The most popular retro gaming project? Gotta be the DIY arcade console—an all-in-one gamer’s paradise that can replicate hundreds of vintage video games from stand-up arcade machines, home consoles, and PC titles from the 2000s back to 8-bit classics of the 1970s and 80s.
Most makers start with a Raspberry Pi mini computer running RetroPie emulation software. Built atop a full Linux OS and arcade interfaces EmulationStation and RetroArch, plus lots of open-source emulators, RetroPie runs on Pi 4 and earlier models and can reproduce 50+ vintage consoles and PCs from Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Apple, Commodore, and many more. Just add vintage controllers or a keyboard. Popular alternative arcade OSes include Recalbox and its offshoot Batocera — good for beginners.
(Note that the new Pi 5 can emulate 5th- and 6th-gen consoles like Wii, GBA, and Dreamcast. RetroPie hasn’t caught up yet, but you can install separate emulators; K.G. Orphanides wrote a great guide at magpi.raspberrypi.com.
Arcade games work differently than console emulation, so choose your arcade-specific emulator (MAME or FinalBurn), then download ROM files of your desired games. Get started with the tutorial at retropie.org.uk.
To build a real arcade machine, get an arcade controller board like Pimoroni’s Picade X Hat or Adafruit’s Arcade Bonnet (both with a 3W amp for a speaker), or PetRockBlock’s ControlBoard or Ultimarc’s I-PAC (without). Then plug in your heavy-duty arcade buttons and analog joysticks. Try Adafruit, Pimoroni, Ultimarc, and The Geek Pub, or Amazon stores EasyGet and EG Starts.
Here are some favorite DIY arcade builds, from full-size Pi machines to tiny Arduino kits.
Full Size Vertical
1. Easy Arcade Cabinet
by University of Idaho Tech Club
Straightforward and serviceable, this 2-player stand-up cabinet has a hidden keyboard/mouse drawer for those PC games too. Dimension drawings are provided, and the edges are even finished with arcade-accurate plastic T-molding.
2. Retro Arcade Cabinet
by Bob Clagett
With today’s tiny electronics and flat screens, a full-size cabinet is mostly empty space. YouTube legend Bob Clagett took full advantage and designed this one with hidden storage shelves and drawers, plus extras like a light-up marquee, vinyl graphics, and a proximity sensor and Arduino to drive automatic RGB LED lighting. It’s inspirational and super well documented, and he’ll sell you his plans for $22.
Bartop
3. 2-Player Bartop Arcade Machine
by Tom Rolfe
More than 150 people have shared their builds of this popular DIY cabinet with a 19″ screen. Designer Tom Rolfe provides a parts list, dimension drawings, printable templates, even a list of other helpful arcade tutorials. A great place to start.
4. Picade Kit
by Pimoroni
Beautiful 1-player bartop kit includes cabinet and a 10″ display, buttons, joystick, and Picade X Hat controller that stacks onto your Pi 4.
Mini
5. Galagino
by Till Harbaum
This clever DIY project has ported Pac-Man, Galaga, and Donkey Kong to run on an inexpensive ESP32 microcontroller and 2.8″ color TFT LCD display (320×240); contributors have added Dig Dug and Frogger too. Grab the vectors for a laser-cut cabinet at the GitHub repo, or try John Bradnam’s 3D-printed version at hackster.io.
6. Cupcade Rev 3
by Adafruit
This cute RetroPie-based kit comes with literally everything but the Pi. You get a cool mini joystick and mini arcade buttons, Arcade Bonnet board, laser-cut cabinet panels, and a nice 2.8″ color PiTFT Plus touchscreen (320×240) to mirror the Pi’s HDMI output. It’s a full retrogaming system in a very small package, supported by Adafruit’s excellent build instructions and tutorials.
Micro
7. Microcade
by Jack Daly
A brilliant kit made entirely of PCB! You solder the 0.96″ monochrome OLED display (128×64), speaker, and LED to the main board, then snap off the PCB panels to assemble your micro arcade machine, based on an 8-bit Microchip ATmega32U4. Enjoy 30+ games from the Arduboy and Pokkito communities, including Choplifter — wow I used to load that off a cassette drive in 1983! — and online tutorials for coding your own.
8. Tiny Arcade
by Tiny Circuits
This no-solder kit gives you a playable palm-sized vertical machine, with a 32-bit Microchip ATSAMD21G18A and 0.96″ color OLED (96×64). It’s not an emulator but an open-source platform where makers develop games in Arduino. There’s a great tutorial and dozens of free games, including analogs of Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Flappy Bird. And it’s the tiniest we’ve seen!
This article appeared in Make: Volume 89.
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