Porting Video Games to VHS

Although VHS-based games have existed for about as long as VHS players have sat in millions of living rooms, they always tended to be rather sparse gaming experiences. For example, the ActionMax gaming “console” that [Throaty Mumbo] shows off in his most recent video. You use a zapper to purportedly shoot down on-screen targets in “games” like Sonic Fury.

After this disappointing experience, he figured he should probably make his own interpretation of a VHS-based video game. This involves a DE1-SoC FPGA board along with an RP2350 MCU. There’s also an in-progress GitHub repository for those who wish to follow along.

Rather than the simplistic Action Max system that plays exactly the same every time along with a basic light gun feature, this actually allows for interactive gameplay. The video shows that the VHS tape contains both binary data for the game, as well as several video streams.