Doing the laundry, arcade style

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One place where you might come across an arcade game that isn’t an arcade, FEC, or bar is a coin-op laundry. Usually it’s just a couple of games tucked away in the corner as they try and suck up a few quarters from people who have to stick around the laundromat and don’t have anything else to do while they wait. So what about combining the two into one – a laundry machine that also works as an arcade machine? That’s what Kingston University student Lee Wei Chen has developed, an innovative way of washing your clothes and getting some fun out of it in the process. The bottom half of the cabinet contains the washing mechanism, the top half is the controls and monitor. He chose to use a steering wheel and buttons for the controls and programmed the game so that if you fail, it will stop the washing cycle and you have to insert more coins to continue not just the game but the wash as well. If you’re talking about replay value, then this is certainly one way to do it, as you won’t want to leave your clothes incompletely washed.

More info is here at Creative Boom – the only thing they don’t show is the actual game you play. I am already imagining something like Enduro on the Atari 2600(you could call it LaundroRace or Launduro) but who knows, I’m sure he came up with something enjoyable to play while you wash.