For the next 48 hours, gog.com is offering the Diablo-esque game Torchlight for FREE!!

Torchlight Game Description: A booming mining town that grew up around unbelievably rich veins of Ember, that rare ore with the power to enchant–or corrupt–everything it touches. It’s a powerful thing, and everyone knows power, well. Power can corrupt, too. You’ll set out into the nearby mountains and depths below to discover the full extent of Ember’s influence on the civilizations that have come before.

Choose from among three character classes, and venture from the safety of the town of Torchlight into randomly generated dungeon levels, with a huge variety of creepy monsters, endless variations of loot to find, and quests to complete. The endless randomization ensures that you’ll never be playing the same game twice. A fun, crunchy action-RPG, this one game that oozes style, care, and polish out of every single pixel and is a definite must to pick up if you like RPGs or just having some mindless fun.

Link: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/torchlight

Please leave a comment below if you took advantage of this free offer!

Genre(s): Action/FPS,
MMO/team-based tactical combat
Simulation/Combat

3rd Party Rating: None found.

Price: Free-to-play

Link(s): http://www.warface.com

This game is making interesting graphically because it’s built on the powerful Crytek 3 engine. It features cooperative and competitive game modes, and in the cooperative game that we tried, we found lots of variety in the gameplay, and plenty of interesting ways to disable enemies. Cooperation was also essential to winning, which should encourage team spirit online.

Take to the battlefields of the near-future in Warface and discover a new kind of FPS that offers maximum quality and instant accessibility in one explosive package.

Publisher: Tencent Holdings, Nexon, Mail.ru, Trion Worlds

Developer: Crytek Kiev

Release Date: January 17, 2013

Players: Massively multiplayer online

ERSB: Pending, but likely “M” due to it’s warfare violence.

Sample Gameplay Video(s):

Genre(s): Casual/Party,
Casual/Puzzle
Casual/Music & Dancing

3rd Party Rating: None found.

Price: Free

Link(s): http://osu.ppy.sh/

Game levels are called beatmaps. In each beatmap, a song will play and different hit elements (hit circles, sliders and spinners) will appear on the play field. Players must use a pointing device to manipulate these elements in time with the playing song’s rhythm in order to earn points. While the mouse is considered the most popular input device, combinations of mouse, Tablet PC, graphics tablet and keyboard can be utilized.

Publisher: Dean “peppy” Herbert

Developer: Dean “peppy” Herbert

Release Date: September 16, 2007

Players: Singleplayer, Multiplayer

ERSB: N/A

Sample Gameplay Video(s):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oWjc5FTwjTY/oWjc5FTwjTY?feature=player_detailpage” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

Genre(s): Simulation/Life,
Casual/Retro
Adventure/Action Adventure

3rd Party Rating: None found.

Price: Free

Link(s): http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

Description:
Sometimes games imitate life. Sometimes games can be art. Passage is both. As such, this FREE indie “game” defies categorization. Is it really even a game? If we, at Cheapskate gamer had a category called “Game Art” or “Game Performance Art”, this game would fall into that category. As it is, we’ve placed it in three categories to cover our bases, the best being “Simulation/Life”.

Apparently others agree with the idea that ‘this’ game is art. The MoMA in New York City included Passage in a video game design/art exhibit (March 2013).

This short game may not be for everyone, but you owe it to yourself to try it at least once. This art game’s many unusual features, from its prosaic storyline to its weird aspect ratio (the game runs at 100 by 16 pixels) made indie developer Jason Rohrer famous—and justifiably so.

Publisher: Jason Rohrer

Developer: Jason Rohrer

Release Date: 2007

Players: Single Player

ERSB: N/A

Sample Gameplay Video. (Entire Game. Spoilers!!):

Genre(s): Adventure/Action Adventure
Casual/Puzzle

3rd Party Rating: None found.

Price: Free

Link(s): http://www.nullpointer.co.uk/content/in-ruins/

Within the game, the walls have crumbled away , the stairs lead nowhere, and in the center is a tower containing an inviting, yet inaccessible, beacon of light.

