I recently finished coding my VFD style Wreck It Ralph game, so it was time to get the spinner working. Like MAME, my game detects mouse X-axis movements as a left/right spinner.

I purchased a cheap rotary encoder on amazon and got to wiring it to my minipac. This was actually really easy. The minipac already has spots to connect an actual arcade spinner and convert that to mouse movement. All I had to do was connect the appropriate wires to the encoder. I used the KY-040 encoder. It isn’t great, has very low resolution, but most importantly is the right size for my miniature build.

While it wouldn’t play many spinner games perfectly, it gets the job done. It’s more for show/fun anyway. The idea that such a small machine has a spinner in it. See a video of it in action below.

I was really quite proud of how my Coleco style Fix It Felix turned out, but there was definitely room for improvement. It was my first time making a miniature cabinet, my first time coding a game, and my first time working with 3d printed materials. I’m ready to give Wreck It Ralph his time in the spotlight.

All of those areas I know I could do better a second time. Here are some issues I’d like to improve on;

1. Have holes pre-designed into the 3d shell. For my first build, I made all the 3d printed materials solid and then drilled the holes afterwards. This was because I didn’t know exactly how big to make each hole, I hadn’t yet bought buttons or controls. That’s sort of backwards for this type of build. So, I bought controls first this time and will have the holes precut. This means less chance for rough edges or cracks.
2. A Better coded game. My Fix it Felix game worked well, actually. But the graphics weren’t fantastic. You also couldn’t change any settings – things like difficulty and speed were locked in place. I now know how to allow users to customize their settings using an import file. I also have gotten slightly better at emulating the VFD style of graphics.
3. Fitting everything in place. My cords were too long, some of my solder joints were terrible, and in general, the first cabinet is somewhat fragile. I wouldn’t actually bring it with me on a trip. I’ve learned how to better secure pretty much everything and how much wiring I need to fit.

Let’s Get Started

My next build will be a similar theme – Wreck It Ralph! I’ll be coding another new game, designing new artwork, and making a new cabinet.

The Wreck It Ralph Game

The game will be made like last time, but will be from Ralph’s point of view. You’ll be trying to knock the Nicelanders off the building. As another new challenge, I’m using a spinner for controls. In the game, Ralph only moves left or right, so a spinner seemed quite natural too me. Plus, in my “alternate history fiction” Ralph had his own full-sized game which was controlled with a spinner. I’ve also built in settings! You can customize the speed of the enemy and your shots, the sensitivity of the spinner, and add extra audio effects if you want. This was pretty much essential to use a spinner. In my testing I found out every mouse/spinner will work slightly different so having a static speed/sensitivity set in the game would work really bad. Sure, I could set it to work great in my cabinet but what if I want to give the game to a friend?

I also created all the sound effects and music in the game. I wanted to play the Wreck It Ralph theme song in attract mode, so had to recreate it in 1-bit sound. See a preview of gameplay below.

Artwork

I’ve also got a great start on the artwork already. It will look pretty familiar to Fix It Felix fans, but my game will be red color themed. I was really trying to follow Donkey Kong’s lead on this one. Think of the similarities, even more so than Felix! The game is named after the villain and has red as a major color. Donkey Kong was named after the villain and was originally meant to go in a red cabinet.