DDR Frogger

After going to the first year of Open Sauce, Milo and I wanted to make a project for the next one. We decided to go with making a more energetic version of the 80s game Frogger. One that would require you to actually hop to get the frog to move.

Using some scrap materials we set to work building the 4×4 controller.

Once we had the basic layout sorted we had to figure out how to make it work, because I like nothing more than working without a plan. Or, more accurately, I’m really bad at planning.

Step two was wiring it while we talked through different ideas of how to turn the lillypads into buttons.

We figured we’d try using key contacts from a mechanical keyboard since we had one lying around. They seemed pretty stable and thin enough to seat into the plywood base.

While Milo did the electronic work, I got down to business trying to paint things to look like they were from a 16 bit arcade game.

Next we had to figure out a way to make the buttons work. We wanted to keep the whole thing as slim as possible but also make the mechanism stiff enough so that players actually had to jump on the pads to trigger them.

After a couple different configurations, and adding a spacer to prevent the button from being destroyed when the wood flexed, we finally got them to trigger with the right pressure. unfortunately we couldn’t get them to keep from popping up and hitting players in the ankles.

So we had to add a layer so that the buttons would sit deeper.