Done! Now let's play it!

We did it! The Winnitron NYC is complete and ready to be played! The cabinet debuted at the No Quarter event alongside Horka by Ramiro Corbetta, A Good Player is Hard to Find by Charley Miller, At a Distance by Terry Cavanagh and Clock by Luke O'Connor. We were really excited to be part of the event and all the people at NYU were really supportive and helpful. The cabinet is going to live at the NYU Game Center until the middle of June where it will be exhibited with the other No Quarter games and then it will be moved to the basement where it will be part of the Archival Video Games Library. You will be able to go there from 9-5 on the weekdays and play it. If you want to hear more about the locations that it will be available to play outside of the game center then keep checking in here or watch the New York section of the Winnitron site. We are going to keep searching around for great places to have the cabinet all over NYC. We want to try to get the cabinet out to as many events as possible so if you have a game related event and want to borrow the cabinet just let us know and we can make arrangements. As always, if you are interested in being involved in any way just let us know by commenting below... or if you know of a good place to keep the cabinet that we might not have thought of.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The Winntron NYC project is Woody Fentress, Alex Krasij, Onis Castenada and of course the Bit Collective.

The Winnitron NYC will be unveiled in two days at....

NO QUARTER, MAY 12TH, NYU GAME CENTER

Getting close!

Oh wow, what a busy weekend we just had! Alex came down with the computer and monitor so we mounted it all in the cabinet and set up the software... but before all that we had to test it by playing some games!

Here we have the monitor sitting on a chair. We played looking through the back of the cabinet.

Next we mounted the monitor in the cabinet and shoved the computer and everything in there. The next day we had a show at the house so it was a perfect testing ground for the cabinet to make sure everything was working correctly.

People at the show loved the cabinet and gave the thumbs up on  the controls and the design. Thanks playtesters.

It was the first time we were actually able to have all three cabinets in the house running games at the same time, which was a really great feeling! The next morning I woke up early and got the cabinet and hardware loaded in to the van to take up to New York.

On the road with the cabinet in the back!

Look Winnitron, there's New York

So once I made it in to the city and over to NYU we got the cabinet all loaded in and stored away until their May 12th No Quarter event where the cabinet will be unveiled along with some really rad New York-centric indie games! It should be rad and we are really happy that NYU is as stoked as we are.

Well the marquee and attract mode are getting their finishing touches as I type this. So check back after the 12th to see photos from the event with the finished cabinet! If you are in the New York area on the 12th you should definitely be at the No Quarter event.

See you there!

We can rebuild it and make it awesomer

I was waiting until I could get that video up in the last post before putting this up but shit is moving quickly over here. Also, it looks like Alex is coming down to Philly next weekend 15th and 16th to meet me (Woody) and finish everything for the cabinet that we don't have done. With that I bring you a look in to the world of receiving packages and doing awesome things with their contents.

So a few days ago we got some mysterious packages in the mail.

I was stoked to look inside and see my beautiful buttons and joysticks!

Well I guess you now know that we ordered YELLOW JOYSTICKS! Yes, they look amazing! I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what sort of button color combination would be best suited for the control panel and I think I was able to get it right. What do you think?

This picture came out a bit weird because of all the light sources but yellows are actually the same shade of yellow as the sticks and match that yellow on the control panel really well.

So, after all this was said and done the next day we got another set of packages! It's starting to feel like the Christmas when I was a kid and asked for a ton of video games and none of my family members coordinated to make sure that I also got stuff that I needed like clothes and I got only video games! So what could be in this one?

Well it looks like we have the IPAC2 and enough wire to rig all the buttons on all my arcade cabinets twice over. So I got to work and started rigging up all the buttons and switches. Then I ran it all in to the IPAC2 to get it ready for the computer it will soon be coupled with.

Here it is all rigged up and ready to go!

