Hitbox Final Report Part 1

Within the different genres of video games, there is a genre known as Fighting Games. These harken back to older, arcade styles of games, and the ways that they are played are no different. Custom controllers known as Fightsticks are incredibly common, with their designs mimicking those of old arcade cabinets. My project is to make one myself.

The casings for Fightsticks are incredibly versatile and can be heavily decorated. I want to make a casing from scratch, likely through laser cutting acrylic, and creating an outer shell that I will make a design for. As for what aesthetic it will be, I talked last week about wanting to use a rock aesthetic. Fighting games actually have a long history with rock music, with one of the most influential developers behind them being heavily influenced by classic rock and metal.

The specific type of Fightstick I want to make is called a Hitbox. These features only buttons and no joystick, which I feel will give it a sleeker look.

My functional goals are simple: I should be able to connect it to my laptop and play games with it. It’ll have 11 working buttons that can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the game. Aesthetically, I desire a classic rock aesthetic, which is a bit harder to accomplish.

Hitboxes can have custom “skins,” outer layers that determine how they look. I intend to make a custom one. Throughout this semester, album covers have been my main inspiration, so I think that basing my Hitbox’s skin off of one would be the best way to accomplish this. Which album cover I use and why will be discussed later on.

To make this, I want to have the skin as a separate piece to the rest of the Hitbox so that I can work on the functions and the aesthetics separately. I think that, to make this, I have two main methods of manufacturing. The base, with all the electronics and the functional parts, will be 3D printed. I believe that this is easier than laser cutting, as I want to make a box-like part with slots for wires and adapters. This is easier if 3D printed due to the 3D geometries required. The top of the box, however, was laser cut twice, one to connect to the 3D printed box and one to paint with the design that I want. They are screwed together, preferably with screws of the same color as the box so that the aesthetic can be maintained without interruption.

For the electronics, I have ordered parts from a dedicated Fightstick producer. The parts I have ordered include buttons, cables, a pre-programmed PCB, and adapters. The buttons come in two sizes, 24 mm and 30 mm. All but one button I am using are 24 mm buttons. This will dictate how I will be modeling the parts for the Hitbox in Solidworks.

Many Fightsticks and Hitboxes are quite bulky, so I want to make one that is smaller and more portable. One company that does this is called Snackbox. Their “micro” model is incredibly portable and easy to carry, which I want mine to be. Inspired by this, I want my Hitbox to use minimal space. Admittedly, this is mostly because I do not have much space to keep it. I do not have the exact measurements of one, but I think that is fine. Having my Hitbox’s measurements be based on my own fingers and spacing will probably make my final artifact more comfortable for me to use.

The next issue was what kind of design I want for the skin so as to make it fit the Rock aesthetic I want. Having a Rock aesthetic for a controller might not make much sense at first, but Fighting Games and Classic Rock actually have a deep history.

Arguably one of the most influential game developers in the genre is Daisuke Ishiwatari. Throughout all of his work, he has been inspired by classic rock and metal, shaping large parts of his games entirely based on these styles of music. What has resulted is a significant amount of bands, songs, and albums being connected to the genre. I feel like making my Hitbox have a classic rock aesthetic is a perfect representation of this idea.

I mentioned before that I wanted to make my Hitbox’s skin a classic rock album, one of the best ways to make my Hitbox fit this aesthetic. 

The album I chose was Boston’s self-titled album “Boston.” This album is very special to me. One of the songs, Peace of Mind, is arguably what made me as interested in music as I am today. Using paint, I intended to recreate the album cover by painting one of the acrylic plates that I laser cut.

That was the intention.

The issue is that I bought the wrong kind of paint.

Now, the plan is to have a painted sheet placed in between the two acrylic plates. This sheet is painted and held in place by having both plates pressed against it. This actually makes the system more versatile, as I can make more skins easier and swap them out faster.

The main problem I found was my lack of painting experience. I do not believe I did the album cover justice, but it is at least recognizable as the cover I desired. The painted sheet allowed to make more mistakes, as opposed to if I had painted directly onto the acrylic. Moving forward, I do still need to attach the electronics and connect the plate to the box, but for now, I am very happy with how it looks.

Figure 1: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMayflash-F300-Arcade-Joystick-Switch%2Fdp%2FB019MFPLC0&psig=AOvVaw1Qw9T248QvRxDLqaRATtuJ&ust=1741308929369000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBcQjhxqFwoTCNiEprSf9IsDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Figure 3: https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/711×399/https://blogs-images.forbes.com/olliebarder/files/2016/08/gg_daisuke-1200×675.jpg?width=960