PortfolioCase study
DA-01Live · BYO-ROM
Dino Arcade
Your phone, an arcade.
Install it.Bring your own game.Play offline.
A mobile-first PWA that turns a phone into a backlit arcade cabinet — and ships zero game data.
0
game files shipped
Structural
you supply a file you’re entitled to use
0
servers, accounts or analytics
Structural
static, entirely on the device
Evidence keyStructural
The product
Install it like an app. Bring your own game.
Add the cabinet to the home screen, load a game file you’re entitled to use, and play — offline, with the file kept on the phone.
- Add to home screen
- Load your own file
- Stored on the device
- Play offline
The load-bearing decision
Bring your own ROM.
- Could have
- Bundle games
- Chose
- Ship zero game data
- Because
- The player supplies a file they are legally entitled to use.
- Could have
- Host accounts and files
- Chose
- On the device, offline
- Because
- The cabinet doesn’t need a backend: no servers, no accounts, no analytics.
How it works
Everything runs on the phone.
- Service workerpower: caches it for offline
- IndexedDBthe slot: your file stays here
- EmulatorJSthe board: a self-hosted core
- Cabinet shellmarquee, bezel, CRT shader
- Controlleron-screen joystick and buttons
What happened
Fine for private play. Never publishable.
Dino Arcade
A cabinet for games you already own — fine for private play.
The limit
An emulator of licensed games can never be published.
Can’t publish
An original game
Build an original game, with wholly original IP.
Slag City
A publishable, original coin-op brawler for the browser.
Read the Slag City case study (opens in a new tab)
Key learnings
What the cabinet taught me.
Constraints can create the product
Shipping no game data shaped everything: the file picker, local storage, offline play.
Local-first simplifies more than infrastructure
No backend means nothing to host, no account to sign in to, nothing to track.
A dead end can reveal the next build
An emulator that can never be published is why Slag City exists.
Source material
Everything here is backed by real artifacts.
- Readme
- PRD