Tag Archives: arcade

Nov 16

Things I did in 2020

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So, like my last post stated, I did some things while stuck at home.

My absolute favorite project was this:

I followed this guide (https://github.com/geaz/simplyRetro-D8) and built this awesome 3D printable desktop arcade cabinet. It of course uses a Raspberry Pi running RetroPi and uses an awesome readily available 4 x 3 LCD screen!

And of course my little guy helping me build and test it 😀

I got a small CNC machine in January and hadn’t had time to use it until recently but I have been having fun making some videos of it in action.

That’s a 3040T CNC Machine. You can find a lot of them on eBay and various other importing sites. More fun hobbies that involve turning one thing into another thing 🙂

On that note, I repurposed my 4k LED display for a lot of statements this year!

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My house got egged for one of those statements. Worth it.

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I edited and 3D Printed a mini Dreamcast case for the Raspberry Pi! Did you know you can play Dreamcast games at 60FPS on the Pi4 now? No? WELL YOU CAN! Using Redream it’s totally possible! You can download the case files here https://thingiverse.com/thing:4539273.

And we got a new kitten!

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Say hi to Dash. Our Manx kitty. He’s kinda awesome.

If you’ve gotten to this part of the post, all I can say is thank you! It’s been a year. Please stay safe out there. Wear a mask. Keep on making. I’ve missed y’all!

-Shea

Apr 15

Arcades! Arcades! Arcades!

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Hey All,

This weekend is Star Wars Celebrations!  While I’m not able to go, for the past week I’ve been helping Free Play Florida finish their 10 foot Star Wars arcade cabinet for the convention.  This thing is awesome!  And MASSIVE!

This machine will be at Free Play Florida and Orlando Maker Faire this year 😀

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The Nintendo Switch has come out, and I have put a ton of hours into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild already.  This is one of my favorite consoles so far.  The eShop already has Neo Geo games and a new Street Fighter game is coming out ( Ultra Street Fighter II ) so of course I had to make a Nintendo Switch Arcade Machine 😀  The files to make your own are on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2235516/#files 

Have a great weekend all!

-Shea

Mar 31

Friday Post: Fix It Felix Jr. running on the Raspberry Pi!

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Hey All,

This post is made possible because ELTechs has provided me with an early version of Exagear Desktop 2.0.  This is commercial software that was provided to me free of charge.

One of my game room goals has been to have a full sized Fix It Felix Jr. arcade cabinet, and now that I can run the game on the Raspberry Pi, I’m one step closer!

The desktop version of Fix-It Felix Jr. has been notoriously hard to find.  It has been released as a flash game, an Apple iOS app, Android app, and even a homebrew Sega Genesis/MegaDrive ROM, but never as a stand alone application.

The version that ran at Disney Quest, and which was on tour at some of the themeparks, was never officially released.

Recently though, it got released to the internet, and I quickly grabbed it and ran it through a hex editor to see what makes it tick.  

It uses a 3rd party framework called FOCAL, which powers many small games on desktop and mobile, made by Code Mystics.  I was excited to finally have the software, but I wasn’t thrilled that I needed a Windows machine to run it.

Enter ExaGear Desktop.  An inexpensive (~$27) x86 emulator with OpenGL support for the Raspberry Pi.  It’s acts more as a virtual machine, running an x86 distro of Debian (or Ubuntu) inside a shell on top of Raspbian.

To get it working once you have purchased Exagear:

In a fresh install of Raspbian, you need to make sure to run sudo raspi-config and enable FULL Open GL support.  After that, install ExaGear ( sudo ./install_exagear.sh ), and then double click on the exagear icon on the desktop to bring up the shell. Run sudo apt-get install wine, then run wine FixItFelixJr.exe .

Wine should start up and asks to install some dependencies.  And then the moment of truth, the Fix It Felix Jr. window should pop up, and the game will be fully playable!

You can even change the window orientation and run it full screen!

I’ll be uploading video of the game in action ASAP!

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

P.S: Baby Silverman is expected any day now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Sep 11

Updates Updates Updates

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Hey All,

Sorry for the long delay in updates.  Been extremely busy with the campaign and some personal projects.  I needed the break but I’m back.

Good News

The Florida primaries are over, and it is only myself and a Democrat in the race for Florida House District 49.  I am currently polling in the high 30s, which is pretty damn good considering I’m an Independent with about $1000 left running against a politician who has raised over $100,000.

Does money help?  Of course, but the more I talk to people and tell them my platform, and more importantly, what type of person I am, the more support I am getting.  I am so thankful for the wonderful support my friends and family are showing me during this campaign.  It’s been amazing so far.  Can’t wait until the November election 😀

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The PiPlay Advance board is coming together!  We have another iteration we are getting ready to test!  More news on that soon 😀e6e6230260da234de488a393ef5bd7cb_preview_featured

I’ve been playing a TON of Overwatch lately, and in a few of the maps, you can run around some arcade machines.  They look like traditional Japanese Candy Cabs, and I love them.  I really want to make my own real version sometime, BUT, I was able to do the next best thing.  A modder released the model files for the arcade into Source Film Maker, and I was able to export them OBJs, convert them to STLs, and then clean them up in Tinkercad, so I could 3D print them.

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Sad News

In sad news, last month my Grandfather passed away.  I want to thank the other campaigns for offering their condolences and being decent about the whole thing.  It took a toll on my family of course.  Right after he passed, my Grandmother went into the hospital (for what looks like a heart attack), but she is doing better.  It was just a heck of a month.

