Arduboy - Card Sized Gaming

Sixteenvolt420

TV/Video Game/Music Mod
Premium Supporter
Oct 3, 2010
4,504
Drums, PA
I thought this was pretty cool, figured i'd share it for others who may possible think the same thing.

Kickstarter Supporter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/903888394/arduboy-card-sized-gaming?ref=category




Arduboy is a new game system for classic games
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  • Brilliant OLED Display
  • 6 Soft-Touch Tactile Buttons
  • 2 Channel Piezo Speaker
  • Durable Metal & Polycarbonate Construction
  • 8+ Hour Battery Life & Rechargable
  • Fully Programmable with Arduino!
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What is Arduboy?
Arduboy is an open platform for people to play, create and share games. A game system the size of a credit card. Choose your favorite classic game from the completely free Arduboy Arcade. Built on the popular Arduino software, it’s also an excellent way to learn how to program! Because you can learn to make your own games, Arduboy is a game system the size of your imagination!

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Free Games!
Every game published on Arduboy Arcade will be free, open source and available to be edited. We have sent out over a hundred developer kits and here are a few titles the community has built and we are working on adapting to the platform:

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Special thanks to the Arduino Gaming Community!! We are proud to join the party of open source gaming started by these awesome projects that pioneered the way to make and share games!

Super Retro!
Designed to remind you of a more simple time in the world of gaming, the Arduboy brings true 8-bit gaming into the 21st century with style. The black and white screen invites you to involve your imagination once again while gaming.

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Open Source Gaming!
Anyone can make games for the Arduboy! Free online tutorials guide you through a step by step process on how to develop your own software! There are already plenty of examples to learn from. Ever wanted to create a level or map for your favorite game, or make your favorite character jump higher? Now is your chance!

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Education Kits!
We want to help you use Arduboy to teach kids how to program! What better way to engage young people in software development by giving them the power define their own game world? Children love to create, and Arduboy helps make creating games more fun and accessible than ever.

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To encourage the use of Arduboy in classrooms we are offering an education kit reward that includes 10 Arduboys at the same price as our early bird units. But that’s not all we also will provide a printed booket and free online coursework for an entire lesson plan for learning C++ on the Arduboy!

Custom Branding!
Want an Arduboy like no other? 5 lucky backers can pledge for a batch to be produced with custom laser engraved artwork on the metal back, complete with a custom game we develop for you! If you want the coolest business card on the planet or are looking for the perfect promotional item for your business then this deal is for you!

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High-Tech, Low-Cost!
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Fitting the same dimensions of a credit card (85.60×53.98 mm), the Arduboy is built to be as thin as possible yet incredibly durable. We spent an entire year working out the best way to balance thickness, durability, practicality, and cost and we are very proud of this result. At only 5mm thick, we have achieved a device that can live in your pocket (or even wallet) thinner than any mobile phone! In the future we want to work to trim this down, but that will take a lot more work and a little bit of magic!

Specs:
  • Processor: ATmega32u4 (same as Arduino Leonardo & Micro)
  • Memory: 32KB Flash, 2.5KB RAM, 1KB EEPROM
  • Connectivity: USB 2.0 w/ built in HID profile
  • Inputs: 6 momentary tactile buttons
  • Outputs: 128x64 1Bit OLED, 2 Ch. Piezo Speaker & Blinky LED
  • Battery: 180 mAh Thin-Film Lithium Polymer
  • Programming: Arduino IDE, Codebender, GCC & AVRDude
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A polycarbonate front, ultra thin circuit board, and stamped metal back gave us the ultimate combination. A rechargeable lithium polymer battery provides over 8 hours of battery life, and the same cable you use to charge can be used to upload new games!

Why Kickstarter?
We need your help to reach the final stages of manufacturing! For over a year we have been working on prototypes, learning about industrial design and manufacturing and we are finally ready to confidently say that this is a product we can produce for everyone!

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But this is more than just about making a product... we want to build a strong community around creating and sharing games. A successful campaign will help us hire more game developers and spend more time creating even more awesome games by the time we ship!

Stretch Goals!
If you help us blow past our funding goal, here are a couple rewards we will make available to everyone!

