Sanwa push button in iCade?

Whilst on holidays a few weeks back I had the opportunity to go visit my mate JT and sample some of his games via his rather nice Capcom Impress cabinet.

JT’s impressive collection of Capcom boards including the highly impressive Pro Gear.

I can see why people love Sanwa arcade buttons, they’re perfect for schmups and high action games that requiring multiple rapid contacts. A set of these would be great in my iCade!

Remembering that JT has kindly given me a couple of buttons to test, I’ve once again taken my iCade apart for a poke around inside and to see if it’s possible to swap out the stock buttons. I’ve tried with Happs microswitches which, despite being quieter, are but still quite ‘Clicky’

<see previous blog post – http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/inside-the-icade-and-swapping-microswitches/ >

Here’s the two Sanwa Snap-in buttons.

Bugger! They don’t fit. These buttons are 29.5mm wide whereas the iCade button holes are 28mm. I could make them fit using my Dremel to sand out the holes but before I go down that route I want to see if there’s any thing else that’s suitable first.

Maybe should have read this before undoing the ga-zillion iCade screws

http://www.myglasseye.net/news/2012/01/how-to-customise-your-icade-stick-and-buttons/

They came from Verminest ’83 – Acer 1825PTZ

Thanks to the heads up at the guys over at RGCD there’s new, ‘coin-op colorised’ version of They Came From Verminest. After playing the Black and White original this the afternoon, those colors sure do pop out of the screen!

I’ve also been on the hunt for some 3D glasses…found em…remember the set that came with Magic Carpet?

As the game has been done in the style of a 80′s portrait coin-op game I thought it would be fun to put my netbook into tablet mode and use the JoyPad Elite app on my iPhone as a controller.

They came from Verminest ’83 on my Acer 1825 PTZ

‘Borrowing’ Curstie’s Piano music stand..shhh, mum’s the word.

As before you can pick up this and the original from locomalito

They came from Verminest – Indie PC gaming

With a title like this, you can’t help yourself saying it in the style of the 50′s B-Movie announcer. Go on, do it again, it’s fun!

THEY CAME FROM VERMINEST! <da da daaaaaaaah!>

Cue spooky space music…in fact, why do all classic Sci-Fi films from this era always have  ghostly wailing whenever there’s a scene in outer space? I thought that ‘in space no one can hear you scream’?

THEY CAME FROM VERMINEST! Is a superb indie game for the PC and is a gallery shooter in the style of Galaga with a hint of Space Invaders, Frogger, Centipede and a whole host of other games from the early 80′s.

However with THEY CAME FROM VERMINEST, the author, Locomalito have given the game a classic black and white 50′s B movie makeover that works absolutely brilliantly and also reminiscent of those early colourless, high contrast games in the arcade and early home consoles. One of the main reasons why I love my MB Vectrex.

Completing the B-movie style, there’s two additional filters than can be applied. The first add a flickery cinema projector overlay complete with splotches and vertical  lines and the second is just superb

THEY CAME FROM VERMINEST..PRESENTED IN 3D-OSCOPE.

The presentation doesn’t stop there though as the author has gone to great lenghts to get you in the B movie spirit by offering downloadable content such as theatrical style teaser, trailer and release  posters….

…. trading cards, game manual, CD label and DVD cover as well the ‘making of the trailer’  which you just have to see. Locomalito and co. have really gone to town on the presentation.

So before you head on over to download or purchase your own copy, here’s the official trailer to get you in the mood..cue spooky space music please!

http://www.locomalito.com/verminest.php

Abbobo’s Big Adventure – Joypad Elite

Now this is one hellava great game!

Abbobo’s Big Adventure – The Ultimate Tribute to the NES

You remember Abbobo right? That ‘over arm throwing, have you seen my green brother’ brute from Double Dragon? Well, his son has been captured and he’s non to happy about it so off you go on a rampage rescue mission through eight NES themed levels to smite all that stand in your way. You’ll meet a whole host of characters from classic NES games and get to pound them to the ground. Cannon your way through lines of thugs from Kung Fu Master, kick Goompa’s where it hurts, take out Little Mac from Punch-Out and prod Dig-Dug with your Zelda style sword until it hurts. Will you eat the mermaid or…erm hmm, mate with it?

Add in a whole bucket of comedy with enough pixalised gore to make Nintendo and Mario faint and you’ve got one of the finest Flash games and the ‘Ultimate Tribute to the NES’. It’s like all your favorite NES games wrapped up in one!

As i’m playing a NES inspired game, I thought it would be fitting to play it using an emulated NES controller thanks to my iPhone and the JoyPad Elite app. Go Abbobo!

Hehe, with a name like Gavin, it’s no wonder he calls himself Mr Big instead

Double Dragon (Ocean) – Commodore 64

Yay Double Dragon, one of the greatest side scrolling beat em ups of its time, and forefather to many clones that came thereafter. Everyone’s heard about it, played and loved it…probably. So when teaser shots starting to circulate in computer magazines of the time regarding a very belated home conversion on the Commodore 64 you can imaging the whooping and a hollering from a young StiGGy. Not only that but is was being produced by ‘ Way of the Exploding Fist’ – Melbourne House.

