Centipede 1/6 Replica Kickstarter


Jumpman said:
Yeah, I'll probably grab this as a collectible, and showing of support, as this is pretty cool. I agree with all the issues stated here, as I really don't know how well that trackball will function in the end. But lets be honest, on that small screen with perfect controls, how good would anyone be anyways? Centipede is probably one of the busiest coin-ops of the era, and that small screen isn't going to do any favors here for sure.
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Judging by him playing in the video, if they can make that scroll-wheel smoother, it may play rather well - he glitched a bit, but it seemed to generally go in the direction he wanted.

As for the screen size, don't forget today's dot pitches. And it's not much smaller than if you were to play Centipede in portrait on the Pandora's landscape screen - or maybe it's actually bigger.

I personally hope this thing ends up being hackable to put more roms on it. I love the Centipede side art (as you can tell from my current avatar) but in practice I'd just as well enjoy a game of Missile Command. Then the could make units with 4-way (Lode Runner) and 8-way (Gradius) controllers (not sure how at that scale and making it still usable though), and maybe a spinner for Tempest and I'd be sorted.
 
Pity these use the NES versions as they are very reasonably priced.


 
Well as someone who has built micro arcades, $90 is an absolute bargain. Especially considering the effort put in to the details and them probably needing to make custom components for it.
 
Yeah, NES-onna-chip chips are still ten a penny, and making a board that'll run linux or android still isn't quite as cheap and easy (just the pin pitch of an ARM chip means making a PCB is not super-cheap, and you need some software chops to get it running anything and to boot up the emulator off the bat. To make a NES-onna-chip based famiclone you apparently just order a board that has the SoC directly etched onto the board under a little epoxy blob, and you just need to add a few thru-hole resistors, ceramic caps and a system clock crystal, and then wire a rom board to it.
 
Well, I jumped in on the last $90 model this morning. I had been keeping an eye on stock levels, and debating if I wanted to get it or not, and this morning it showed 1 left, so I grabbed it. Shipping was brutal at $25, so the total was $115. I wasn't expecting that, but I have 8 days to change my mind, so I may cancel.

This does look cool, and being an old school arcade guy, I really would like to see more offerings in the future. So I support projects like this when and where I can. I'll of course report back on quality if I keep my order, and if and when these ever ship. LOL

Chris
 
Jumpman said:
Well, I jumped in on the last $90 model this morning. I had been keeping an eye on stock levels, and debating if I wanted to get it or not, and this morning it showed 1 left, so I grabbed it. Shipping was brutal at $25, so the total was $115. I wasn't expecting that, but I have 8 days to change my mind, so I may cancel.
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Nice one :)

Basic rule of Kickstarter is never back any amount of money that you can't afford to lose, and don't forget about the customs charges, if they apply to your region. I've known someone hit for £300 for customs before (it was basically a log - or martial arts training dummy)

I have faith they will ship (but that's happened to be once before with a company that fell at the final hurdle), and their updates are promising, although the quality of the actual final products is what I'm most interested in.
 
ClockworkCoder said:
Nice one :)

Basic rule of Kickstarter is never back any amount of money that you can't afford to lose, and don't forget about the customs charges, if they apply to your region. I've known someone hit for £300 for customs before (it was basically a log - or martial arts training dummy)

I have faith they will ship (but that's happened to be once before with a company that fell at the final hurdle), and their updates are promising, although the quality of the actual final products is what I'm most interested in.
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Yeah, I gave to the ICP2 at the higher pledge amount, so I'm as cautious as anyone at this point in regards to crowdfunding. LOL I still have a sizable credit thru Link's shop for the Pyra because of it, but the Pyra needs to ship, and be received well enough before I can even take advantage of that credit. So hopefully those funds aren't gone, but I'm a good either way, as I gave to support the community at the time.

As for any fees, the company producing the Replicade, is one state over from me, so I could probably get cheaper shipping if I reached out to them. As it will cost way less to ship to me, than someone on the east coast, but I sale online myself, and know how much shipping can be. So as long as it's packaged well, I'll be cool with the cost. And since I do ship items on a regular basis, I know how bad those fees can be in other countries, so I could see how someone may pass on this because of it.

While we have our share of problems here in the states, shipping fees, taxes, etc aren't any of them. I've been importing items since high school in the late 80's, and I have never once been charged a dime for getting anything from others countries. But it is something I deal with almost weekly in regards to customers, as I try my best to make things cheaper for them on their side of the equation. It really is obscene how much some of those fees can be, and I'm super glad I never have to pay them. LOL

Chris
 
Jumpman said:
Well, I jumped in on the last $90 model this morning. I had been keeping an eye on stock levels, and debating if I wanted to get it or not, and this morning it showed 1 left, so I grabbed it. Shipping was brutal at $25, so the total was $115. I wasn't expecting that, but I have 8 days to change my mind, so I may cancel.

This does look cool, and being an old school arcade guy, I really would like to see more offerings in the future. So I support projects like this when and where I can. I'll of course report back on quality if I keep my order, and if and when these ever ship. LOL

Chris
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Good one, let us know what it's like when you finally get it
 
Hellfleck said:
very tempting actually but I already have on of these : https://www.dragonbox.de/de/569-picade-raspberry-pi-4260416651784.html which has very nice controls (no trackball though) and would probably put the centipede somewhere and never play it :( ... I somehow remember having more time for things back in the times :(
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The Picade is awesome, and I love how hackable they are :) I have an overclocked Pi3, Senwa controls, and added power button on mine.

