Opera Widget Arcade

Hi, this is Desktop Team in Opera Software! Every day we work to make the web browser that (we hope) you're using faster, safer, and handier for use. But that is, of course, not the only thing we do. We have fun, too! Other departments have Wii game consoles and whatnot in their sections of the office, but hey, you can buy a Wii in a shop near you, so we decided to make something unique: the Opera Widget Arcade!

The idea is essentially to build an old-style video game machine that you might remember from the eighties: tall fancy-painted cabinet, a computer screen deep inside, joystick controls, and games with low-res graphics but thrilling gameplay. Of course, we wouldn't have one of those authentic game boards inside, but hey, in Opera we have our own platform that's quite good for games: Opera Widgets! So be it Opera Widget Arcade, an entertainment machine with 180-in-1 games and counting. Maybe we'll also run some of the video game oldies in an emulator.

For the cabinet, we decided to go for the design of the famous Galaga series and replicate the original Midway's design as closely as possible (however, the artwork will be our own). Luckily, we've found a collection of original cabinet plans of many popular video games to choose from.



Inside the cabinet, we'll have a modern computer running Opera with tons of widgets, and a special shell allowing selection of games without a keyboard. The controls will also be fancier than the ones used in the original arcade, so that we can run a wider range of games. We have some cool ideas, but you'll read about it in the oncoming posts. When the machine is ready, we'll put it in the Desktop Team lounge and have other departments buy us beer in exchange for playing! :-)

For our team, this is a teambuilding activity, so everyone is involved on some part of the project. Here we go:

• Main cabinet construction, controller mounting: Adam, George, Petter, Arjan, Patricia, Per Arne.
  
• Controller board with joysticks, buttons and wiring: Huib, Adam.
  
• Hardware: Espen, Anders.
  
• Software: Julien, Karianne, Alexander.
  
• Artwork: Petter.
  
• Photo blog: Alexey.
  
• Organization and planning: Adam, Arjan.
  

I'll be telling you about everything we do on this project, and many pictures will follow. Stay with us!