Category Archives: Recreating the Coleco Tabletop Arcade

Taking things to the next level, Sergio is working to replicate the famous Game and Watch Tabletop games. Famous for games like Mario’s Cement Factory and Coleco’s Donkey Kong Jr., they’re like no other. Sergio will have to completely model the shell from scratch though. The game will be powered by a raspberry pi and play many of the old Game and Watch tabletop games!

Recreating the Coleco Tabletop Arcade

Finished Coleco Sky Skipper Tabletop Replica

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Another project is finished! This one is meant to mimic the Coleco Tabletop Donkey Kong Jr. game (which itself is mimicking the Game and Watch Tabletop games from Nintendo). It’s time to see the Coleco Sky Skipper!

Funny enough, this is actual my first build using a Raspberry Pi. Be sure to read all my other posts for some of the introduction stuff to that.

Painting and Theme Picking

After finalizing my 3D digital design and getting my shell 3D printed it was time to paint this bad boy! I’ve been keeping it on the down low but now it’s time to reveal my theme…

Sky Skipper

How and why did I pick sky skipper? Well, this game will most replicate the Donkey Kong Jr game by Coleco, which meant it had to be Nintendo. I didn’t want it to be a Nintendo game that Coleco had already published of course (eliminating DK, DK Jr.). I didn’t want it to be a Nintendo game that their Game and Watch series covered either (eliminating Popeye, Mario Bros, and many more).

I also needed it to be a game that the older versions of MAME on Raspberry Pi could play. I wouldn’t be programming a custom game for this one.

Skyskipper was one of the few choices left! It’s horizontal, by Nintendo, and neither Coleco or Nintendo ever made a handheld version of it. It’s also playable in MAME 0.78

The original Skyskipper cabinets are Donkey Kong blue so I found a spray paint that’s very similar. The rest of the pieces are black.

Coleco Sky Skipper Artwork

The Coleco tabletop game actually has a fair amount of artwork on it, so I went the same route. I knew I’d want sideart, top bezel, bottom bezel, and control panel overlay. I used inspiration from the original cabinet as best I could.

This artwork is not widely available, since there is only one original cabinet left (and two rebuilt ones). That meant working from low rez photographs. That’s okay though – it’s small and the artwork on these machines was relatively simple.

I had the artwork printed by BYOAC forum member SlammedNiss. He has done all my miniature build artwork and it always comes out looking great and on high-quality material.

Putting in the Hardware

The pi fits nicely in the bottom of the shell on some standoffs. My Adafruit Arcade Bonnet mounts on top of that. There’s only one exterior port (USB for power) which leads to the back. A speaker attaches to the bonnet. The LCD screen is actually mounted upside down (and then rotated in software) so that the ribbon cable bends nicely to the back where it connects to the HDMI decoder. This way I can mount the decoder to the back of the screen with Velcro and all the ports point straight down to connect to the pi.

Software

As I’ve explained a bit in other posts, I’m running Retropie with the Emulation Station frontend. The control panel has two main action buttons and a joystick. I tossed a few other Nintendo Vs. games on there since they have the same number of buttons and such. Also, loaded up the Madrigal Simulators to play the Game and Watch games that were in these shells. The downside to these simulators is they don’t start in fullscreen, so the illusion is slightly ruined, but such is life. I have some thoughts on how to solve this in a future build I’m already working on.

Photos and Tour

See below for photos and a video tour of the Coleco Sky Skipper Tabletop!

3d Print STL Files

By popular demand, I’m sharing my .stl files for this build. I’ll warn you though – they aren’t great! It’s the first thing I’ve ever modeled so some of the tolerances are pretty tight. I don’t have much experience creating holding pins and such so you may have to sand them down a bit, bend them slightly, etc.

STL Files on Thingiverse

Recreating the Coleco Tabletop Arcade

Hardware and Wiring the Game and Watch Tabletop Replica

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For my Game and Watch Tabletop build, I’m using a Raspberry Pi, running Retropie, like all the cool kids. It works slick but there are a few issues. The older versions of MAME that that pi uses can’t play newer ROMs that have been recently added. That means all the cool handheld games recently added in the past year or two are out. Real bummer!