It’s an experimental ambient experience, creating an atmosphere of loneliness as you search the island. But instead of the plodding pace typical of art-heavy exploration, here you’re free to glide along the ground and jump around like a jack rabbit.

The player is deposited on the edge of a procedurally generated island. The island consists of overgrown pathways ruined spires and broken ramparts. A central tower looms above the island beckoning the player towards it. The central tower is your goal, but it can only be reached by jumping over shafts of white light that are scattered around the island. Each one increases your jump height, allowing you to reach higher platforms and clear bigger gaps.

Complete the game and you’re given access to the map generator to create your own beautiful ruins.

Publisher: nullpointer

Developer: Tom Nullpointer & Jonny Pilcher

Release Date: August 6, 2012

Players: Single Player

ERSB: N/A

Sample Gameplay Video(s):

Genre(s): Action/Platform,
Casual/Retro

3rd Party Rating: None found.

Price: Free

Link(s): http://gamejolt.com/games/action/i-wanna-be-the-guy-gaiden/8598/

I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden is a FREE 2D retro platform game that, like it’s predecessor, loves to kill you by throwing in traps and enemies that deliver death in ways that even a psychic wouldn’t see coming. It will dare you not to rage quit. The R key gives an instant restart and you will use it often, trust me.

Maybe you can be the guy that can finish this game.

Publisher: KayinWorks

Developer: Michael “Kayin” O’Reilly

Release Date: July 19, 2012

Players: Single Player

ERSB: N/A

Sample Gameplay Video(s):

GATHERED COMPONENTS
The main reasons I decided to embark on this journey to build a full-sized arcade cabinet for home use in the first place was because A) I was an arcade fanatic, B) I had an older 22″ CRT monitor collecting dust in my basement that I knew made older arcade games look nearly as good as they did on an arcade monitor, C) I had an aging computer that was about to be replaced that would make for a good emulation computer and D) I already had some arcade controllers in my home office including a huge X-Arcade Dual Tankstick with Trackball that I used to play arcade games that were unwieldy and unsightly. Another arcade peripheral I had was a pair of Arcade Lightguns which were somewhat difficult to use in that office space. I had to do something with all that stuff!

I figured that I since I was mostly “there” with the hardware I might as well combine all these elements into one cohesive whole. I wanted to create something that could be more accessible to family members and visitors than my desktop computer emulation set-up. The full arcade experience. A stand-up cabinet just like the ones in the arcades! My boy-hood dream! Little did I know that it would take me a little over a year to realize my dream.

As it turned out, shortly after beginning the software part of the project, my designated emulation computer blew up and died. Click here for the full story. I ended up buying a somewhat newer computer for my emulation project from someone I found in the local online classified ads. This was a smarter choice anyway. I ended up with a very fast dual-core (Intel E8600), 64-bit PC running Windows 7. Plenty of memory for what I needed and a decent Nvidia video card. A much better PC than the one that blew up and good enough for my goal.

http://www.arcadecab.com
This was by far the #1 go-to site for me. Mike’s (site owner) 1st cabinet design gave me a solid idea on how to incorporate the X-Arcade Tankstick, however I ended up referring to his cabinet 2 plans for most of the finer details and descriptions. Mike was also really great about offering help via email when I really got stuck or confused. Now that I’ve completed my arcade cabinet, he’s included me in the News section here: http://www.arcadecab.com/News.htm.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com
The forums at ArcadeControls.com is an awesome site for help and support with a project like this. In fact, the entire site is devoted to arcade enthusiasts like myself all over the world. There are many threads that describe how to get things done with both software and hardware. Check out my “project announcement” thread here.

http://www.arcadeparadise.org/arcade/ap3/monitor.html
Key help with monitor and plexiglass mounting was found here. Lots of other good info to be found as well.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BuildingYourOwnArcadeCabinetForGeeksPart1TheCabinet.aspx
Scott Hanselman created an interesting read on a his cabinet conversion project. The biggest idea I gleaned from his write-up was the idea for the remote powerstrip. It turned out to be the perfect solution for turning my cabinet on and off with one simple external switch like a real arcade cabinet. Awesome.

