Building my own Arcade was a long way, which I think initially started around the 2000nds. That was when I had my first expierences with MAME and followed by the modded original XBOX by Microsoft. It allowed me to run ROMs on the TV with a decent Gamepad which was a significant improvement over keyboard inputs on the PC.
However time passed and the whole Arcade emulation topic got forgotten. Probably there are still some old and rusty HDDs somewhere in my basement with the very old roms from back then. So years passed and once the Raspberry Pi came on the market, those Retro/Emulations Projects got my attention again. So I experimented a bit with the different builds and/or added my own emulators to exisiting builds. But it was a configuration mess and instead of just switching on your device like back in the old Nintendo NES times playing always required some fiddling (e.g. reestablishing proper Bluetooth connections to your Gamepad). So again the whole Emulation topic was forgotton for some time.
And then the RETROFLAG NESPi case came out.
What a cool case! I immediately wanted to build another Pi and learned about RetroPie. Long story short, I got myself a NESPi and some wired fake chinese SNES controllers and had a blast.
Even my still small children had their fun with Mario and Co.
But Consoles are one thing. Arcades another.
In Germany we never really had Arcades like in the US, mainly because due to protection of minors, coin-operated video games were restricted to ages 18+ in dedicated casinos. But that was only Germany. In the typical vacation countries like France or Italy, Arcades were just normal. So while my parents were shopping in the supermarket, I was wasting all my french coins on games like
or Metal Slug (just had to make sure my dad didn’t catch me playing that game)
Never forgotten was my vacation ~1991 with my dad in Orlando, Florida where we visited Disney World and all the other Theme Parks. The Hotel we stayed in had its own Arcade. I was 11 years and a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan and guess what game I was playing all evening long in that Arcade?
Yes, of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Cowabunga!
And this game should have an important role in my Arcade building.
So in early 2019 some financial freedom and too much free time brought back the idea of having an own Arcade Cab. But as mentioned earlier, in Germany they were not very common, so the used market is very small and expensive. So I investigated the idea of building my own.
There are some detailed buidling instruction from projects like Jan Klomps Retro Arcade Cabinet but I was concerned that due to the lack of tools and talent this would be an expensive failure for me.
So the search for Kits started and I ended up with some ebay sellers from Spain, a German shop with a quite simple Kit which is more a cupboard and some UK shops with all kinds of different cabinets.
In the end I the BitCade Cyclops 2 Player Full Size Cabinet Kit caught my attention. Via Arcade World UK it was even available at a discount and surplus different kinds of Artwork Kits were also available.
The Star Wars Theme was an obvious option, as my son is a huge Star Wars Fan, however I thought that artwork was a bit too boring. But wait! They had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Kit as well? My son was not convinced until I loaded up the original game on our Raspberry and let him play. So son and dad came to the conclusion that it’ll be a Turtles Arcade. 😀
For me personally this is also a tribute to my deceased dad as this game will always remind me of that very joyous holiday with him. Thanks Dad!
Alright so placing an order for an Arcade Cab Kit and artwork should be easy? Not when the whole of Europe is battling with the UK over planned or unplanned Brexit. If the Brexit would happen during the waiting time for the cab to arrive, it could get stuck in customs or even additional import taxes (20%?) would possibly arise. We risked it and in late April the kit arrived, well protected in a wooden box containing the side panels and a big box will all the other stuff. Button and Sticks were ordered in advance via Arcade World UK and were thorougly inspected.