“In my previous Instructables, I have reproduced simple versions of some of the most famous classical arcade games, by means of a bare Arduino and few other components. Later on I joined four of them together in a single sketch. Now I have finally added a fifth one, thus you can build a simple console that can to play Pong, Breakout, Bomber, Tetris and a drawing toy inspired to Etch-a-Sketch.
The main feature is the generation of a VGA signal, thanks to the VGAx library, thus the console needs a VGA monitor. My goal, as usual, is to avoid any “special component” to build it, you don’t need then any supporting IC or shields! The only components are two potentiometers, five buttons, few resistors and a DSUB15 (VGA) connector. A piezo speaker is optional. You can see how these games look in the pictures in this page.
The VGAx library allows to use four color with a resolution of 120 x 60 pixels, not many but enough for this retro-game console. The graphic is raw but, thanks to the use of the potentiometers, the games run smoothly. Simple sound effects are available too. “