CONSTRUCTION
Below are some photos with rambling comments on key points of construction. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version of the same. Feel free to contact me or better yet, post a comment here, if you have any questions about any section.

I was very fortunate to have a friend who owned a cabinet woodworking business. He allowed me to work on my project in his shop with all his high-end tools and machines. I started with the basic plans available from www.arcadecab.com that used the Tankstick but altered the side cut-out plan a bit because I knew I needed the monitor angle to be closer to parallel with the user so light guns games would work at an optimal level. If you’d like to download my modified side cabinet plans click here.

After cutting out the sides, I moved onto building the base. A basic mitered corner base with a shelf top and bottom boards to support the wheels. I didn’t actually attach the castor wheels until after I had finished painting the main cabinet. Rotating castor wheels were placed on the front. Straight-set wheels on the back.

Because I had raised the angle of the cabinet monitor face to be more steep, the top end of my X-Arcade Tankstick would no longer clear it so I had to carefully measure and notch a small section for the horizontal face of the Tankstick to fit once inserted into the cabinet. This notch proved to work out perfectly. Next, I used my actual CRT monitor to figure out the correct angle for my monitor shelf. It helped to use the actual monitor I planned to use while trying to adjust the monitor base to allow for the least steep monitor shelf angle as possible.

Once I figured out where and at what angle I needed to secure the monitor shelf I attached the base and was ready to screw on the second side of the cabinet. I used a middle support board under the center of the monitor shelf for long-term support. During the entire process my goal was to never have any external screw holes. I generally screwed all wood supports and external panels into the sides from the inside or used a pocket-screw technique when that was not possible.

At this point I was able to stand the cabinet up for the first time and started to get a sense of what it might look like when done. I placed the monitor and my X-Arcade tankstick in their respective locations to make sure they would fit OK. Everything fit fine. Since the sides were cut out using a professional Cytrix machine, the sides matched and the X-Arcade controller seemed to fit perfectly. I knew I could always use a bit of T-molding to tighten things up at the final insertion stage.

These shots show the ledger supports for the external panels. I ran one long ledger on both sides of the back of the cabinet to support the back panels, two of which were designed to be removable. Shown also are the ledger supports for the upper-back, top, and speaker panels.

I used 1″x 2″ boards for all ledger supports. Only the very top panel was screwed in place from the outside.

I used aluminum wall corner protectors from Home Depot as my marquee retainers. Cheap, solid and quite professional looking. The toughest part was figuring out how to attach the lower marquee retainer on the angled speaker panel. The answer came from the sachi.sytes.net site listed above. I simply cut an angled slit into the plywood and then mounted the lower marquee retainer to hold the marquee plexiglass at the correct angle.

These photos show rough external panel placement. I would later have to remove these panels before painting. Some panels required careful measurement of angled edges to they would fit together snugly.

I created a sliding drawer just below the control panel area to house a keyboard for the occasional back-end software tweak. Shown here also is the pre-cut hole for the coin mech on the lower front panel of the cabinet. This panel would be hinged after painting and completed with a utility lock. I found a decently priced, working coin mech at X-Arcade. A working coin mechanical that accepted real quarters was an important part of the finished project for me. All part of the “arcade experience”.

I cut two ventilation holes in the cabinet. One on the lower back panel and the other on the upper angled panel. Many arcade cabinet builiders install fans as well, however, after doing some research it didn’t seem necessary to add fans to these ventilation holes. There seemed to be plenty of air flow inside the cabinet. I haven’t had any heat issues at all. Shown at the far right are the various panels and drawer racked and ready to paint. Painting the panels separately and then re-attaching them later seemed to work best.

Here you see me starting the prime painting of the cabinet and detached panels. I was lucky to have use of an air sprayer and professional paint area. I painted two coats of matte black on the inside and outside of the cabinet after priming. Scuffing and sanding in between each coat of paint made all the difference in creating a smooth, professional looking paint job. I also used tack cloth and a clean white cloth to make sure there wasn’t any debris left between coats of paint.

