Killer Queen: a homemade, 5 on 5, arcade cabinet

Dynamite With a Laser Beam @ The New York Times

As technology chugs along and connection to the internet becomes constant and ubiquitous, the local offline videogame seems to drift closer towards irrelevance. That is until a game like Killer Queen comes along. The smashing of buttons, the hollering of your teammates, and the high fives after an amazing match remind you how great it is to play games in the same space as other humans.

In Killer Queen’s early days, before it was a full fledged arcade cabinet, it caught the attention of of the NYU game design department:

…New York University’s game design department sponsored an exhibition of independent games, called No Quarter. The exhibition’s curator had heard about Killer Queen, and he offered a $1,000 commission to Mr. DeBonis and Mr. Mikros if they could convert it into an arcade game for the show.

They immediately agreed. Unfortunately, neither of the game’s designers had any idea how to build an arcade cabinet.

“My only experience was that I worked in a metal shop in high school,” said Mr. DeBonis. They enlisted the help of Mr. DeBonis’s father and brother, traveling to a family-owned barn in Millbrook, N.Y., over three long weekends. It ended up costing them close to $5,000.

Since then, the makers have turned out a few more cabinets, but it still remains criminally underplayed. Here’s to hoping it comes to an arcade near you.

Until then, read more about it at the NY Times.


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1 Comment

  1. That would be good for the game Gaunlet.

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