NEW: Active WPI students/faculty can add your web games published on itch.io to the arcade!
The arcade box originally started as a hobby project by members of the now-defunct WPI Game Development Club, alongside a project to build a digital 3d map of WPI. The original WPImap prototype was completed in 2006 in the form of a map for Halo Custom Edition built by Alex Schwartz, Beth Beinke, Josh Dick, Matt Murdy, and Brad Scoville: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1833
The physical arcade box was completed by Elisabeth Beinke and Alexander Schwartz (WPI ‘09) as part of their Interactive Qualifying Project in 2008, with collaboration and sponsorship from WPI Admissions. The box featured a virtual tour of campus built as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, taking inspiration from the original Halo CE map.
In October of 2008, the machine, dubbed “WPImap Kiosk," was installed in the Bartlett admissions center for general public use. This was shortly after the formation of the IMGD program at WPI, and was among the first high-visibility IMGD projects at WPI, with an article published by WPI marketing:
https://www.wpi.edu/news/kiosk
When it was eventually decommissioned, the kiosk was returned to the Game Dev Club and subsequently stored in Fuller A17, where it would remain for several years. In 2017, Game Dev Club execs were asked to move it from A17 and it was subsequently migrated to SL 204.
In Spring 2022, Mikel Matticoli (WPI ‘22) refurbished the cabinet as part of his M.S. project to run IMGD student-made games, and it was subsequently moved to the sitting area outside Lower Perreault in Fuller.
The arcade cabinet was repurposed to be placed in an unattended public space, and as such has an added locked panel on the back to safe-keep the electronics inside. Most of the original control system in the cabinet was missing or unusable as of the late 2010s, so the control system was entirely replaced except for the speakers and monitor built into the box. The controls are a slight modification of the originals, with an added button adjacent to the trackball to substitute clicking in games that have mouse-based control schemes. A QR code and link on the sign leads to this IMGD Hub page, which details its operating instructions, history, and how to add additional games onto it.
The game selection interface on the box utilized Steam’s Big Picture mode, a full-screen interface for the most popular PC game marketplace and library software. Steam was configured to always start in offline mode in order to prevent installation of free games from the marketplace. The initial library of games included The Call of Karen and Moonsighted, both IMGD MQP's that won the Provost's MQP Award in their respective years. It was intended to include a copy of WPImap, the software run on the original machine in 2008, but this was never made to work.
The use of Windows and Steam Big Picture proved clunky and unstable, and was difficult to maintain without routine hands-on access. After the machine broke down repeatedly, the PC inside was re-flashed with a copy of Ubuntu 22 in Fall 2023 that could have system updates safely automated. Mikel, in collaboration with Max Chen (PhD Student), developed an open source interface to allow self-registering community-made games published on itch.io.
[ Further documentation needed, reach out to Mikel or Max with questions ]
As of Spring 2024, machine maintenance has been fully automated except for annual renewal of wifi certificates. The machine must be connected to WPI wifi via the standard procedure using the imgdgeneric account - contact Allison Darling for the login info or reach out to Mikel on discord for details. (Further documentation needed)
The PC inside the box is configured with Windows Scheduler to reboot at 4:30 AM every night. Shortcuts to Steam and Joy2Key are in the startup folder, so if anything crashes rebooting it will generally fix it automatically.
In case of software or hardware malfunctions, the control panel flips up on a hinge and the acrylic sign on the top front of the machine can be removed to reveal a mouse and keyboard inside. The PC runs un-managed Windows 10, and a Parsec installation signed into the IMGD parsec account for remotely troubleshooting/adding games.
For games published on Steam, simply gift a copy to the steam account signed in on the machine or create a gift code to redeem on the machine. If the game is free on steam, you can simply switch Steam to online mode to install it. (Please don't be a jerk and install random free games not made by WPI students from Steam).
Windows builds of non-steam games can be downloaded to the computer and added to Steam using the “Add Non-Steam Game” library option.
For all new games, a profile needs to be created in Joy2Key to map the controls to the joysticks, and configured in “Settings > Associate Profiles with Applications”