Continuing our commitment to showcasing the very best of non-profit enthusiast and homebrew gaming projects, we’re delighted to announce the return of David Brown’s homebuilt, miniature arcade cabinets. David first displayed these fantastic creations at last year’s Replay show and they received an overwhelmingly positive reaction, so he is thrilled to be bringing them along to Play Expo.
We asked David to give us more detail on how these projects came about, and he was more than welcome to share his motivation and methods.
“Hi everyone, I’m David Brown from Leeds. I’m more into PC gaming right now but Coin-ops were my first love of gaming since my teenage years. Once I’d discovered the website BYOAC.com (Build Your Own Arcade Controls) it was a logical progression that I would end up building my own projects. I build them purely for my own enjoyment as a hobby – these are not built to sell and I don’t do request builds for payment. I just enjoy getting stuck in to building them, and of course playing!”
Donkey Kong Bartop Replica
“This bartop was built in 2009 as a tribute to my all time favourite arcade game. The dimensions of an original Donkey Kong cabinet were taken and then reduced 50% with the lower half of the cabinet discarded to make it more portable. The build took approximately six weeks and now utilises a reproduction of the original Nintendo joystick for that authentic feel.”
Defender Bartop
“This was built during the Spring of 2011 using a flat-pack cabinet kit which I won at the first Replay event. The intention was not to build a replica as the kit does not exactly match the original design, but the side profile is reasonably close. I fitted a reproduction of the original Williams two way leaf joystick to try to get as close to the feel of the original as possible. This machine also plays Stargate!”
Star Wars Mini Replica
“This project was built from scratch in around six weeks during the summer of 2011. The intention was to get as close to the original Atari cabinet as possible but at 50% size. The yoke is full size however, being a reproduction unit from USA. This was the toughest of the projects I built because of the amount of detail I needed to try and copy. This machine plays both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.”
David’s machines will be part of the dedicated Homebrew Showcase at Play Expo, which will feature an array of UK and European homebrew games for retro consoles and computers as well as retro style PC games. We’ll be announcing further exhibitors within this area over the next couple of weeks.