Kevin Bates by no means even imagined he’d be making the identical tiny handheld without end. 9 years have passed by since his unique Arduboy quietly slipped into pockets like a sneaky bank card, and now he’s launched the FX-C – similar wafer-thin physique, a shiny new USB-C port and only one cable to show button mashing into head-to-head battles.
Whenever you pull the FX-C out of its sleeve, you’ll discover one factor immediately: it’s 3.4mm thick and weighs solely 25 grams, with chilly stainless-steel on the again and a reasonably nice trying matte polycarb in entrance. It’s so skinny that it matches simply right into a pants pocket, nevertheless it feels sturdy sufficient to resist a number of subway tiles. The six rubber-domed buttons have a terrific click on to them – just like the previous Recreation Boy from ’88 – and the 128 x 64 OLED display screen glows vivid white, with no shades of gray and no anti-aliasing – simply sharp pixels that actually make all of the sprites pop.
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The ability comes from a tiny 180mAh lithium-polymer battery – skinny sufficient to make you marvel how on earth it’s powering something. A full cost will get you round 4-6 hours of playtime, relying on how loud the 4 channel piezo speaker is chirping. Plug the USB-C cable right into a cellphone charger and the battery will probably be full in 40 minutes – and should you overlook about it for a bit, the display screen is sensible sufficient to go darkish after 30 seconds, however nonetheless retains the battery sipping alongside to the purpose the place you possibly can nonetheless boot it up every week later.
Inside is similar ATmega32u4 chip that’s additionally in an Arduino Micro – 32KB of flash, 2.5KB of ram and now 16MB of exterior SPI flash. The additional cupboard space is dwelling to 300 neighborhood constructed video games – all fastidiously curated by Bates himself. Boot the factor up and also you’ll be introduced with a menu that scrolls via crisp cowl artwork. A number of the highlights embrace : Castlevania: Arduboy Symphony (the place you get to whip your method via 40 screens), Hole Seeker (an countless runner with one button wall jumps), TeenyTank (artillery battles that now truly occur in actual time in opposition to a good friend), and Mystic Lantern (an 8-bit Zelda clone with 50 rooms and boss keys). Each recreation masses in half a second, and should you maintain Left + Proper + A on the menu to delete you’ll be left with a clean canvas to create your personal sketches.
The USB-C cable accommodates 4 additional wires that talk with I²C at 400 kHz, enabling multiplayer performance. Plug in two FX-C items (it’s possible you’ll use any Thunderbolt 3 connection for this), and a “Hyperlink” image will seem. Presently, video games like TeenyTank, MicroCheckers, Pace Snake and a co-op mod of Catacombs of the Damned are all multiplayer prepared, and neighborhood coders already have one other 20 titles up on the discussion board, with leaderboards saved proper on the units themselves.
The dangerous information is that the Founder’s Version, which has purple buttons and a laser etched serial quantity 001-500, prices $99 direct from arduboy.com. The traditional green-button mannequin will quickly be out there on Amazon for $89, with free Prime transport. Bates attributes the value improve to tariffs imposed on Chinese language PCBs.
