A custom arcade cabinet that runs games made by the Recurse Center community.

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The RCade is a custom arcade cabinet built for the Recurse Center community, featuring a real 1980s CRT running at 320x240, a custom 24-bit USB display adapter, RP2040-based input controllers with spinners, and a GitHub-based deployment pipeline. The hardware journey involved tracing CRT pinouts with an oscilloscope, configuring precise 15kHz timing via a vga666 adapter on a Raspberry Pi, and eventually commissioning a custom STM32H750-based display adapter for full 24-bit color. On the software side, `npm create rcade@latest` scaffolds a game project with templates (vanilla JS, TypeScript, p5.js, Rust/WASM), auto-generates a GitHub Actions workflow using OIDC passwordless authentication, and deploys to the cabinet via webhook. Games run in sandboxed iframes with strict CSP, and a plugin system using postMessage channels provides controlled access to arcade inputs. There are now 44+ community-made games, and remote Recursers can build and test locally with `npx rcade@latest play`.

RCade: Building a Community Arcade Cabinet — frankchiarulli.com