So much great work from everyone in this community. Bravo to everyone!
7 Likes
Image Fight (IREM - 1988)
Released a year after R-Type (with an art style and gameplay deeply influenced by that title), this game never gained popularity outside of Japan, where it remains fairly well known as a classic and outrageously challenging shooter. There was a NA release of this game but I was unable to find any photos of the artwork for that release that I could be certain were authentic.
So, for this overlay I created a custom marquee based on a scan of the NES box artwork. I also found some low resolution scans of the instruction strip in Japanese, as well as some fairly clean shots of the Japanese instruction cards. I found a copy of the NES game manual on E-Bay and purchased and scanned that, as it has very nice art that replicated what was in the original instruction materials. I used that to recreate all the instruction cards but translated to English (via another game flyer with translations embedded).
I’ve put all the artwork out on the Mameworld forum custom art section.
Here’s an example of the full recreated instruction card. The copies at MameWorld are in very high resolution suitable for printing.
7 Likes
Invaders (1978) (MIDWAY)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ub7s18zgqr58kEVqxq_-f3wNXterOl1e/view?usp=sharing
6 Likes
Hi @walter.farmacia, this looks good! Do you have a version with the backfrop separate from the bezel glass/art?
2 Likes
Armored Warriors (Capcom - 1995)
This just adds a control panel version for Armored Warriors, hopefully the final cut for this game. A lot of work went into this title over the last year, from the restored marquee to restoring and creating a set of instruction cards. This one also adds custom decals for the control panel stickers, as no photos were available of the original title. So I based it on what Capcom used for other games of the era, like 19XX and MegaMan, using the red/blue/yellow color scheme used for the other game artwork.
The coin door version is still included with both packages.
6 Likes
Here’s another oldie that needs no introduction.
BREAKOUT
Now I am only posting the Mame version first as it has a bit of a workaround to get it running. I could only get the rom to work by playing the breakout rom, that is in MAME already so you don’t actually need a rom. To get it to work in my front end, I added a dummy(empty zip file containing a txt file) and saving it as breakout.zip in the ROM folder. My hope is this work around will work for you, so please PM me if you have questions.
Also this overlay has functional lights, which doesn’t work in Retroache as far as I know.
BUT I will try retroarch version soon.
6 Likes
Liberator (Atari – 1982)
Clearly this is New Game Saturday on the thread, so let’s keep it going! This is a deep cut from a period when Atari struggled with first-party games – conceived as a sequel to Missile Command, Liberator struggled to find an audience, even with the help of the tie-in Atari Force comic book series from DC Comics, and ultimately faded into obscurity.
Liberator flipped the concept of Missile Command, putting players in charge of a squadron of space fighters assigned to protect the denizens of a series of planets from the occupying Malaglon Army. From the planet’s surface, the enemy launches missiles that arc toward your ships much like the missiles in Missile Command, and you destroy them (and the bases they launch from, and other flying enemies) in much the same way. You can activate temporary shields around your ships, and you lose when all four ships are destroyed. The centerpiece of the visuals is a rotating planet that must have looked cool in 1982.
The game is intended for trackball control, but works with a standard joystick. This overlay includes curved and straight screen versions on MAME. I did my best in 2D to capture the contours of the unique cabinet design, which had an interesting shape but no front graphics other than the marquee and CPO. It’s actually pretty fun, both to play and just as a peek into Atari history. You can learn way more than you need to know about Liberator from this nice mini-doc from Vintage Arcade Gal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTOywtdqVZw
7 Likes
Another quick note, for anyone who might be interested: I launched a Vertical Arcade Twitter feed this week, which will have info about our releases as well as links and commentary on the retro gaming scene in general. Check it out if you are so inclined: https://twitter.com/verticalarcade
3 Likes
Psycho Soldier (SNK - 1986)
This is the sequel to a game called Athena released a year earlier. While this game has remained somewhat obscure over the years, the two main characters in the game, Athena and Kensou, have both reappeared in the King Of Fighters series and remain in that series as recently as KOF XIII.
The marquee here was provided by Mr. Do and restored by myself, while the bezel was supplied by Mr. Do already restored. I re-used the SNK generic CPO I vectorized for use in other games like Prehistoric Isle.
7 Likes
You guys do an incredible job. Are there 3 player CPO variants for games such as Armored Warriors?
2 Likes
Thanks @Dustygibbs1984, I considered doing a 3 CPO layout for Armored Warriors, but chose not too just so the button labels etc would be more legible. This game was also often used on 2 player cab conversions so I didn’t feel it was too disrespectful to the original.
1 Like
Hammerin Harry (IREM -1990)
Another relatively unknown title from IREM outside of Japan, despite there being 8 games in the series, the last of which was Hammerin Hero for the PSP in 2008. There’s not a lot of material for this game available so this is a fairly bare bones overlay.
7 Likes
Altered Beast (SEGA - 1988)
Here is an update to Altered Beast with full packaging and two control panel versions, one with the full bezel artwork and another with a larger screen cut out.
9 Likes
Asteroid (1979) (ATARI)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10Cguc20n3LWdcvpJRWHkVy7I-siBtYSJ/view?usp=sharing
6 Likes
Battle Garegga (Eighting/Raizing - 1996)
It’s not clear to me this ever had a North American release with dedicated art, etc. But in any event I can’t find any so put together a custom design. I’d done a custom marquee and bezel in the past but for this updated opted to skip the bezel as it doesn’t fit my current design sensibilities. Instead I did create a custom control panel overlay and updated the marquee lighting effects and other graphical assets.
Thought I’d share the full CPO view here. It’s kind of disappointing sometimes when the full CPO isn’t viewable after I put time into making it look authentic.
8 Likes
So much great content these last few days. You guys are amazing.
Love the “bonus picture” of full CPO. Wow — that came out extra realistic.
Beautiful work, all. Thanks!
4 Likes
Amazing looking vertical bezels. Excellent work to all involved. I check the forum daily for new releases. Is the Joust overlay available to download?
2 Likes
well here’s a double posting and as you might have gathered another classic in the history of arcades.
Pole Postition and Pole Position II - (ATARI 1982 and 1984)
screenshots:
I just want to add a thank you to @MrDo for his website where I get lots of the images from and I’m learning a lot from the New lay files. I might do the animated gearshift on these if I get the urge.
6 Likes
Joust (Williams - 1982)
Thanks to @NeoKarnage for pointing out I’d never updated Joust for proper packaging in both MAME and RetroArch. So… here it is 
8 Likes