Haynes Retro Arcade Kit!

Most of us Gearheads are familiar with the name Haynes that publishes auto repair manuals. Now they are getting into making electronic kits in that same style! From retro radio kits to visible engines, these kits from Haynes are both educational and fun!

Being a avid gamer, I could not resist buying this kit when I came across it. The build is quite simple and can be done in under a hour. Just needs a small screwdriver, soldering iron and wire strippers. The actual box is the game case, it is very sturdy and has magnets to hold the lid down. It runs on three “AA” batteries and features a working “coin slot” to coin up the game!

The instruction manual is very well written (as you would expect from Haynes) and features lots of pictures to help put the kit together. It also gives play tips and describes other play modes you can activate on the device (1 player versus computer, 2 player mode or computer versus computer mode). Activating the computer player is simply done by placing one of the paddles at the bottom of the screen then coin up. That paddle will flash to indicate it is now going to be a computer player. You can do this with either paddle or both (for computer head to head play).

In playing the game it is quite challenging to play against the computer. The paddle and ball animation are very good and scoring is displayed as individual dots on the players side of the screen. Once a game is over, the unit will go to sleep and power down waiting for another coin.

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