Rating Pending

I recently built a cocktail arcade cabinet from scratch.  I talked about fabrication previously, and I’d like to outline the software I’ve got on it for those who are interested.  It wasn’t an dead-simple setup since emulators all have different interfaces, but I ended up with a setup that’s relatively streamlined.

Goals

It’s important to figure out what emulators you want.  I had decided that I wanted the 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, as well as MAME.  I don’t have any analog controls, so anything requiring that was out of the question.  My primary goal was a cabinet that would play Donkey Kong, but I wanted the ability to play other things as well.  My final list of emulators was as follows:

• MAME – MameUI
• SNES – ZSNES
• NES – FCEUX
• Genesis / Megadrive – Kega Fusion
• Atari 2600 – Stella Read the rest of this entry »

I had a really good time with Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is very similar, except for one game-breaking issue.

In Warlords, the gameplay is largely strategic, except for the fact that you don’t know which pieces are going to slide in when you make a match.  This was the only real flaw in the game for me.  I’d make a match, then a bunch of attack pieces would slide in and the computer would get a free strike on me.  The good news was that you could mitigate this frustration a bit by matching pieces in areas where there weren’t attack pieces.  As long as a full match wasn’t randomly inserted, you’d be ok.  A bit awkward, but the rest of the game was so good I could overlook this little flaw.

Galactrix goes with hexagonal pieces instead of square.  This make for more possible moves.  The problem is that the pieces can now come into the board from all sides.  With the board being so small, it amplifies the issue from Warlords.  If there are attack pieces on the board, chances are any move you make will result in a random attack piece coming in and the computer getting a free strike.  What interesting is the better you play (the longer your combos), the more random pieces slide in, and the more chance you have of giving the computer a free attack.

I played Galactrix for a few hours over the course of two days.  My final 10 games were against the same ship that kept winning because of random pieces.  After that, I quit and uninstalled it.  I really really really wanted to like it but based on the number of swear words that came out of my mouth, I wasn’t enjoying myself.

I’m still in on the next Puzzle Quest, though.  Hopefully they’ll come up with a way to remove the randomness so I can strategize a bit more.

I just finished Halo: ODST.  It’s a short experience (about 6 hours or so), but the atmosphere of it was really interesting.  Nice music, too.  I’d definitely recommend it at the Black Friday prices I’ve seen (30 bucks).

I like that it came with an “All the Halo multiplayer stuff” disc, too.  I think that’ll probably just be the disc that sits in my Xbox if I’m not playing something else.  You never know when you’ll want a little Halo Multiplayer

I recently posted some photos of a cocktail arcade cabinet I built, and Ithought I’d go over the fabrication for those interested.  Aseries of photos taken during the process is available here.  I also took some photos of a Revenge of Doh cabinetfor research purposes, and those are available here. I’ve detailed software in a different post since that was asignificant undertaking in its own right.

I was inspired to make this cabinetafter watching a documentary called The King ofKong.  It’s about a guy’s attempt at beating the highscore record in Donkey Kong.  It made me try Donkey Kong onMAME, and snowballed into wanting a proper arcade cabinet to enjoyclassic games.  I was also in need of small table for a cornerin my apartment, and an arcade cabinet was the perfect fit.
Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE 2009.12.12 – I’ve detailed the fabrication here, and the software here.

It’s time I let everyone know what I’ve been working on over the last month. I bought a bunch of woodworking tools and have been very secretive about it, but the physical part of it is done now. So here it is:

That there is a cocktail arcade cabinet, which I built for 1. Retro-Gaming and 2. Breakfast-Eating. There’s been an empty corner in the apartment for about a year now, and I figured it was time to fill it. So there ya have it.

This is just The Unveiling, though. I’ve posted a short gallery here so y’all can take a look, but I’ve also taken a bunch of photos of the whole process, and I’ll go in depth on it all next week (hopefully).

I’ve just gotten word from my friend Chef Tomm that he’ll be teaching a Chinese Cuisine class November 21st at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell, CA. This will include how to make hand-pulled noodles. Check out the November class schedule at the PCI hobby classes page for more info. I would highly recommend this class regardless of your hand pulled noodle skill level. At the very least you’ll get a hands on session with some primo noodle dough (he makes some awesomely stretchy noodle dough).

It has some really nice growth along the trunk that’s hard to get going on a Jacaranda (in my experience).