But, I can use Madrigal’s Simulators which do have most of the G&W Tabletop games. That’s important! MAME doesn’t yet have Coleco’s DK Jr., or Snoopy or Popeye for instance, which are all tabletop games. Those are the most important games I want to work since that’s what my cabinet will look like.

Additionally, a pi is super cheap, has plenty of support, and is so small it fits super well.

Control Interface

I was a little worried about how to get controls connected though. I prefer my controls to replicate a keyboard, I think that works best with MAME. The raspberry pi works great with USB joysticks or wireless gamepads (which are also good for libretro, the frontend/emulator interface) but they all act as gamepads – not keyboards. I could use something like a minipac, as I’ve done in other builds, but honestly that’s a little overkill for this.

That’s when I stumbled upon the arcade bonnet by Adafruit. Why do I love this thing? Let me explain. It connects directly to the pi, emulates a keyboard, has 6 inputs with easy JST connectors, an 8-joystick connection, analog joystick connection, AND has a built in mono audio amp. That really cinched the deal. Not only will it make connecting controls easy, but I won’t have to buy a separate amp – saving me both a USB connection (or the audio plug) and power.

You do have to solder the thing together a bit, but that was no problem. I also took the time to solder some of the small buttons to the JST quick connect wires. These tiny little buttons will go where the small alarm and other buttons on the tabletops were. They won’t be used in gameplay, but will have admin functions.

Recreating the Coleco Tabletop Arcade

3D Print Game and Watch Tabletop Shell

I got my 3D prints today and they really turned out quite nice! Very close to the real model, which means I must’ve done something right. I just need to make a few modifications.

The pins I’m using to hold the thing together are a little small. They work, but it’s quite difficult to handle them and I’m afraid they could pop out at any point. So, I’ll make those a little bit longer. I’m also going to add a couple more pins to prevent flexing near the back corners.

Additionally, the piece holding the screen is a little too snug – so snug it almost bends my screen. Some modifications with my dremel fixed this but I’m still going to make an update to my files.

3d Print Game and Watch Gallery

Compare my 3D printed Game and Watch Tabletop to an original below (with screen inserted, too).

Next Steps

I’ve already made these changes digitally, just have to wait for them to arrive physically. For this build, I’m planning to use a Rasberry pi and similar controls to what I’ve used in the past. I want to get all the electronics working before I try to fit them in there though. That might have to wait, I’m very close to finishing my Wreck It Ralph Coleco and will probably finish that first.

Recreating the Coleco Tabletop Arcade

Recreating the Game and Watch Tabletop

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I’m right in the middle of another project, but winter isn’t letting me finish it up (no way to paint inside). So, in the meantime, I decided to really start learning how to 3d model better. Who’s familiar with the Nintendo Game and Watch Tabletop games? The most famous is definitely Donkey Kong Jr. by Coleco

Nintendo made a bunch of others, though. Snoopy and Popeye are pretty neat. They’re all LCD games, but this tabletop games needed ambient light – otherwise you couldn’t see anything! No backlight built in.

Getting My Hands on One

First thing I had to do was get one. I scoured ebay for a long time, these things can be expensive! Eventually a bought a pretty good one though for a very reasonable price. My model is Mario’s Cement Factory.

I needed a real version so that I could 3d model it. I started by taking a profile shot, drawing that outline, and then extruding out the basic shape. Then, came hours and hours of shaping. I had never really used a 3d modeling program before so it took a long time to learn. I also needed it to be easy to take apart and assemble, so I can insert the parts.

You can see in some shots how I built in a screen holder. I’m planning to use a 4″ lcd. It will also all hold together with small 3d printed pins.

Next Steps

Even though I’ve gone full-pc for a previous miniature build, this time I’ll probably go with a Raspberry Pi. I just want this to be MAME compatible, so Windows isn’t necessary. I also have to decide on a theme. I’ve actually decided that already but saving that for a surprise!