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Arduino Gaming: Not So Retro Any More

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-and-shiny dept.

beckman101 writes "Two years ago the Gameduino brought retro-style gaming to the Arduino. This week its successor launched on Kickstarter, still fully open-source but with a video that shows it running some contemporary-looking demos. Plus, it has a touch screen and a pretty decent 3-axis accelerometer. Farewell to the retro?"

6 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. no by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    so I'm seeing Super Nintendo / Game cube quality graphics there... so no, it's still retro.

    1. Re:no by AC-x · · Score: 3

      Damn, when did Gamecube become "retro"? Am I really that old?

  2. I just do not understand the market for this by wbr1 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I understand the market for the Pi, arduino, et al. But this is pre-built, and presumably the dev environment is nothing portable outside its own very limited eco system. Sure you have all the IO of the arduino for toying with novel ways of having game input, but that is about it.

    Now lets compare it with android. Available cheap, yes. Available with large screens, yes, available in variety's that have pretty durn snappy CPU/GPU combos, yes, large market base, yes, IO (USB, bluetooth, and even NFC, yes, robust dev tools and libraries, yes.

    Please don't misunderstand me, I like the concept, but fail to see the utility. If I want to play games, my Optimus G plays better ones than this (which still looks retro! Frogger? Space invaders? Simple platformers?), and I can emulate to play whatever retro stuff I want. If I want to develop games, I have all the tools necessary as well.

    Can anyone give me some really feasible use cases for this?

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
    1. Re:I just do not understand the market for this by LoRdTAW · · Score: 2

      The Gameduino is for the game developer and not the gamer. Gamers aren't going to run out and buy an arduino along with a gameduino and play a game. Working in a memory and CPU constrained programming environment challenges the developer to be more efficient and optimize code. Whereas with a PC, Android or iOS system you have plenty of RAM, storage and graphics capability so you can be pretty sloppy in your code and get away with it.

  3. Re:Crowded market by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    It's not really a 'GPU' at all in the current sense of term(Do modern 'GPU's even do hardware sprites anymore, or do they just treat them as special, particularly flat, cases of textured polygons?); but if you are into the retro aesthetic and design style/limitations, a chip that does high-speed sprite jockeying is probably going to make you a lot happier than any of the 'Yup, just another OpenGL ES GPU that your desktop would stomp on; but which is so powerful that you would have sold your soul for it back when GLQuake came out...' GPUs that get mated with ARM SoCs these days.

  4. Re:Process by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    The Dyson ones where you stick you hands in the slot and then draw them out slowly as they are irradiated seem to work pretty well, except your fingernails fall off.

    No, that last part is kidding. They work pretty well and the radiation is in my head.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.