Open-Source 8-bit console Arduboy Mini has more than 300 games on a small circuit board.

 Experience over 300 games on Kevin Bates' newest 8-bit gadget, the Arduboy Mini, which streamlines the classic open-source portable gaming platform.

Arduboy is a well-liked open-source portable eight-bit game system. It was conceived by Kevin Bates and was a hit. Arduboy Mini, a new version of the gadget that has been reduced down, is now running as a Kickstarter campaign.

Gaming frequently evokes visions of state-of-the-art visuals at sluggish frame rates on the most powerful GPUs. On the other hand, simplicity has always ruled in portable gaming. Even in the heyday of eight-bit gaming, the Nintendo Gameboy's straightforward four-shades (some people kindly refer to these as colours) and low-power Z80 chip outsold far more sophisticated color-based handhelds.

Bates unveiled Arduboy as a prototype using a single-color OLED screen, an ATmega32U4 microcontroller, and a few push buttons seven years ago. The "Ardu" portion of Arduboy's name was inspired by the numerous Arduino-based projects that use an 8-bit AVR processor and a 128x64 pixel screen. The word "boy" refers to the technologically primitive yet commercially successful Gameboy.

A few years later, Bates launched a Kickstarter campaign for a final version of the device. Since then, more than 300 open-source games have been created on the platform as follow-up projects!

A surprising amount of these games have polish and substance. The Arduboy FX was one of the follow-up projects to the original Arduboy and incorporated an external (to the microcontroller) flash chip with 200 pre-loaded games created by the Arduboy community. For current Arduboy owners, a flex-circuit mod including the Flash chip was also offered.

Smart readers will notice the difference in the number of software. This shift results from more games being created by the community and new projects being added by the ROM curators!

The unexpected depth and polish can be found in several of these games. Arduboy FX, one of the follow-up projects to the original Arduboy, included an external (to the microcontroller) flash chip with 200 games created by the Arduboy community already pre-loaded. Additionally, current Arduboy owners had access to a flex-circuit upgrade that included a Flash chip.

The shift in the number of software will be obvious to astute readers. The ROM curators have discovered new projects to add, and this change is the result of the community creating more games!

Arduboy Mini comes in two versions: Standard and Graffiti. The Graffiti has a distinctive appearance with Arduboy Community developers' username "tags" as the sole visual distinction.

Arduboy Mini is currently launching a Kickstarter campaign that will expire in early January 2023. Reward shipments are anticipated to begin around the middle of 2023. Standard items cost $29 USD, whereas Graffiti items cost $34 USD + delivery.