Stickfreaks!

Contact me if you like via email.

StickFreaks is the hobby of one oldschool gamer who has become disillusioned over the years with the ever growing complexity and cheapening of game controllers.

Cutting my teeth in the height of the arcade era, the humble joystick and pushbutton were standard fare. Classics like Defender, Gradius and R-Type made shooter fans jump with glee.

With the release of Street Fighter 2, the fighting game world was turned on it's head. Huge sprites, complex strategic gameplay, and the quest for the perfect combo. Along with it came the realisation that good controllers meant life or death in the heat of the battle.

The arcade era died down, and the home console market revved up. Controllers became less about size and reliability, and turned into small plastic lumps. Gone are the joysticks that gave us pinpoint control over our 360 degree rotations for spinning pile drivers and large, accessible buttons. In their place, clumsy D-Pads, awful shoulder buttons, and utterly pointless analogue sticks.

The shoot 'em up and the 1-on-1 fighting game still rank as my two favourite genres of gaming. Both have strong followings worldwide which have evolved into healthy, organised competition. What's missing (particularly in Australia) are arcade style and quality controllers to satisfy these gamers.

Being ever so slightly more talented at woodwork than I am at Street Fighter (with neither being particularly great), I decided to start this project with the following design goals:

All name brand Japanese parts (Sanwa/Seimitsu)
Laser Cut Double 9mm MDF body - screw/nail-free construction.
All routed/rounded edges
Rubber tread non-slip base
Laser Cut 1.6mm mild steel top, zinc-treated for anti-rust
Matt photo high resolution artwork
Laser Cut 2mm Polycarbonate overlay
Acrylic spray-paint finish.

Along with my sticks, this site will be a dumping ground for my other arcade and console related hacks and projects. I like to document things verbosely so that others who wish to copy and improve on my efforts are free to do so. I hope you enjoy the site.