A homemade arcade cabinet starts a game when a rectangular concrete cartridge is inserted. The cartridge does not contain the game itself: an NFC sticker provides an ID that tells the cabinet which game to launch from its internal computer.
Maker Asger Kjærholm cast the concrete cartridges using 3D-printed molds. He also built a wooden cabinet with a cartridge slot and a drawer for storing the blocks.
Each concrete cartridge contains little more than an ID, but you still have to slot a solid block into the machine to pick a game. That's a remarkably literal way to give digital games some weight.
Four old rotary telephones become a reflex game. One rings at random, and the player must pick up the correct handset within one second. Answer the wrong phone or miss the deadline and the game is over.
The Tōhō Electronics Club built the game, called 'Nostalgic Rotary Phone Whack-a-Mole.' An Arduino and relays choose which phone rings. The team also built circuitry to generate the 75 V, 16 Hz signal needed to ring the bells and detects when a handset is lifted through a change in resistance.
Answering a ringing phone is normally an everyday action. Give it a one-second time limit and four possible receivers, and suddenly it's a reflex sport.
Brux built a working miniature bowling alley inspired by Wii Sports. Three lanes reset their own pins and return the balls. The lanes can also feature walls, ramps and a loop-the-loop. Gears and linkages power the mechanism, with many parts 3D-printed.
Turning video-game bowling into a physical game means building the pin-resetting machinery too. And adding a loop-the-loop.
Nick Bild built the µTari Go, a handheld Atari 2600 that uses the original console's circuitry rather than emulation. It has a built-in four-inch CRT, controls, speaker and a slot for original Atari 2600 cartridges.
The components fit inside a 3D-printed enclosure. The device uses an external 12-volt power supply rather than an internal battery.
To make a handheld console, the maker chose a CRT instead of an LCD. It fits in your hands, but the power cable still has to come along.
Each concrete cartridge contains little more than an ID, but you still have to slot a solid block into the machine to pick a game. That's a remarkably literal way to give digital games some weight.