I built a fightstick the other week! Mostly for Street Fighter 6, though I have played some other 2D games including Hades and River City Girls with it as well.
Parts:
-Brook UFB Fusion board for compatibility with PS4/5, XBOX 360 and above, Switch, Wii U, PC and more
-Crown 309 Helpme K ST35 lever
-Qanba Gravity KS buttons for the top and Seimitsu standard for the sides
I got an enclosure kit from here with a multiconsole PCB (brain for controller). I did research on what buttons and joystick I wanted and ordered them from focusattack and arcadeshock. I liked that I didn’t have to solder everything and they gave me a useful guide for how to set everything up. I linked a build manual in another comment.
But you don’t have to go that way! Depending on your patience and engineering skills you could make a controller out of nearly everything. You could get a cheap PCB from a working controller from a game system you like and a joystick and or some buttons and stick them in an Amazon box if you wanted!
Or, you could do what my buddy did and pick up a kool-aid covered broken street fighter 4 stick off the street, clean it out, and put a new board and joystick in it! It’s up to youuu
Looks great! I built a controller recently too, just wanted to mention that I used the open source GP2040-CE on a Raspberry Pi Pico and it works great, it involved a bit of soldering wires with different connectors together, but there are now custom RP2040 controller boards that can run it and are plug-and-play.
My build was around one of those custom boards, so no soldering for me. It’s perfect for me since I play on PC only and the web configurator is really nice to have for easy SOCD cleaning functionality swaps for different games. I’ll need a Brook adapter if I ever find and go to locals, but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.
Mix Masters Online runs Skullgirls every Thursday for NA (other regions will have their own online tourneys). Plus there are beginner brackets, Discords where you can ping beginner roles, danisen leagues, and whatnot for every level of play.
That seems fun! I’ve mostly been playing in beginner/intermediate brackets in this trans fighting game Discord server I’m part of. I have a lot of hours in this game but I never took learning all that seriously until recently.
I'll take this opportunity to plug my YouTube channel, primarily because it will get you up to speed in Skullgirls much more quickly than it took me. There's the primer video here, and you can watch the combo video after that.
Hellyeah nice! I’ve been thinking about building one too. I had been using an xbox controller for fighters but borrowed my friends hitbox for a bit and don’t wanna go back. Can’t really justify spending like $250 on one though. I think I can build on for about $50 if I use an old cigar box for the case.
How do you like those buttons? I’ve been told to get Sanwa buttons but I really don’t know much about them.
I like them a lot. Good action but not a lot of noise when I mash them, which was why I picked them (as well as for the look). Sanwa Denshi buttons are the gold standard, they’re installed in the classic MadCatz fightsticks and they’re pretty affordable. The Gravity buttons were about twice as much but they have got swappable switches for extra customization and I like the feel. I don’t think you can lose either way!
Sanwa are the default for Japanese-style buttons, and they’re the most common at all levels of play. If you don’t know what you want, they’re probably the best place to start and with how modular sticks and hitbox-style controllers are, you can always change down the line if you find that you have different preferences. Personally, I find Sanwas just a bit too light for me since they’ll accidentally actuate if you brush up against them. It makes it difficult to rest your fingers on the buttons and it’s a bit harder to “ride” the actuation point, if you’re the kind to do that.
Woah this looks amazing. Now I have a new project to add to the list! Got any videos of it in use? How does it feel? Did you document the build process?
I don’t have videos yet, but I’ll post something soon!
It feels awesome. The action buttons have a great feel that’s between clicky and mushy and they don’t make a ton of noise when I mash them.
This was my first experience with a Korean lever. The stick actuator pushes on a silicone grommet which pushes the four directional switches. The result is it feels like the gate is a big circle while I still hear a click confirming when I press or release a direction. I find this makes special move inputs easier. The caveats are you need an adapter for the cables to work with a Japanese style stick, (which I bought with my joystick for an extra buck) and you need a 35mm hole for the “collar” and horizontal holes drilled in the mounting plate to accomodate. Fortunately Eternal Rival took care of all of that when I put my order for the kit together.
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