Like its predecessor, the Arduboy Mini is built using an Arduino board and a small OLED screen. There are also buttons for controlling your games, and a charging port on the bottom for power. That being said, it definitely isn’t a complete console. As it’s missing a couple of things you’d expect to find on a handheld gaming system. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. And there’s a reason for the way it was built.
The Arudboy Mini was designed to be tinkered with
Part of the reason this little system was designed without a couple of the components, is because according to Bates, this will encourage users to tinker with the system and add what’s needed. Straight out of the gate, the Mini is missing a speaker and a battery. So there’s no audio and you can’t charge the device. Rather, there are solder points on the back of it where you can attach these things. You can also still play games on it the tiny system. You simply need to plug in a USB-C cable to keep the device powered. It comes with over 300 games which can be viewed on the 128 x 64 pixel OLED screen. With six tactile buttons on the front for managing controls. Four in the shape of a dpad, and two for the action button controls. There’s also a button on the back for resetting the system. Which seems to be needed if you want to play a new game. All games on the Arduboy Mini are 8-bit so they’re going to be fairly simple in terms of gameplay mechanics. But that shouldn’t take away from the pocket-sized fun if you love retro games. You can secure an Arduboy Mini for yourself for $29 on the device’s Kickstarter page. Units are estimated to ship out in June of 2023.
