Category: Tech

LEGO Game Boy

October 5, 2025

I haven’t bought much LEGO in recent years, but as soon as the above was announced I knew it would be mine. It was released on a workday so I couldn’t go to the LEGO store until after my lectures, and when I got there they only had one left so I left happy. But later on I saw a dozen or more at Walmart so I doubt this is difficult to get.

At 421 pieces it’s not a large set, and it only took me an hour or so to build. It only comes with two stickers (all other labeled bricks are printed) but this is the first LEGO set I’ve bought that includes lenticular pieces:

There’s three of them, and they are the screens. They do a wonderful job of reproducing the iconic colours and draw-in of the Game Boy, and look great in the finished model.

Assembly is easy and fun. There’s many techniques I’ve not seen before used to create a compact model with almost no visible studs. Given the constrictions – it had to reproduce a real product – it’s an extremely impressive design.

The controls all ‘work’. The d-pad can be tilted and the buttons pressed. The contrast and volume dials on the side can be turned, and even the power button can be toggled. Pieces of rubber inside cause the buttons to pop back, and they were very creative using tires placed into slots sideways to make the start and select buttons.

The model comes with two cartridges (Super Mario Land and Zelda: Link’s Awakening) which can be inserted and removed. For the full experience you can exchange the screen as well (which is easy) to match the cartridge.

This is a fantastic kit and it’s truly incredible how well it recreates the original in LEGO. To illustrate, here’s a photo of my original Game Boy next to the LEGO model:

And here’s a LEGO cartridge next to an original one:

An incredible creation by LEGO, and immediately one of my favourite kits of all time. This one will be going on permanent display.

Microcosm in Macrovision

October 3, 2025

I got a new ~~camera~~ phone. It’s orange!

It was hellishly expensive, but my old phone lasted six years and I hope this one does as well. Even though the tech is generations beyond my old phone, the feature of this one I’m enjoying the most is the macro camera, since my old phone didn’t have one.

That’s a mini Chupa Chup. The photos above are unretouched, and presented in the same size they were captured.

A Lego piece. It looks a bit translucent when viewed using the macro lens, but it’s impressive how smooth the plastic is.

An Australian dollar coin, specifically the honeybee one from a few years ago. The detail on the bee and flowers is almost invisible with the naked eye, and I’m impressed they can mint them at this resolution! You can also see how some of the paint has scraped off, probably due to rubbing against other coins.

These photos are difficult to take since I don’t have a tripod and you have to both provide a lot of light and hold the phone very still! That’s a pill I was prescribed for my hands. I haven’t taken one yet 🙂

There’s an anti-counterfeiting test used on magic cards used called the ‘green dot test’ which traditionally required a jewelers loupe to do. The macro on this phone makes the test possible without one.

Speaking of trading cards, isn’t it interesting that the foil effect on this Waifu card is pixelated?!? I wonder why…

This diecast metal Zoffy figure is only 2 inches tall and one of my favourite possessions. When magnified using the macro lens we can see the paint application is precise, even with sub-millimeter lines.

Here’s a cloisonné pin, which is about 1 cm wide. You can see the paint has wicked up the edges. I wonder how they make these?

A Fantastic Four comic from 1976. Is the pink bleeding into her right eye an error by the colourer or the printer? Did they even notice?

A d20 from our youth. This came in our Dungeons & Dragons ‘red box’ and was from the era where the dice came with crayon to fill in the numbers. Yes, that white gunk is crayon I applied over 40 years ago! The die surface is very pitted, probably from having been rolled countless times over the years.

A dorito. Don’t they look delicious?

And last but not least an amethyst. The flat surfaces are easily visible with the naked eye, but even in macro you’ll see they continue to be extremely – nearly perfectly – flat. This reminds me that I’ve long been thinking about doing a blog post on ‘flatness’…

The orange of my phone is now hidden in a case, and I think it looks cool. As I was preparing this post I noticed the photos app now includes an AI option to remove items and I used it on the above photo. Can you see where something was removed?

A Game For Men

May 21, 2025

Australia is famous for the ferocity of its fauna, and therefore it’s not at all surprising that yesterday I came upon this:

Yes my friends, this is Animal Kaiser Plus: The King of Animals. This is nothing less than an IC card game based around animals fighting to the death! I sat on the tiny and suspiciously close to the ground seats and could hardly throw my $2.80 in fast enough to give it a play.

An ‘IC card’ game refers to a game using physical cards that are read/scanned by the machine during play. These are very popular in Japan and this is my first time seeing one in English. If you don’t have a card to scan you are giving a default player character, which for me was Leo, The Lion Cub.

The ‘gameplay’ consists of pushing one button to get a random number (between 10 and 50) which – if higher than the opponent – leads to an attack. It’s so simple even a child – a toddler – could do it and it’s obviously no major challenge for a venerable gamer like myself.

So when my Leo, The Lion Cub was repeatedly beaten senseless by the ‘Teck’ attacks of an Asiatic Black Bear I suspected this ‘playing without a card’ business was a handicap.

Happily the game vends a card every game, and after humiliating ursine defeat I received my first card. I hurriedly fed in more credits and purchased two more cards: and thus my team was complete:

Philistines may say it was pure luck I happened to get exactly one animal, one ‘strong’ and one ‘miracle’ card in three rolls – thus providing one card for each team category – but those heathens don’t understand my level of gaming skill.

Those Philistines also wouldn’t begin to observe that this game is a simplified reskin of Japanese arcade classics such as Mushiking or the various Ultraman or Kamen Rider games I often play in Japan. I’m intrigued the system has ‘gone west’, albeit in a non-licensed form.

And so I unleashed my empowered Black Panther upon the animal kingdom, and his righteous fury made mince meat of a bear and a Goblin Shark before he was in turn blown back by the juggernaut of all beasts: an elephant.

It’s perhaps fitting the game then provided me a Goblin Shark of my very own – with evocative attacks including ‘Kande Burst’ and ‘Sledge Gauer’ – although my lethargy by now was absolute and I had to tear myself away from Animal Kaiser Plus: The King Of Beasts without seeing how the shark fared. What other fabulous cards were waiting inside?

Even if I never see this game again, I’ll remember it forever.

Robot Claw