Case Modding The Old School Way

July 17, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

Since the release of the Raspberry Pi, the hallowed tradition of taking game consoles, ripping all the plastic off, and stuffing the components into nice, handheld form factors has fallen off the wayside. That doesn’t mean people have stopped doing it, as [Akira]’s masterful handiwork shows us.

This casemod began with a Nintendo GameCube ASCII keyboard controller, a slightly rare GameCube controller that features a full keyboard smack dab in the middle. While this keyboard controller was great for Phantasy Star Online and throwing at the TV after losing Smash, the uniqueness of this controller has outshadowed its usefulness. [Akira] began his build by ripping out the keyboard and installing a 7 inch LCD. It fits well, and makes for a very unique GameCube case mod.

The rest of the build is about what you would expect – the motherboard for a PAL GameCube is stuffed inside, a quartet of 18650 batteries provide the power, and the usual mods – a memory card is soldered to the motherboard and an SD Gecko allows homebrew games and emulators to be played.

The completed project is painted with the same theme as [Samus Arans]’ Varia suit, making this a one of a kind casemod that actually looks really, really good.

Zelda Is The Princess, Now Link Is Too

November 8, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 43 Comments

[Mike] is a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and now that he has a daughter it’s a great time to pass this epic quest down to the next generation. There’s a problem with explaining the plot to her daughter, though: even though the player can name the character after themselves, there’s no way to change the gendered pronouns. Yes, it’s a problem that could have been solved by a cameo by Professor Oak asking, “Are you a boy or a girl?’ but [Mike] came up with a better solution: changing all the pronouns with a ROM hack.

There are a few ‘problems’ with altering the dialogue with a ROM hack. Most importantly, all the new pronouns need to be the same length as the words they replace. [Mike] is using the word ‘milady’ to replace ‘my lad’ and ‘master,’ but also had to take a page from critiques of modern epics and replace ‘swordsman’ with ‘swordmain.’

So far, everything is working as planned and the [Mike]’s daughter [Maya] is enjoying seeing herself sail her dragon ship and battle foes. It’s a great effort to bring some semblance of gender neutrality to a classic game, and an awesome project for a really great dad.

Thanks to [Guillaume] for sending this one in.

GameCube With Built In Screen

December 14, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMc6pNemats]

In light of our recent rash of Nintendos stuffed into other Nintendos, we are happy to show a Nintendo mod project that breaks form and makes something marginally useful. [Sami] added an LCD to his GameCube, and made it look good too. Attached to the top of the GameCube, it hinges at the side allowing for you to close it all up for transport or storage. Great job [Sami].