There’s retrogaming, and then there’s retro gaming. This next project falls into the second category, as [Callan] of 74XX Arcade Repair digs into the original Wild Gunman, first released by Nintendo way, way back in 1974 — on 16 mm film. Yes, it was a film-based arcade machine, but how else were you going to get realistic graphics just two years after PONG?
The game had two 16 mm projectors, with four different sets of film reels available, each depicting five gunmen. Unfortunately for [Callan], the film is all he has, so he’s not so much repairing as re-creating the historic game. Luckily, he had the manuals, so at least he knew how it was supposed to come together.
One projector did most of the work, showing the gunmen and a hidden timing signal for the game to know when the user could shoot; the other only activated if the user pulled the trigger at the correct time. Interestingly the ‘gun’ has an IR illuminator that bounced infrared light off the screen to a detector in the cabinet — much like later TV remotes. That makes for a rather large circular hitbox around the enemy gunslinger, which is perhaps not a bad thing for a game likely to be found in a bar.
His recreation is all-digital as he didn’t want to risk completely wearing out the vintage film. Instead there’s a PC, a digital projector, and a pico-based light-gun running the OpenFire firmware. [Callan] did go to some lengths to match the original appearance, with a combination of 3D printing, woodworking and fabric arts. Plus his recreation is authentic to the behavior of the original, so what more could you ask for?
As far as we know, this is the only playable version of the 1970s game in existence. [Callan] will have it available to play at the Ontario Pinfest 2026, in Stayner, Ontario on May 30-31, 2026. Happily enough, that’s 50 years since the game first arrived in North America in 1976. Worth a trip? Well, that depends on your location.
This reminds us of the time someone 3D printed a Computer Space cabinet, which only predates Wild Gunman by a few years. Speaking of 3D printing, you can also print your own 16 mm film camera, if you want to make an indie version this now-vanished style of arcade game.
You mean you have to use your hands… It’s like you made a wild gunman post without referencing Back to the Future.
Here’s a 50….go get yourself a Pepsi
Lika a filmbased Dragons Lair.
Yes and also no. In play, it was like a film-based Mad Dog McCree – an FMV quickdraw game. In cost it was like Dragon’s Lair, which was recognized as the first $.50 arcade game, in spite of Wild Gunman also costing $.50.
That price is utterly insane to me. It was theoretically even more in Japan at the time, running 100 yen per play. What’s more insane is how long it would still take for the machine to pay itself off. The machines cost $14,000 in 1975 (MORE THAN $96,000 TODAY) and so would take over 28,000 plays to recoup that investment. Considering that the film reels would need multiple replacements during the many years it would take for the machine to become profitable, it’s a wonder any machines sold at all.
You’re not thinking like a businessman. That’s tax deductible business expense.
In this case its more likely it is the big headline act that draws the punter, who will then inevitably spend a small fortune and much of their time on the actually profitable machines and food/drink available as well.
Exactly. The target buyer was arcades, or amusement parks, etc.
Being tax deductible – provided you made enough profit to pay that much tax – meant that it would be profitable from day 1.
It’s like Warren Buffett’s wind turbines. They might have never made enough money on selling electricity to offset the investment cost, but since they were tax deductible and investment credited for the tax on all the other business he was doing, the cost to build them was essentially zero – they became subsidized entirely by other taxpayers.
I didn’t put the quote in the video, but Gunpei Yokoi says in the Game Museum book that at least Japanese arcades were buying it as “sign post”, to get people inside. So it probably did more for advertising than direct revenue.
Nowadays, we can get realistic wild gunman action by simply going to the mall, or church, or school, or . . . .
Oh wow. Duck hunt has been one of my favorite games, but i haven’t got to play it for over 30 years.
When Nvidia Riva TNT was a thing, i was looking into assembly coding and researching the graphics registeries and stuff and i noticed that the lightpen stuff was there and even contacted Nvidia about it. I was going to remake Duck hunt. But that never went anywhere. Asus actually released, probably a TNT2, card with light guns included.
I would really love to build one of these.
Due to their practice of issuing one driver for all their hardware, there must be lots of wacky cruft in NVidia drivers still. Like displaying in 3d using red/blue glasses. Or anything to do with PhysX from back when people didn’t have enough CPU cores to do collision detection.
Running a film through a projector is a dangerous way to check it. If it isn’t in good shape the projector could damage it further. It should be checked by rolling from reel to reel on a light table. It might have bad splices, damaged sprocket holes, or might be shrunken.