Vertical Overlays by Thoggo

[Thoggo]

Greetings vertical warriors! Though a few of you know me here, I’m still new to this community, and as I’ve been creating vertical overlays for a few months now, I thought I would put some on this forum as well. I just launched a website, verticalarcade.com, to give them a more permanent home and to hopefully develop more of a destination online for vertical arcade overlays. I’ve been working with @ArsInvictus, @PapaShine and a few others active in this community to further develop the site, so stay tuned for more developments in that arena!

Meanwhile, I’m going to post a few of my recent overlays here, which aren’t on the site yet. I will include links to both MAME and Retroarch versions – my MAME overlays typically include a variety of presets for screen size and other options, which isn’t currently possible in Retroarch. I’m still really getting my head and my process around Retroarch, and currently, for maximum flexibility, the overlays have a fairly generous screen port for the game – as such, if you need to adjust the screen size/position, you may find that there isn’t necessarily a super obvious set size/position, so you can set it up however works for you. I may dial that in further in the future and it varies from game to game. Let me know if you run into any issues on the Retroarch side of things.

Please note, the images here will be 1440p because that’s the resolution of my vertical screen, but the overlays themselves are all 4K resolution. And with that…

[Thoggo]

Smash TV

Retroarch version

MAME version

I’m working on a new overlay pack devoted to the great games of Williams and Midway from the late 80s through the mid-90s, including Smash TV, Total Carnage, NARC, Strike Force, Rampage World Tour and more. This is the first of those, and I’ll continue posting them here as I complete them. Thanks to @ArsInvictus for providing the bezel art.

For Retroarch, this overlay has two versions, with and without a control panel. This is a matter of taste – I personally like overlays that show the original control panel, but a lot of people prefer them without it, so I’m offering both where it makes sense. In the Retroarch version, you will see there is another PNG called smashtv_nocp.png – if you prefer the non-control panel version, change the filename of that file to smashtv.png and move/rename the other one to something like smashtv_cp.png.

This is the version with a coin door/cabinet front place of the control panel, which incorporates a lovely coin door render by @PapaShine:

[Thoggo]

NARC

Retroarch version

MAME version

NARC was one of my favorites of my arcade-going youth, and I was fortunate to find great scans of both the bezel and CPO on CoinOpArt and Arcade Artwork, so thanks to them. Because this game has such a unique cabinet design, the overlay doesn’t have many MAME presets and no non-CPO version. The Retroarch version does not include a bezel and allows a fair amount of leeway in terms of screen size.

[PapaShine]

This looks great, haven’t played narc for decades! Def has the feel of the original cab.

This reminds me, I saw a story about a version donated to an arcade (was it GG?) where the original developers actually went in and finished building the last level properly/to there original vision! anyone know about that and if it was made available for mame?

[Briball]

Just watched that video yesterday haha, it’s in GG and I don’t think it’s been made for MAME.

[benlogan]

Thanks for these beauties, Thoggo. Great game selections.

[Thoggo]

RAMPAGE WORLD TOUR

Retroarch version

MAME version

This one has a couple of versions – I included the control panel on one version, which is an actual photograph taken by @ArsInvictus (note the reflection of the original Rampage marquee on the plexi!), as well as a version with flat CPO art at the bottom. The Retroarch version only includes the non-CP overlay.

[Thoggo]

STRIKE FORCE

Retroarch version

MAME version

This is a somewhat overlooked game, which is a shame because it’s a lot of fun – basically if Smash TV was a latter-day re-imagining of Robotron: 2084, Strike Force is the successor to Defender and Stargate. Aside from the updated graphics, it features loads of weapons, a wide range of enemies, boss fights, two-player co-op play and more. If you haven’t played it, or even if you have, check it out!

This one has numerous options – two different cabinet looks (based on the Williams and Midway versions), and two non-CPO options, plus I designed original bezel art for the coin door variant in the style of the original CPO. I also added a key to the weapons, because it’s hard to remember what all those flying icons mean in the heat of battle!

(The Retroarch version includes all of these options, but you will have to manually switch them out by changing the filename of the desired overlay to strkforc.png.)

[Thoggo]

TOTAL CARNAGE

Retroarch version

MAME version

Download the Williams/Midway Re/Play pack (all 5 games above)

Last but not least, the epic TOTAL CARNAGE! This one was fun to make, including painstakingly recreating the CPO art from photo sources to create a high-res source file. It was also a team effort, with @PapaShine providing a lovely 3D rendered control panel and @ArsInvictus adding some nice lighting effects to the marquee. Can you make it to the Pleasure Domes?? I can’t! (Well, I could with enough continues.)

The MAME version includes multiple styles, while RetroArch currently has two (you’ll need to change the image names, see the included instructions).