DIY CIRCUITS

Kipp Bradford assembles the XGameStation Pico at the Providence Geek Dinner.

BARE METAL GAME DESIGN

Introducing the XGameStation Pico.

By Brian Jepson and Kipp Bradford

André LaMothe’s creations have a neo-retro bent that’s hard to resist. Combining the sensibilities of game systems from 20 years ago with the DIY appeal of a microcontroller board, LaMothe’s XGameStation Micro — a compact video game hardware kit — gave hobbyists the opportunity to write games that are closer to the bare metal than most programmers have been in decades.

Photography by Brian Jepson

The XGameStation Pico Edition 2.0 (makezine. com/xgamestation) takes you even closer. Modern game programming environments use collections of code libraries and high-level design tools to hide the complexity of the hardware from programmers. The Pico lets you duplicate the experience of writing games for a retro system like the Atari 2600; hardware and software fuse into a single platform, and in pushing the limits of that platform, you chal-

lenge yourself to come up with creative hacks that you would never need on today’s ultra-powerful systems. Want to draw something on the screen? You’ll have to understand something about video signaling first.

You shouldn’t be intimidated by generating your own TV signal, because the Pico’s accompanying CD-ROM includes a PDF version of LaMothe’s Design Your Own Game Console, with more than 100 pages of new material devoted to the Pico. As you make your way through this book, you’ll not only learn how to program the Pico, you’ll also learn a lot about how sound and video are generated.

Unlike the Micro, you’ll need to assemble the Pico Edition yourself, using the included components (building the Pico is also covered in the PDF). This can be as easy or as hard as you want,

Make: 137