Attention iOS Game Devs: The iCade SDK Is Now Available Free

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iCade-for-iPad.jpg

Here’s some good news for fans of retro arcade games on the iPad.

A Software Development Kit for the fantastic iCade iPad cabinet is now available free of charge, Ion Audio has just announced.


The iCade turns your iPad into the ultimate retro arcade games machine. It looks just like a tabletop arcade cabinet straight out of the 80s, and boasts a joystick with an 8-button control pad.

The $99 accessory just started shipping and is getting rave reviews, but it’s hampered by a lack of games to play on it.

So far, only Atari’s Greatest Hits – Atari“>Atari’s Greatest Hits – which features a library of classic arcade titles such as Asteroids, Missile Command and Pong — is compatible with the cabinet. There’s no Pac-Man and no Defender — yet. That should soon change with the release of the SDK, which will allow other game developers to adapt their games to the cabinet’s controls. (Some SDK details are in this text document, which appears to be the only thing Ion Audio has released so far).

The iCade began as an April Fools’ Day spoof back in 2010 that became an incredibly popular story. ThinkGeek obviously saw how successful the device could be thanks to all the hype, and got to work on making the dream a reality.

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