Today is also 9/11, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention anything about it.  I remember 15 years ago, a senior in high school, watching the events unfold on TV in a class room.  The administrators were going room by room turning off TVs and telling the teachers to go back to their lessons.  I’m glad my teacher turned it back on when they left.

At 17, all I could think about was how my cousins lived in NYC at the time, and hoping they were OK, but not really worried, because they were also kids, what would they be doing close to the towers?  I remember a lot of confusion and worry about what was next.  I remember a lot of ignorant and hateful comments being spoken in the following weeks, and a lot of misinformation from my fellow classmates.  I was just numb.

15 years later, the big thing I take from 9/11 is that we should never respond to these tragic events with reactionary legislation.  The PATRIOT Act is probably one of the worst bills that was pushed through during that time.  In hindsight we see that, but we can’t forget the lesson in case of future events.

Thank you.

-Shea

Nov 20

Friday Post: IAAPA 2015

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Hey All,

Happy Friday!

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a day of IAAPA again this year.  IAAPA is THE worldwide Arcade and Amusement expo.  I’m fortunate that it takes place in Orlando, FL, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get this opportunity.

One of the highlights of the trade show was that Sega was there showing off the new to North America “Luigi’s Mansion Arcade”.  This has been in Japan for two years now, but this is the first time (other than one location test) that a Luigi’s Mansion Arcade unit has been in the States.  It’s a very neat game.  It’s an on rails shooter game, where your gun is an all in one flashlight and vacuum cleaner.  You stun the ghosts with the flashlight, then suck them into your vacuum.  It’s a lot of fun, and I hope it gets translated and a few places pick them up.

In Raspberry Pi related news, the Mag Pi has just released their Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book!

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 https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/official-raspberry-pi-projects-book/

200 pages of things to do with your Raspberry Pi!

Enjoy all!  Have a great weekend!

-Shea

 

Nov 06

Friday Post: Texas

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Hey All,

Just got back from Austin, Texas for an educational conference.

The University of Texas at Austin is beautiful! Had a good conference, the LBJ Presidential Museum is on campus, so I was able to check that out. There is a really nice Makerspace located in the basement of the engineering building. Had a great feel. Blink-182 blasting in the background, students just working on stuff. 3 laser cutters and 14 Flashforge 3D printers available to use. Small mills in the back, vices on every table. Lots of room to work, lots of supplies to purchase. It’s great. Good Job UT.

I also got to visit two arcades! One is called Pinballz and true to the name, has about 40 pinball machines. Everything there was in great shape, and the video game selection was incredible. Got to play a Typing of the Dead, SF4, and SF X Tekken. They even had the non deluxe version of Star Wars BattlePods which was fun to try.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3700915,-97.7213994,3a,73.7y,223.57h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWFQjGDbTKQ9D-VZ6GQTMmQ!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656

I also went to ArcadeUFO, which was a small Japanese style arcade.  Lots of candy cabs, an interesting selection of games.  I really liked JuBeat.

Have a good weekend all!  Great to be back home 😀

-Shea

Oct 30

Friday Post: 100% Funded!

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Hey All,

In just a short amount of time the Deskcade Kickstarter has been 100% funded!

This is awesome! Thank you all for your continued support. Here is some play testing I took at FamiLAB:

I have been told very last minute that I am going to Austin Texas next week to participate in a committee standard meeting, to help shape the next version of the Learning Tools Interoperability standard. I hate flying, so I’m nervous about the trip, but its only 2.5 hours. Just gotta try to sleep through the flight and I’ll be good. On the plus side, there are some INCREDIBLE arcades in Austin. Going to try to get Pinballz Arcade, and ArcadeUFO.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Oct 02

Friday Post: Raspberry Pi Display and Orlando IX

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Hey All,

Happy Friday!

This weekend is Orlando IX.  It’s the first time this event is happening, and they are trying to make it like Orlando’s SXSW.  Let’s see if they can pull it off.  My coworkers are going to be there representing UCF, while me and some friends are going to be showing off PiPlay, and our custom arcade cabinets.

I recently got one of the Official Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Displays, and it is amazing.  I love it.  PiPlay looks great on it.

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I’ve been working on some prototype cases for the display 🙂

Wish us luck, this weekend is going to be crazy!

-Shea

 

Sep 18

Friday Post: Maker Faire Orlando 2015 Was Awesome!

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Hey All,

Maker Faire Orlando 2015 was amazing!  It was awesome.  So much fun was had by all.  We set a new world record for the tallest arcade machine (playing Bubble Bobble).  I am so proud of all my fellow makers that made the event a success!

 

You may have noticed an all black arcade cabinet and a game being played at our booth.  A few friends and I are working on a classic shoot em up style game, and it is getting really good.  Hopefully I’ll have more to say about that real soon ™.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Sep 11

Friday Post: Orlando Maker Faire is here!

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Hey All!

Orlando Maker Faire is here!!!  If you are in Orlando, make your way to the Orlando Science Center and come see 300+ exhibits including PiPlay and our custom arcade machine!

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Factur, FamiLAB,  PiPlay, and Free Play Florida also have the worlds largest arcade machine being setup!  It stands at 15 feet tall and plays Bubble Bobble!

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The screen is 60″ and the buttons are 2.5″.  This thing is a beast.  More pictures to come!

I am exhausted from the push to get this all done today!  Hope to see you there!