I’m fond of my Dwarf Pomegranates, as well. I’ve grown them from seeds, which I got from the fruit of a co-worker’s tree. I have five of them, but this one has been outside most of the time, and is looking quite strong:

I’ve got some nice Lilikoi growing (that’s Passion Fruit), too. I got the seeds in Hawaii over Christmas, and I was unaware that they are actually a vine. So I put in some effort and planted them in a nice planter with a small trellis to climb up. I’m working on a Japanese Boxwood that I bought at Lowe’s, too, but I haven’t quite figured out what I want to do with it yet.

That’s right. Lye. It’s the traditional way to make soft pretzels, but for liability reasons, cooking shows can’t tell you to use lye (I guess). It’s also kind of a bit of work to get ahold of. But without it, your pretzels will taste like they’re missing something. It also gives them that gorgeous golden color:

The recipe to use is the one from Alton Brown (of Good Eats fame). Instead of using baking soda as he suggests, use 1 oz. of lye crystals to 1 quart of water. I used double that because I had a big pot. Get the mixture to a boil and drop each pretzel in the solution for 30 seconds before you glaze em and bake em.

A couple other things of note I came across while making these:

1. Don’t forget the melted butter in the dough recipe! I forgot it in my second batch and the pretzels just weren’t the same.
2. If you love butter (like I do), use it to glaze the pretzels instead of the egg mixture. It’s oh so yummy!
3. Once you’re done with your lye solution, don’t leave it in the pot! I made the mistake of leaving it in a non-stick pot overnight, and it made the non-stick coating… unstick itself!

Anyways, I gotta give it to Alton Brown. His recipes are always a delight.

I recently made dragon beard candy (view my photos). It turns out it’s a lot easier to make than hand pulled noodles, but the general process for both is the same. The reason dragon beard is easier is because you can really take your time while making it, and it is very forgiving about mistakes.

So I started by watching this video. Then I did a bunch of research on candy making. There are a few things to watch out for:

1. When heating to a specific temperature, accuracy is very important. A 5 degree (Fahrenheit) difference can change your candy completely.
2. When cooling your candy, it is in danger of crystallizing. Stirring it or bumping it can cause it to crystallize, so be careful.
3. You can protect against crystallization by adding vinegar or corn syrup (or both) to your recipe.

Then I experimented a bit with the recipe in the video. I found that:

1. You don’t need that much water. The goal is to boil it off anyways.
2. Cooling the sugar to 100 C (212 F) before pouring it is a good way to crystallize your sugar and ruin the batch.
3. It’s easy to crystallize the recipe anyways. Because of this, I modified it a bit by adding some extra corn syrup.
4. Finally, the recipe is WAY TOO BIG.

So following all that, the recipe I had the most success with is this:

Dragon Beard Candy

• 50g Maltose
• 500g Sugar
• 250g Water
• 1/2 tsp White Vinegar
• 100g Corn Syrup

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, and boil. Once the temperature reaches 266 F, remove the mixture from the heat. Allow it to cool enough that the bubbles disappear and it becomes transparent. Rather than letting it cool to 212 F and risking crystallization at a low temperature, pour it into small cups immediately. I used little paper Dixie cups, and they didn’t burn or melt. Be careful in your cup choice though, as I used some with a plastic coating that made things a little more difficult.

Pulling the candy is pretty straighforward. Youtube videos are a great help for learning how to do it. Remember to take your time, because the candy CAN break. If it breaks when its still a large diameter, most of the time you can just stick the broken pieces back together by pressing the ends together (sugar is good at sticking to itself). If it’s really thin and you get a few broken strands, don’t worry about it. If you just keep pulling it will work itself back in.

For the peanut mixture, I used peanuts (toasted and ground in a blender or food processor), sesame seeds (to taste), and a little bit of corn syrup to help it stick together nicely. The corn syrup allowed me to get a big pile of peanuts in each dragon beard candy. I like lots of peanuts

Again, here’s a photo gallery of the pulling process. It was really a lot of fun to make, and it was A LOT easier than making hand pulled noodles. So if you’re getting stuck trying to make noodles, take a break and make some candy for a while.

Since there’s been a lot of traffic on my Hand Pulled Noodle Posts, I’ve put together a web page with all the info in one place.  I’m probably going to move on to another project in about a month, so if anyone has an feedback or requests for what should be there, let me know.  After that I’ll be available to answer questions (which I’ll probably put on the AQ page) through email or on my blog posts.