This Special Edition Arduboy Has a Delightful Cassette Tape-Style Design

If you’re into homebrew eight-bit gaming, the Arduboy is arguably the best platform out there. Thanks to its low cost and charm, it has seen substantial adoption by enthusiasts. That adoption has led to game development, which has led to even more adoption. It is a success snowball that benefits everyone! And because Arduboy is open-source, adventurous makers can create their own unique consoles with fun new features. That’s certainly the case with this custom ‘Press Play on Tape” Arduboy that looks like a psychedelic cassette tape.

To help foster new development, Arduboy hosts the FX Game Jam. This past year, the winner was the Press Play on Tape dev team (not to be confused with the Danish bitpop band of the same name). They made Prince of Arabia, which is an impressive game inspired by the classic Prince of Persia game released for the Apple II back in 1989 (later ported to every other computer and console on the planet). Prince of Arabia really squeezes as much as possible out of the limited Arduboy FX hardware. It is obvious why it won the Game Jam and you can see that for yourself by playing it through the online emulator.

To reward the team, Kevin Bates (creator of the Arduboy) built this special edition console. It looks like a cassette tape that was left in the pocket of a jacket someone was tie-dying. It appears that Bates took advantage of full-color PCB graphics printing services that PCB fabricators have recently started offering. It looks awesome.

Under the hood, this is mostly an Arduboy Mini. But it does also have some interesting upgrades, including RGB LEDs (controllable by the user), an infrared LED for IR-blasting functionality, an RTC (Real-Time Clock) that doesn’t yet have a purpose, and I2C over USB-C for a link cable that enables multiplayer gaming. It also has capacitive touch buttons instead of the Arduboy Mini’s tactile buttons. We’re hesitant to call that an “upgrade,” but it definitely looks better on this special edition design.

Bates was originally planning to make one-off devices just for the Press Play on Tape team, but he may end up selling a very limited quantity as special edition devices, because the response from the community has been so positive. Keep an eye on the Arduboy website and Bates’s YouTube channel if you want a chance at being one of the lucky few that gets to purchase one.