Arduboy Mini Slims Down the Classic Open Source Portable Gaming Platform

Arduboy is a popular eight-bit portable open source gaming platform. Kevin Bates created it and a successful follow-on. A new version slimmed-down version of the device, called Arduboy Mini, is now running as a Kickstarter campaign.

Gaming often conjures images of cutting-edge graphics at blurring frame rates on the hottest GPUs. But when it comes to handheld gaming, simplicity has always reigned. Even in the eight-bit gaming days, the simple four-shades (some generously call these colors) and low-power Z80 of the Nintendo Gameboy dominated the market over significantly more advanced color-based handhelds.

Seven years ago, Bates introduced Arduboy as a prototype with a single-color OLED screen based on an ATmega32U4 microcontroller and a couple of push buttons. The many Arduino-based projects using an 8-bit AVR processor and 128x64 pixel screen inspired the "Ardu" part of Arduboy's name. The "boy" part calls back to the technologically limited, yet market-successful, Gameboy.

Then a couple of years later, Bates offered a finished product version as a Kickstarter campaign. Since then, follow-on projects and over 300 open source games have been developed for the platform!

Many of these games have a surprising depth and polish to them. One of the Arduboy follow-on projects was the Arduboy FX, which added an external (to the microcontroller) flash chip with 200 games developed by the Arduboy community pre-loaded. There was also a flex-circuit mod with the Flash chip available for existing Arduboy owners.

Astute readers will note the change in software count. This change is because the community has developed more games, and the ROM curators have found additional projects to add!

The new Arduboy Mini contains the same core OLED, eight-bit microcontroller, and flash chip as the FX. However, the Mini achieved a smaller size by removing the case, battery, and speaker. It slims down to a two-layer PCB with two buttons, a screen, a couple of ICs, and a USB-C port. There are pads for a user-supplied battery and speaker. You can access the ATmega32U4's in-circuit serial programming (ICSP) port for additional hackability through broken-out pads!

While there is no battery included with the Arduboy Mini, it does contain a battery charging circuit. And while there is no case, the Kickstarter campaign does mention that 3D-printable options are in the plan.

There are two editions of Arduboy Mini: Standard and Graffiti. The only physical difference is the Graffiti features a distinctive look with Arduboy Community developers' username "tags."

Currently, Arduboy Mini is running as a Kickstarter campaign with an end date in early January 2023. Rewards are currently estimated to ship in mid-2023. Prices are $29 USD (Standard) $34 and (Graffiti) plus shipping.

Disclosure: The author of this article has backed this and previous Arduboy Kickstarter campaigns.