I had pre-slotted the plywood sides right after cutting them out so they were all ready for T-molding immediately after finishing the paint job. Black T-molding was carefully installed with a rubber hammer. I had to cut out small “V” sections of the lower insert bead when I came upon a corner in order to make sure the T-molding would always lay flat in the groove. Once the T-molding was done, I assembled the rest of the panels including the front door which used two zero-clearance inset hinges on the left side. I installed a utility lock toward the top right of the front panel and then installed the coin mech following the vendors instructions. I left a 1/4 inch gap between the top of the front cabinet door and the bottom of the keyboard drawer to allow for the lightgun cables to pass. My florescent marquee light had to be somewhat custom built at Lowes from a kit because I needed the electrical cord to be longer than 6 feet in order to safely reach the power strip inside the cabinet.

I needed to find a way to have the power strip cable exit the cabinet cleanly without having to disassemble or cut the cord in any way. I cut a 1.5″ hole in the lower back panel in order to install a small office utility wire covering. This allowed me to pass the large cord head through to the outside and then be able to close the hole up around the cord itself. This solution worked great and looked very clean and professional.

As stated in the “Inspiration” section above, I followed an idea I found on a site by Scott Hanselman which showed how to use a Belkin Conserve Energy Strip to turn on entire arcade system at once with one external switch. This remote switch was placed on the left side of the angled back panel. The key is to set the PC to boot up immediately whenever power is restored to it. This is set-up in the BIOS. All other components such as speakers, marquee light, monitor, and coin mech are permanently set to “on” and plugged into the this “smart strip” which in turn only receives power when the external switch is turned on.

I really liked the idea of making the rear panels accessible at any time. This was accomplished by following another idea I found on the Project X blogsite referenced above in the “Inspiration”section. I installed large cabinet screws to secure the removable panels (the second and fourth panels) and simple black cabinet handles toward the top middle of each for easy handling. This gave me easy access and a solid finished look to the rear side of the cabinet.

At a fabric store and I purchased a little bit of black speaker cloth and used it to hide the shape of the PC speakers from the view of the player looking from the outside into the speaker holes. Probably not really needed, but I decided to do it anyway. A set of 5.25″ plastic car speaker covers where placed on the outside of the speakers holes where the player stood and offered visible shielding as well while allowing sound to travel to the player.

I then needed to build a “light tent” around the speakers so light from the marquee light immediately above would not leak through the speakers holes. I had planned to simply use heavy black cloth but I discovered something even better at the fabric store… a special white fabric used by hotels as a support to their room curtains that completely blocks sunlight. This stuff doesn’t let a drop of light pass through it. All special fabrics were affixed using wood staples.

I had a difficult time figuring out the best installation technique for the smoked plexiglass monitor cover. For the lower support I ended up buying a couple of industrial strength, metal mirror holders/clips at Home Depot and affixing them to a small angled board at the bottom of the viewable area. I also installed two small strips of wood along the inside of the cabinet (not shown here), on each side of the monitor to support the plexiglass vertically and keep it from falling backward into the cabinet. The top of the plexiglass simply slid up behind the back of the speaker panel. The plexiglass was now removable but secure. The bezel would sit sandwiched between the smoked plexiglass and the wood supports hiding all other spacial gaps and the ugly computer monitor casing.

The best and cheapest bezel solution came from a forum thread on ArcadeControls.com. Click here to see the technique for the $2 Bezel which I followed. Using this idea, I first created a working template out of white construction paper as shown in the photo. I included a cut-out at the top for the IR sensor needed for my lightguns. The IR sensor becomes invisible behind the smoked plexiglass. Once I was satisfied with the bezel template, I used it to cut the final bezel out of a somewhat thick, black, art-store quality paper.

By now, my arcade cabinet was out of the wood shop and inside the house already getting plenty of play by my sons. The lit-up marquee and completed monitor area were enough to make it look enticing. Of course, no arcade cabinet is complete without side art. As a graphic designer, I had the know-how and ability to get this created and printed on adhesive vinyl. Each side is similar in design style but shows different arcade characters from real arcade cabinet side art. My side art supported the marquee branding of “Super Arcade”. Vector artwork for this type of thing can be found on various sites including here and here, but if you’re interesting in using the artwork I refined and created, you can download it in the Artwork Download section below.

