4K Vertical Overlay Community Contributions

[Thoggo]

Black Widow (Atari – 1982)

MAME version

RetroArch version

This game had kind of flown under my radar, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, both at a local arcade that just opened and on MAME. Black Widow was a conversion kit for Gravitar, which wasn’t a huge hit when it was released, and it plays like sort of a cross between Tempest and Robotron: 2084. Players control a spider who shoots the bugs crawling in its web to turn them into dollar sign-shaped “grubsteaks” (you know, like spiders do), using one joystick for movement and the other for firing. Some bugs lay eggs, which hatch into more annoying bugs, while others explode or fly around, Galaga-style, and yet another large bug called the Bug Slayer roams around and competes with you to clear out the tasty intruders. The game’s colorful vector graphics set it apart from a lot of games of its time, and it’s actually pretty addictive.

[Thoggo]

Yeah, that’s the sort of thing I was imagining @Orb, we could create something in that vein. We have a variety of options for controls, and the speaker panel wouldn’t be super difficult to recreate. Typically in an overlay we avoid adding reflections on the “glass” as it tends to detract from the game more than it does on an actual cabinet, though I still would like to explore better ways to do reflections. I think the biggest challenge would just be finding the correct marquees, as it looks like these were a bit shorter than typical marquees – do you have any idea if there’s a source out there that would have scans? Or did they use the same marquees but just cut them down or cover up part of them?

[Orb]

I’m conscious of the post count about this matter and don’t want to make it all about me forevermore so I’ll make this the last post on it.

Until I have the leaning television to work out warp angles from it’d be guesswork. It’s a very niche thing too isn’t it? It’d be a wonder if anyone else visiting wanted that I didn’t realise when I first asked, the extra challenge created by me not using a vertical screen you see.

Anyway, to answer about the marquees- It usually had that default unigame one in my mockup, a game specific one with the bottom hacked off, a sheet of paper with the game name printed on or none at all. Nothing fancy around my way. It was a strange decision on electrocoins behalf to make things difficult.

I’d be fine with the Unigame one only as my intent was to use this for any games that didn’t already have any overlay set mostly, and maybe a few kit games I actually played in one. So there’s only really one to recreate.

Black Widow looks very nice. I mean it when I say these recreations make me want to play games before my time to experience them. I was 5 when that came out It goes to show how much the art was worth as a draw and again, kudos for bringing it back.

[Orb]

This is the earliest game I played on in the wild, and was fascinated with. It was pretty old by then but must have been still making money when I got to visit arcades

The artwork was recreated on a lot of schoolbooks.

Sega's classic ZAXXON Arcade Game - Cabinet design, artwork, gameplay overview!

[Thoggo]

Space Duel (Atari – 1982)

MAME version

RetroArch version

Keeping the Atari vector goodness coming! A childhood favorite of mine, Space Duel was the “true” sequel to Asteroids, adding a variety of novel features, the most notable being two-player simultaneous play. Atari had the genius (or insane?) idea of linking the two players’ ships together, creating the opportunity for both concentrated firepower and outright mayhem, as one player can thrust and send the tethered ship careening across the screen (early examples of both realistic physics and video game trolling). Space Duel also replaced the asteroids with colorful shapes that change across the levels, and added aggressive alien attackers (including some that “play catch” with their projectiles), shields and bonus levels. (One thing to note: you’ll need to have a Select button mapped as this game has you press Select to choose the game type and then Start to actually start the game.)

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot the image in the RetroArch version! If you downloaded it, please redownload.

[benlogan]

Extra beautiful CPO on this one

[walter.farmacia]

World Series : The Seasons (1985) (CINEMATRONICS)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z9C6U49diLYX3gRN05h86WnVLvEPr1Im/view?usp=sharing

[Thoggo]

Gravitar (Atari – 1982)

MAME version

RetroArch version

Continuing our set of early 80s Atari vector classics, Gravitar expanded upon the basic concept of Lunar Lander while adding a series of increasingly devious level designs, ground-based turrets, alien attackers and boss-like reactor levels, in addition to color graphics. The control scheme and cabinet design are essentially the same as Asteroids and Space Duel, though Gravitar didn’t sell as well, at least partially because of its brutal level of difficulty. Black Widow was released as a conversion kit for Gravitar, and in fact used the same PCB with updated ROM chips.

[walter.farmacia]

Main Event (1988) (KONAMI)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YEj-lGPiyalE5I1ZhAAGz8Qx7vojdu-U/view?usp=sharing

[Briball]

when i hear the start of this game, it instantly brings me back to the 80’s

Moon Cresta (Sega 1980)

Mame zip

Retroarch files

now I know nichibutsu was the original cabinets, but i can’t find good images for that, so it’s only the sega gremlin cab . . . . for now, so anybody please PM if you have anything HQ.

[DonkyKong]

@Briball Your right hahaha I put A LOT ot coins in this game Thanks for the Overlay, I can’t even recall even seeing an original Monn Cresta cabinet in Australia, I seen most on cocktail cabinets here and all used a joystick, Same as Space invader cocktail cabinets

[Thoggo]

I actually own a Moon Cresta cocktail cabinet (the Nichibutsu version), which is a weirdly shaped and kind of charmingly ugly little thing, though I don’t really play it as it needs some work. I remember the game from my hometown arcade, it definitely doesn’t quite have the addictive quality of, say, Galaga, but the ship-stacking upgrades are an interesting mechanic.

[Briball]

I saw this game pass by during a google trawl and caught my eye, as I play on my pincab It felt it needed a bit of attention, especially when you see the year it came out, it had a plunger and you can nudge the CPO(haven’t tried on my cab yet) so give it a try search for videopin rom 16.

Video Pinball (Atari 1978)

Videopin MAME version only.

this game is heavy on real flashing leds and thanks to the lay file from @MrDo it wasn’t to difficult to set up, but I don’t know how to get that working on RetroArch., I could do a simple no leds working overlay if anybody wants.

[DonkyKong]

@Thoggo Can you share a picture of your MC cabinet? I’m very interested in what it looks like now

[walter.farmacia]

Snacks’n Jaxson (1984) (BALLY)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RkLloBWjX_bBuGkQJyBaMhKIJY433Txm/view?usp=sharing

[walter.farmacia]

BATMAN (1990) (ATARI)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lvvukoStiat62Ii40QVQnF7iSotD-vRv/view?usp=sharing

[Briball]

a quick one, but wanted to get up to some monkey business.

Amidar (stern 1981)

Amidar Mame zip

RetroArch files

ok I’ll add the RetroArch version soon, just haven’t got access to Cab to check if works, but I think the Mame version should be ok, but if you find the screen postion off, i fix it.

BTW It’s not always easy to find really good images for games you would think there would be lots of pictures of, had to do a bit of work on the Marquee and CPO is not the best, But I hope it’s ok for you all. might go back on this one at some day.

[NeoKarnage]

The Amidar zip contains the lay file and an amidar.png that is just the marquee instead of the full vertical overlay.

[Briball]

ok the MAME zip should be FIXed.

and for those RetroArchies find Amidar in here

[benlogan]

Here’s a video of Ice Cold Beer Arcade cabinet in development in VR. Thought you might be interested in this as proof of concept, should any of you guys be interested in creating VR versions of your lovely cabinets in the future. There’s a Golden Tee cabinet modeled here too.

This is NOT an attempt to cajole you guys into moving in this direction. Just thought of this thread instantly when I viewed Rod’s video:

https://youtu.be/Kpt-R3Qox1A

Thanks again for all the beautiful vertical arcade work, guys!