Retropie Video Game Guy is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I ran heavy equipment for 11 years and on lay off season I was watching some videos online and came across retro emulation. I found this rather fascinating that I could play my old classic and retro videos games on one single device. I jumped down the rabbit hole and watched hours and hours of videos showing what this mini computer could do. This mini computer was called a Raspberry Pi. I was amazed at what this small credit card sized computer could do. I then found someone in my city who had already had one of these setup with thousands of games for sale. I reached out to them and and went over and got a demo. I was blown away with all the games and bought it. Took it home and began playing all my old favourites retro classic arcade and home console games. It brought back so many memories from my childhood. From playing in the arcades to renting games for the weekend and having a sleep over with my buddy and getting no sleep. I felt like I was a kid again being in my 30's. I told myself I think I could sell these like that guy but, be cheaper and better. I started selling home console systems which had thousands of games depending which option you choose. The next winter I was doing some more digging around online and came across bartop arcades machines. I was in awe with the thought of having an arcade machine in my home with thousands of games. So I bought it from eBay. It cost me $2000 Canadian dollars just for the bartop arcade plug and play with over 10000 games. It was absolutely awesome when it finally arrived. After a week or so of playing it I thought to myself how many others would love something like their homes? I did some more homework and decided I would attempt to build my first bartop arcade. I went out and bought all the wood working tools needed and got to work. After a few weeks of figuring things out, I had finally had a bartop unit. It was 19" and looked terrible being painted black MDF with screws and glue keeping it together. I was not happy or satisfied with my wood working skills. I did some more home work and found a builder online who was kind enough to give me some advice. The advice was to get a CNC shop cutting the wood for me. You cant beat the precision of a CNC machine he said. So I set out to find a local CNC shop who would be willing to work with me. I think it took me a few months to finally find a shop that was close to home fair priced and willing to work with me through the whole process from start to finish. I now need to get a file so the shop can cut the wood for me. I did some digging online and found a 19" bartop arcade DXF file. I took the file to the shop and we cut it. Turned out amazing. The fit and finish of the CNC was unparalleled to my hand tools. Now i still needed to use glue and screws to assemble them but, that wasn't as easy as it sounded. It was extremely difficult to always ensure I was lining up the pieces in the same places to glue and screw. After a few months working with the CNC shop I went back to them and spoke about a redesign of the files so I could line up the pieces better and faster. I also wanted to make them 22" screens up from the 19". We came up with the idea of using wood dados. This significantly increased my build speed and consistency of where each piece would go. Although I still hated having to use messy glue and alway having holes where the brad nails went. It would do for now. During this time I started looking for someone who could supply the artwork. I found someone who could help me with the design and printing. I now had bartop’s with stands covered in beautiful artwork, looking like a factory had built them. I still wasn't to happy with using the glue and screws so again I went back to the CNC shop and spoke to them about a better faster way to assemble them. He introduced me to the Lamello Cabineo Connector. It's used to assemble cabinets and desks. It's like a cam lock but way better. So I went ahead with the redesign with the Cabineo's. It was unbelievable how fast I could now assemble a unit with the new connections. I was now fully happy with my bartop arcades. This design is still being used today in our builds.
Now during this time I had always wanted to get into virtual pinball. I have always loved virtual pinball on my PC. I never really played the real thing growing up as our arcades didn't have them. When I would get some free time I would always be looking into the virtual pinball. Watching many youtube videos and reading lots online. I did enough homework I got confident enough to build one. I found a CNC file online and got my CNC shop to cut it. It was a 2 screen setup with an old 40" and 32" Tv. I now needed the software. I had seen online a few places were selling drives and some others had the drives downloadable. I thought this could be a good starting point. I found a guy and bought a 2 screen setup. I originally had just the 2 screens setup in my office just to see how this virtual pinball actually played. Turned out it was freaking awesome. I couldn't wait to build my first virtual pinball machine. A week later I had finished building the machine and it turned out pretty cool. It was something I thought I could improved on overall and sell at a good price. I did some more digging and found a company online who was selling kits. It was the same company that I had bought my bartop arcade from off eBay a few years back. I ordered the kit. It was expensive with shipping. Once it arrived I assembled it and thought this is pretty cool but, lets take it to my CNC shop and reverse engineer it and make a few changes to it to make it better. Thats exactly what happened. Some changes were made and I could now use my cabineo connections and my 3 screens. There was a few small but, significant other changes made as well. Now I had a proper looking virtual pinball machine. Time to design some artwork to fit. Once that was done I had my very first virtual pinball unit ready for sale. Since then I have continued to make small changes and improvements to my design and began to update the systems and software to get where I am today.
Over the years I have gotten my own CNC machine to cut the kits myself. Upgraded that to a commercial one. I have bought a commercial printer from HP to be able to print all my own artwork. I am now able to do everything in house from start to finish. I ship all over Canada and have met some awesome people along the way. I am so thankful to be able to bring so many old memories back one game at a time.
Thank you.
Retropie Video Game Guy
