Tiger Boy Advance Gaming System

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, kids had to make the choice between purchasing an expensive Nintendo handheld, or settling for LCD just-barely-video games by Tiger Electronics and the like. At the time, YouTube creator Downing’s Basement chose to go with the lesser gaming style, for better or worse. Now, 30+ years later, he decided to transfer the guts of a Game Boy Advance into a Tiger-style enclosure, creating something that would have been unbelievable at the time.

The new device, which looks like a (rather thick) original case, was 3D-printed using an SLA process, and required several iterations to get everything correct. The front screen protector is made out of 1/16th inch milled acrylic, with beautiful background art designed to evoke feelings of both gaming worlds of the time. Getting these graphics to adhere to the acrylic properly was quite a challenge, but the effort paid off as a very nice accent to the overall system.

Interestingly, Downing decided not to use any custom PCBs on the build, and instead opted to use the guts of the donor system, along with quite a bit of glue/wire/solder. Additionally, a USB-C rechargeable battery pack was added, along with an IPS display. It's arguably better than a stock Game Boy Advance, certainly and much more capable than its Tiger-style housing would imply!

For more console modding fun from Downing's Basement, check out his SNES Box Go handheld that we featured last year.