Lightgun

Many of my favourite arcade games are lightgun games. Partially because it's fun to play a game using a physical prop resembling an in-game weapon but also because I'm really good at them. I've been playing them for a long time and have honed my skills.

Unfortunately the lightgun died with the advent of LCD/Plasma TVs. Lightguns primarily rely on the mechanism of CRT TVs to function so they don't work on modern displays. There have been many approximations, most notable, Nintendo's Wii used a remote shaped controller as a pointing device. The problem with this though is that the way it tracks where it's pointing doesn't use the TV at all. Rather, it uses a light bar place above or below the screen which has a pair of LEDs spaced a few inches apart. This allows the controller to work out where it is pointing in relation to these LEDs.

In short, it doesn't actually know where on the screen it is pointing or even if it's pointing at a screen at all. Placing the light bar anywhere and pointing the Wii Remote at it works perfectly fine. It also gets easily confused when tilting the remote which causes it to fall out of alignment, regularly needing calibrating. Because of this, it never feels like where you're pointing lines up with the screen. That's bad enough but it also has significant amounts of latency.

It works well enough for its purpose such as navigating menus or playing low precision games but for lightgun games which are about speed and precision, it's just not fit for the task. I played a lot of House of the Dead 2 on Wii and while it's enjoyable, it's not a good replacement for the game on an arcade cabinet or the Dreamcast port on a CRT.

Things changed when the Sinden Lightgun was introduced. Andy Sinden, a retro gaming enthusiast, designed a new type of lightgun that utilises a small camera inside a gun-like shell to accurately and quickly determine where it's pointing. It has a few eccentricites such as needing a border around the game for the gun to use as a reference but it's far and away better than most other solutions.

The main problem with the Sinden Lightgun is cost. A single basic Sinden Lightgun costs $176. If you want one with recoil, which adds to the experience immensely, it'll set you back $279. Make no mistake, this thing is a godsend for people like me. Not only does it work on modern displays, it still works with CRTs, it works with retro games through emulation or modern games. It's worth the money in my opinion. But I also lack money so it's not a great solution for me.

This seems to be a common feeling as there have since been several projects to create similar devices using cheap, commonly available parts. If you have the time and patience to solder circuits and 3D print parts, you can easily make your own lightgun for less. Even if you do have the money, the beauty of this project is that it's open-source and endlessly customisable. Some people fit powerful solenoids into theirs so they get a real kick from the recoil, some fit laser sights on theirs, some have even created a mechanism for realistic reloads by ejecting and reinserting a magazine.

So this is my aim with this project. I want to design and 3D print my own lightgun shell, put together the circuitry and customise it to my liking.