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The front cover of the Arduboy is clear polycarbonate so what gives it color is the circuit board itself. Before $50k we will produce Arduboy with a white PCB. After that we want to offer a full rainbow of colors! If we reach this goal, we will ask you in the kickstarter survey following the campaign what color you would like!

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If this campaign reaches a Quarter Million Dollars, we will unlock a limited number of Special Edition Gold Backed Arduboys! If you want to get the ultimate Arduboy, this one is for you! We will put some awesome custom laser engraving that signifies this comes directly from the Kickstarter campaign. This is the ONLY time we will ever make gold backed Arduboys!

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Thats right! If we get to the magic number of One Million Dollars - Kevin will change his name to Arduboy! This has been an incredible journey and along the way people have already started calling him by this name so let's make it official!

But realistically... that extra money is going to go to hiring extra software developers, working on the website, marketing, advertising, development of future products and all of the other things associated with growing a company... maybe Golden Arduboys?

Thank you for everything!
A year ago the original prototype Arduboy was featured on YouTube, thousands of people have emailed and commented about Arduboy. It’s only because of you and your support that we have made it this far. We hope to give back to the community as much as possible throughout this campaign and the business that continues after. Almost a year ago, the entire internet came together and showed me if you follow your dream, it’s possible to change the world. We want to give back that experience to you! So get your Arduboy today and play, make and share some awesome games!

Special thanks to the following supporters:

  • HAX for bringing me out to China and showing me how hardware is made!
  • Arduino for creating the hardware and software that taught me how to build my own electronics!
  • Adafruit for making it easy to buy and learn things to create awesome digital blinky lights!
  • Noel Joyce for helping with the industrial design
  • Bill McDonough for help with the mechanical engineering
  • Antony Bui for directing and filming the kickstarter video
  • Michael at Nootropic for creating one of the first handheld Arduino game systems out there
  • Rodot at Gamebuino for continuing to inspire me that there is a market for portable programming platforms
  • TeamARG for making some of the highest quality arduino games we have seen to date!
  • To all my friends and family for supporting me before the kickstarter!
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Who are we?
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Kevin Bates - Founder
I posted a YouTube video a circuit board the shape of a business card playing a popular falling block puzzle game and the internet went crazy for it. I left my day job making 300 foot tall 2 million dollar wind turbines to make a pocket sized game system for less than $30.

Chris Martinez - Lead Software Developer
Likes to play video games. Likes dogs. Pretty simple guy really.

Ross Shoger - Community Manager
He has run several successful Minecraft servers and knows linux better than Kevin.

Advisors:
Jeremy Gordon - Former VP of Engineering for Twitter, previously head of game studios, hardcore hacker, really smart dude.

Duncan Turner - Former designer at IDEO. Makes sure Arduboy stays sexy.

Silent Partner - 20+ Year video game design veteran. Much mystery, very secrets, so intrigue… wow.

Risks and challenges
In life, there is no reward without some risk. No pain, no gain and all that jazz. However, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Listed below are a few known challenges and risks and what we have done to mitigate them.

Component Sourcing:
When building a product comprised of multiple components, multiple vendors must be selected to provide all of the separate components. Wherever possible, we have used parts that are very common and can be manufactured by many different factories, and can be purchased in large quantities.

Design for Manufacture and Tooling:
We have spent the last year working directly with factories and changing the design to be easily produced and assembled. There is still a little more work to do in this area, but we are lucky that the Arduboy is a very simple product to produce.

Tolerances, Quality Control and Testing:
We have worked with several mechanical engineers with many years experience designing commercial products. We also have planned time to make last minute tweaks so there are no sacrifices made to quality!

Factories and Delivery Schedule:
We have pre-selected multiple factories for production of the Arduboy. We have agreed on the schedule and have already produced hundreds of developer kits to test their skills! Our schedule already accounts for the possibility of several delays and still be able to ship on time!
 
I ended up getting in being on of the first 1,000, and getting the early backer pledge. An Arduboy for $10 cheaper than normal. $29 + $5 shipping. Hope it ends up being as cool as i think it's going to be.
 
I was going to back this, but I wasn't quite sure if it was the device for me. I'll wait for reviews and more details on games that are coming out for it.