The Flashback Attack Arcade is an Practical and Applied Arts project started back in September by Taylor Pacholko, a Grade 12 student at Kinistino Public School and involved hundreds of hours of work. The arcade is completely home made out of MDF wood which was then hand-painted with a handful of old video game mascots done in acrylic paint. The arcade itself has a lit-up marquee decal that Taylor designed using inspiration from the arcade game Galaga, arcade buttons and a separate speaker system. A regular TV screen makes up the display, which is connected by HDMI to a Raspberry Pi. A Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that can be programmed with different operating systems to suit the user’s needs. Taylor’s Raspberry Pi is running a modified version of the Raspian OS called RetroPie that allows the user to emulate classic games. To create the feel of an arcade, the frontend Attract Mode was used. This frontend allows the use of wheel art, video and art displays to give a classical arcade feel. The Flashback Attack Arcade currently runs over 10,000 old arcade games, enough for anyone to find their old favourite and play it again for nostalgia.
