project. We chose to build a ubiquitous version of the 80’s arcade classic “Whack the Mole” since we thought it would be a fun, addictive way of integrating the computer with a really physical game. To make the game a little more sophisticated than the original we made a multiplayer game where one person using a virtual version of our game can connect to the physical game board. Link.

Handy for homebrew GB games- GBAccelerator is our latest and most innovative modification for the Game Boy Advance & GBA SP. GBAccelerator allows you to change the speed of the GBA to one of four speeds including: normal, fast, ultra and slow-motion by simply simultaneously pressing three GBA buttons. GBAccelerator is useful for a number of games and applications. Link.

Good resource for getting started in making your own DS games- Tutorial 1: Setting up the development evironment and building an example application that displays text output and reads the touch screen. Tutorial 2: Using the framebuffer mode of the Nintendo DS to draw to the screen. Also explains a bit about the Vertical Blank Interrupt. Tutorial 3: Detecting and acting on key presses. Link.

Handy for all those retro games, over 74,000 in their library- Have you ever rented a game that came with no instructions? Have you ever bought a used game and found out later that the package you received didn’t come with an essential map or answers to copy protection questions required to play the game? Have you ever bought a re-released game and then realized that they only included an Installation Guide, no game instructions at all? Link.

Ask Slashdot has a good post with a lot of helpful comments on making your own DIY arcade. “I’m looking into building my own MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), and for the most part the equipment and know-how to build one can be found via our good friend Google. However, the number of webpages dedicated to showing off complete machines or other gaming hardware hacks (turning an XBox into a full MAME, for example) are a little lacking. Link.

There seems to be a PSP update which makes the USA units go to 1.5.1, not sure what it does- but I’m really reluctant to install this- with all the PSP firmware hacks to run home-brew games perhaps Sony is proactively making it harder to change the USA units. If you’re willing to update your unit though, hit the wireless update menu.

A bunch of Japanese DIY’ers had a useless old Famicom console and decided to build their own PSP. They started by tearing the console apart…Pretty good photographic dissection and assembly. [via] Link.