For an 80s themed party we recently planned for a local business, we were tasked with providing a dessert option that fit the retro theme. Cupcakes are our dessert of choice for any large gathering, and we quickly realized that with the right display, they would be perfect for this party, too. We channeled our Atari-loving, 80s childhoods and built giant Donkey Kong and Qbert cupcake displays that were the hit of the party.

Retro Atari cupcake table

The entire cupcake table was covered in an 80s themed tablecloth that reminds us so much of the classic Space Invaders game. We put the cupcake displays on either end of the table, with the extra cupcakes filling the table. On the wall between them, we put a blow-up picture of the Atari logo, and scattered around some photos of classic Atari 2600 games that we found online.

This huge dessert table made a grand statement at the party, and made it easy for people to grab a cupcake at any time.

Making the Donkey Kong cupcake display

To make the Donkey Kong display, we started with a big rectangle of plywood, added a base to hold it up, and attached some 1x2 boards to mimic the levels of the classic game. (P.S. Can you see the pieces of our giant Lite Brite project in the background?)

Once we had the base built, we spray painted it with Rust-Oleum 2X Ultra Cover in black.

Then Jo found images online of the front of the platforms, printed them out, and decoupaged them onto the front of the platforms.

McGeeky 3D-printed some pixelated game characters, including Donkey Kong himself, Mario, and the princess. Jo hand-painted them the proper colors and glued them in place on the giant game board. It took a while, but was so worth the effort!

To finish it off, McGeeky also 3D-printed some ladders, which Jo quickly spray-painted with Rust-Oleum 2X Ultra Cover in bright blue.

We cut the ladders to fit wherever they were needed, and glued them in place. Perfect!

All that was left to do was add the cupcakes. We really wanted them to look like part of the game, so I made cupcake picks with fireballs and barrels on them. We just printed our free 80s Donkey Kong cupcake picks onto cardstock and cut them out.

We taped toothpicks to the back and stuck them right into some mini cupcakes. Then we put them on the platforms of the display, and it looked like a never-ending barrage of barrels and fireballs!

We made several hundred cupcakes, since the party was so large, so we scattered the rest all over the dessert table.

Making the Qbert cupcake display

The Qbert cupcake display was on the same grand scale, but built in a completely different way. Since the Qbert gameboard is a pyramid of cubes, that's exactly how we built it. We used a bunch of 4x4x4 white gift boxes (84 of them, to be exact). This size would give us an overall structure that was big enough (28" tall) and each block was large enough to hold a full-size cupcake.

After assembling the boxes, we used clear packing tape to attach them on the bottom...

...until we had a bottom layer that was seven blocks wide on either side.

On top of that, we put another layer of blocks, this time only six blocks wide on either side.

We kept adding layers (7 total) until we got to the very top, with just one.

To decorate the boxes with the proper colors to match the game, we cut out a bunch of 4" x 4" pieces of colored paper in yellow and navy blue.

In keeping with the way the real game plays, we created a trail of "landed on" cubes in yellow, then filled the rest of them with the default navy blue.

We used adhesive to attach all the yellow and navy pieces, then moved on to bright teal paper for the fronts of the cubes.

Once all the white was covered, we just couldn't believe the results. It was perfect!

For the cupcakes, I once again created picks that would look like characters in the game. I printed our free 80s Qbert cupcake picks onto white cardstock, and cut them out.

Taped onto toothpicks and then stuck in the cupcakes, they worked perfectly on this giant edible game of Qbert.

As one last touch, we put a Funko Qbert Pop doll on top.