Now I just needed to install my lightguns complete with a holster solution to finish off the project.

I considered many options and ideas for a lightgun holster but finally settled on using a canvas side arm made for a pistol with an attached laser sight (bigger holster area). I bought a couple of these in the gun department of a local Scheels sporting goods store. The thing I liked about this solution was that it was a side mounted solution, lightweight, and didn’t require me to put any permanent holes into the side of the cabinet in order to secure them. I attached large black velcro strips to the cabinet itself and then attached the holsters to each velcro strip. The sides of the canvas holsters were already velcro ready, however, I did have to carefully strip each holster down to it’s bare element to make it work. They worked great and were still in keeping with that true arcade feel!

ARTWORK DOWNLOAD
Download my marquee artwork in both vector and rastar formats here. Opens with Adobe CS6 or higher.
Download my side cabinet artwork here. Vector based files. Will open with Adobe CS6 or higher.

OPEN HOUSE PARTY
To celebrate the completion of this project, I decided to have an open house to “wow” friends and family and have some fun. I created a series of mini postcard-type announcements which I physically handed out or digitally sent to invitees.

All in all it’s been quite the journey to complete this project but I enjoy having dared to take it on nearly every day. Coin up!

SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEO OF SUPER ARCADE

Genre(s): Action/FPS,
Action/3rd Person
Simulation/Combat
Simulation/Flying

IGN.com rating: 7.4 (out of 10)

Price: Free

Link(s): http://diaspora.hard-light.net/
AND
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=81859.0

Set aboard the Battlestar Theseus, Armistic’s plot runs parallel to the events of the Battlestar Galactica TV show. Forty years after the first war between man and Cylon, Theseus is sent to patrol the frontier that now separates them.

That’s about as deep as it gets. Galatica had to deal with the survival of humanity, humanoid spies, and a morally flexible hallucinating scientist. Theseus has the more enviable job of blowing stuff up in space.

The pre-mission briefings are full of evocative touches: familiar jargon, a DRADIS-style overview, and even some inter-pilot rivalry. When you get behind the wings of a Viper, the atmosphere is pitch-perfect. From the soundtrack of tribal drums and eclectic instruments, to the fully voiced barks of your wingmen as they rack up the kill count or get chased down by heavy raiders.

Even if you don’t know your skinjobs from your bullet-heads, BSG’s universe lends itself perfectly to FreeSpace 2′s brand of space sortie. The scale of combat is immense right from the get-go. The first proper mission has you defending Theseus from two gigantic Cylon base ships. You dogfight raiders, intercept nuclear warheads, all while the Battlestar’s turrets shell everything around. It’s a meticulously crafted recreation of the show, but also an exciting set-piece in its own right.

Thanks to the open-source nature of the FreeSpace 2 engine, Diaspora is a packaged as a standalone freeware game rather than a mod for an exisiting install. This means it could serve as the basis for future campaign modules. Shattered Armistice could be the first of many.

Publisher: Hard Light Productions

Developer: Diaspora Development BSG

Release Date: September 4, 2012

Players: Single Player

ERSB: N/A

Sample Gameplay Video(s):

A newer indie game bundle company called Bundle Star is now offering some decent, yet B-level indie, titles over the next couple of weeks including Two Worlds II. This and other titles available for one low bundle price, currently $5.10.

We’re still keeping our eye on Bundle Star, but they just might be a decent option of low-priced, yet quality bundled games.

Link: http://www.bundlestars.com/

Humble Bundle video(s):

Humble “Double Fine” Bundle is now available offering some great titles over the next couple of weeks including Psychonauts and Costume Quest. Other surprises are likely to be added latter. This is a great chance to pick up some excellent PC/Mac/Linux game for super cheap.

Remember that buying the bundle also offers a great way to support charity. In our opinion, The Humble Bundle is one of the very best ways to be a “Cheapskate Gamer” and still do some good in the world.

Link: http://www.humblebundle.com/

Humble Bundle video(s):