With the Centipede Model, I believe its value is more ornamental than practical, although games like Centipede absolutely should be played with a trackball imo.
 
vcoleiro1 said:
Good one, let us know what it's like when you finally get it
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They have a pretty detailed list of what they are supposed to be doing along the way, so we'll see if they stick to that or not. My most accurate crowdfunding releases have been mostly with publications. While electronics or games have normally been way off(not all, but most). Shipping is supposed to start in April next year, so whenever I get updates along the way, I'll post them here so we can all enjoy the ride. LOL

Chris
 
Well, well, well it has finally arrived, and I'm pretty impressed to say the least. Here are my impressions, so enjoy............

I must say, this is damn nice, and about 30 years over due. LOL This is what I dreamed of as a kid, when Coleco offered their tabletop line-up of games back in the early 80's(which retailed for about what I paid for this). Everything is so detailed, even down to the mini tokens they include to add credits. Sadly, I don't see anyone setting any world records on this thing due to the size, but it is more than functional. I don't know that these fine details will be appreciated by the masses, but I think this hit the mark and then some. My son probably wouldn't see much difference between this, and the little myarcade cabs that are at Walmart for 15-20 bucks. If anyone grew up playing Centipede in the arcades, you'll feel right at home on this replicade.

Now, on to the price, at $160 I don't know if I can recommend this to anyone but the most diehard of collectors, but mine was around $90 through KS($115 shipped), so I'm not complaining. I think $100 should really be the top of the line on price, as this is half of what those new mini full size "short" cabs cost at $300. And while those I believe have 4 games, it is a full type arcade experience(although smaller). This is a novelty at best, but damn it's so F'ing cool, I really can't get over how amazing this is. I'm really looking forward to Tempest now, although I do own a full size coin-op for that one(which is in storage in my garage at the moment). My biggest issue with any forms of Tempest, are the vector graphics, and without the proper monitor, most options fall way short(that's why I own a machine). So after seeing Centipede, I'm more hopeful on future projects, but they are for sure going to have to pick the right games, as not everything is going to be good in this form.

I would love to see Frogger, as that would be a very playable game, on top of being very functional at this size. I really don't see that Street Fighter 2 being playable or even enjoyable(New Wave Toys 3rd announced game), due to the size, but there are many games that would work great with this smaller footprint. Ms Pac-Man would be another really nice offering. Well, anyway, to close, I really do like this a lot and while I don't think I may have bought this at $160. I will say that if I had, I would not have been disappointed, as this thing is just what it should have been, with no corners cut(as promised). BTW, New Wave Toys is offering a 10% off launch week special on their site, which should have expired this past Sunday, but looks to have been extended to the 30th. https://newwavetoys.com

Here's a video(not mine), showing the finished product........

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxtVxyWk3_E&t=1s

Chris
 
ClockworkCoder said:
I'm really looking forward to getting mine. I think international shipments have been delayed for some reason though.
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Yeah, here is their comments on that from 6 days ago........

"Hey all,

Apologies for the delayed response. Many of our Non-US backers have been asking why they have not received their tracking numbers yet so we wanted to update you with what is going on.

We have been experiencing some issues shipping out our international orders (non United States) from our factory. We had to change fulfillment vendors at the 11th hour delaying those deliveries.

We're truly sorry and we appreciate your continued patience while we sort it out. We will have more information soon.

New Wave Toys"

Hopefully, all international orders are boxed the same as the US ones, as it was pretty good. My shipping box arrive with a dented corner, and I feared the worst, but the actual device box was in a smaller box within the bigger box, so it arrived in perfect shape.

Chris
 
Just curios, are you gonna to actually play with it, or you got it for the shelf ?
 
PowerGod said:
Just curios, are you gonna to actually play with it, or you got it for the shelf ?
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Well, for this title, more than likely just on the shelf, with an occasional romp every now and again. As I stated, the controls are functional, but not really ideal, but with some practice, someone could probably become pretty good. I actually have a full sized trackball controller, and if I really wanted to play, I would probably use that with Mame. The issue with the trackball here, is that you can't really "spin" it, for fast moves from place to place(which might not work that well due to the smaller screen size). Don't get me wrong, the trackball functions, just not in the exact way the arcade did, but I expected that, so no surprise. I expect Tempest to function in the same manner, as the rotary dial will allow for analog rotations, I'm not expecting it to have an actual "spin" like the arcade did. I'm expecting SF2 CE to not even reach these levels of use, but time will tell.

Based on the shadow cabs of upcoming possibilities on New Wave's site, it looks like Dragon's Lair could be the forth game(I'm sure if licensing is worked out etc), and I would for sure play that. As I would a Frogger, Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man ect. It all comes down to if this mini cab and mini controls can function at the same level as the arcade, and if not, how far does it miss the mark? Centipede and Tempest have never really had these types of mini cabs made due to their unique control schemes, and what's done here(at least for Centipede) is beyond revolutionary, and is a big part of what makes this cool.

Chris
 
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