I also got the tmolding installed but that I will try to save until the final shots once it is completely built. I think once everything is done it is going to look rad. So what do you think of the colors as they are starting to come together? Let us know in the comments. And, as always, if you are interested in getting involved with the project just let us know by commenting.

Arcade surgery

Check this out! The Winnitron NYC is one step closer to being done!

This isn't the most exciting video on the planet. Hope you like it though.

As before, if you are interested in getting involved at all with the project just leave a comment below.

Keep checking in!

For some reason this shot didn't make it in to the video but here is everything that came out of the cabinet once it was all over. Too bad none of this isn't really worth anything by itself.

Welcome to the build log!

Well here we are! It has been a crazy past few weeks trying to get everything lined up to start the first stages of building the Winnitron NYC. I wanted to try to cover everything that has happened so far. Alex went to GDC this year, I was unable to go, and while there he played the Winnitron1000 and instantly knew that the indie games scene in NYC needed one of these things. The scene in New York is really strong and tightly knit.

When Alex contacted me asking if I wanted to help out with a Winnitron cabinet I got super stoked and started immediately trying to find cabinets online. This unfortunately was a bust since everything was either in full working order and thus hundreds over what we wanted to spend or wasn't really in the design we were looking for.

PAXeast was coming up so I decided to go up just to hang out and meet some friends. At PAX the American Classic Arcade Museum had an amazing classic arcade set up. We hung out in there a bunch to get some ideas for cool cabinet designs. On the way out we let them know what we were doing with the Winnitron and they thought it was cool so they got the head of the ACAM to come and talk to us. His name is Gary and he is the nicest dude in the world. He told us so much about classic arcade games and gave us some tips on what to look for, what not to look for and how to make sure we don't piss off too many collectors by gutting the wrong cabinets. He really loved the idea of the Winnitron and so we exchanged information. Since he runs the largest classic arcade in the world I figured he would be a good person to be in contact with! So back at home a couple days later I went in to my local arcade to see if I could shoot the shit with any of the owners or see if they had any busted cabinets they might want to give up. One of the guys in there said that they get 90% of their older stuff from auctions and that I should look in to it. At home I started to pull up some auctions and lo and behold there was one happening the next day at 8 am about 2 and a half hours from my house! I called up my friend, we rented a Uhaul van and went up.

Too many games!

It was really amazing, there were probably over 250 different arcade games from all eras. Most working, some not and some really out there stuff too. Since it was an "amusements" auction in addition to having arcade games they also had pinball, racing games, jukeboxes, gambling machines, pool tables, dancing games, claw games with stuffed animals and all sorts of other crazy shit. So we ended up having to wait about 4 hours for them to get to the bidding on the actual arcade games but it was worth the wait because we just got to play a ton of cool games. We ended up bidding on 6 different cabinets and walking out of there with 3. A Tekken 2 that  is in some old Atari cabinet from '82. A Twin Eagle II cabinet and a Zero Gunner that was put in some old '85 cabinet that looks really cool. We got our cabinets all wrapped up and barely shoved in the van almost literally by a couple of inches and took them home. It was really cool to have three working arcade cabinets in my house for a little while but the Zero Gunner has accepted it's fate. I almost feel bad taking out their hearts and replacing them with Winnitron awesomeness.... almost!

Well we want to get our cabinet done really soon and up to NYC so we are going to be working on in pretty much any free seconds that we have. In the last couple of days I have ordered buttons, joysticks and tmolding. The colors on all of those is a surprise! Also we ordered an ipac2 and hundreds of feet of wire, probably enough from 3 cabinets worth! So far the Bit Collective guys have been extremely helpful and quick to answer our questions. These next few days are going to have a ton of updates so please keep in contact with us and let us know if you want to help out by leaving comments below. 

On a side note, the American Classic Arcade Museum is doing a fundraiser at their website and every donation to them helps to keep their classic games in tip top shape. They are a non profit and every couple of bucks helps out! Check it out here!