Gamer Builds a Wall Hung Arcade Cabinet Limited to Ten Concrete Cartridge Games

Asger reached a point where digital game libraries stopped helping him play and started delaying it. Hundreds of titles sat behind menus, so choosing one required scrolling, second-guessing, and more scrolling. Childhood cartridges had worked differently. A glance at a few plastic cases settled the decision before any screen lit up.

He set out to restore that speed by shrinking the collection to ten games and giving each one a physical form again. The finished machine is essentially a wall-mounted cabinet that can only hold ten items. Plug in a cartridge and the game begins immediately. When you pull it out, the game will stop. There is no other screen clutter.

Each game begins with a standard concrete block being inserted into a mold created by a 3D printer. Once set, an NFC sticker is hidden away under a bit of felt underneath to give it some weight and make it easier to hold. When you drop the block into the cabinet, it clicks into place. The cabinet has an NFC reader inside, which detects the tag and immediately runs the matching game via a Raspberry Pi running Batocera and Zaparoo. When you rip the cartridge out, the game ends and the next block appears.

The build employed largely items that were already laying around the house, such as old kitchen worktops for the front panels and spare cabinet doors for the sides. To keep things low-key, Asger simply mimicked the style of several wall-mounted cabinets created by Love Hultén, which made it appropriate for a common living room. After making room for the speakers, he cut a single long slit across the panels to ensure they matched, added 3D printed trim to disguise the joints, and used the same printer to create speaker covers, a coin button, and block molds.

The speakers themselves were inexpensive but required some TLC because they had fallen apart during installation, which was easily fixed with a simple soldering job. When you first switch on the machine, a short splash screen occurs. The coin button handles the familiar step of adding credits before start. Games mix short high-score sessions with longer single-player runs and titles that support two players at the controls. Examples that appear in the finished cabinet include Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and DOOM. Asger keeps the full list private for now and asks viewers for suggestions of their own.