Didn’t read the reviews, went out on release day, slammed down my hard earned cash and raced home to play it. Ooooooh dear…….what waste of a great license and missed opportunity….epic fail and amost 25 years later, I still shudder at the thought of it. A fine example of how not to make a beat em up and it should be added to the ‘Rise of the Robots’ wall of shame.

Interestingly though, I was reading a friends Facebook feed post regarding an eBay auctioncog a different version of Double Dragon for the C64. It was in cartridge format and produced by the mighty Ocean software for the Commodore 64GS games console. Athough a completed game, it never recieved an official release due to the short lifespan of the failed console and therefore examples of this very rare cartridge are few and far between and thus highly collectable. This particular eBay auction finished at just over £400!!

Way beyond my meagre budget, but interested to take a look at it in action as i was not aware of this other release, I headed off to the interweb to see if I could find a .crt dump. My first port of call was to have a look at Matt’s (Mayhem) web site. I got chatting with him at Eurocon a few years and as as avid Commodore cartridge collector thought that if anyone would have it he would!…and he did!

http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/main.htm

Image downloaded, copied to my SD2IEC and being flashed to my C64 Easyflash cart.

Starting the cart on my c64c

Nice menu screen to match the arcade original and a pretty decent rendition of the main DD theme music – although there’s quite a bit of artistic interpretation here aka it’s doesn’t sound anything like it at times

Well, it certainly looks a little bit better than Melbourne House’s attempt and not a hint of that awful graphical clitch that sees body split from legs. The characters are a bit chunky looking though and for a late Commodore release, you’d think the background GFX would have been better drawn. Complete game yes, but maybe only at a prelimary stage?

Well after playing it for an hour or so, I can safely say that this plays better than The Melbourne House version….but it’s still dire. Bad collision, dodgy animation, very limited opponent types, weapons that are not displayed when picked up, steep difficulty curve despite the multiple continues, lack of any of the little features that made the arcade original so great (bearing in mind that this was a 32k cartridge release and could have easily contained them) and moves that are limited and ineffective ..apart from the headbutt which is fun for a while.

C64 collector or not, if i’d paid £400 for it, i’d be sweating a lot about now

It looks like Double Dragon on the C64 just wasn’t to be. If you’ve not played it, give it a go, go on I dare you

Fun with iDos

You can’t beat a bit of classic PC DOS gaming from time to time and thanks to amazing programs like DOSbox and FreeDOS you replay those fondly remembered games on a variety of modern platforms.

I still fire up the occasional game of Wing Commander, Doom, Duke Nuke’em and the Sierra adventure games from time to time on my netbook. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a portable DOS emulator for tablets?…Well, if your an Android user that theres a damn find port of Dosbox available. For iOS owners like myself there’s iDOS.

One snag though, iDOS has been pulled off the app store so many times and it looks to be permanently out for the count as far as this store is concerned. There is another (limited) DOS emulator out there but the In App store doesn’t contain many titles…Commander Keen makes an appearance though!

If you were lucky enough to install iDos when it first appeared then I bet you’ve already been enjoying the delights of this great app. For me who missed it the first time around, i’ve had to wait for the Absinthe Jailbreak and a visit to the wonderful Cydia store.

iDOS purchased and ready to rock. The app is shipped with six classic games with more coming available – although the app’s been out for a while now and nothing new has be released

But the big question is, can you add your own games?…well the answer to that is a big fat Yes.

There’s two ways you can do this and both will require iExplorer http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/

If you’ve read some of my previous posts regarding the ios Commodore C64 and ZX Spectrum emulator then you’ll probably know your way around this great little app. If not, check out the iExplorer site and have a read through the documentation, it really is a simple app to use.

Right, we need a game. For this it’s a visit to my favourite DOS game emporium – Abandonia

http://www.abandonia.com/

This site has a huge collection of freely available old DOS games were the original publishers/IP owners given the software as free to distribute on public domain. Not all games are free (such as those IP’s that are still in circulation…for example, Lucasarts games).

For my example i’m going to use one of my favourites games from the Amiga days – Geoff Crammond’s Stunt Car Racer.

First method –

Download the folder/files and with your iDevice connected to your PC, use iExplorer to copy the files to /apps/idos/documents

If you already have the iDOS app running on your iDevice, you need to restart it for it to detect the new fles.

Start the app and go into DOS command mode by pressing the ‘C:’ icon.

Now you just need to browse and run the game .exe just like you did back in the of DOS. You do remember the old commands don’t you?

Now

o.k so that’s the old fashioned way of launching a game and after all, it’s a DOS emulator and so it’s fun to play around with the the old commands again.

Second method.

The games library within iDOS shows a mock bookshelf with nice box art covers for the games that are shipped with the app. No messing around with DOS commands, just click and play. Well, we can also add our own games to this library.

Download the game file (again, i’m going to use Stunt Car Racer).

Unzip the contents, if the original download was a .zip file.

Place all of the unzipped files/folders into one folder. For my example i’ve named this folder ‘SRC’

Using a suitable program (i’m using 7zip) rezip the folder SRC but change the extension name to .PKG. Your zipped file should now be called SRC.PKG. If it’s called SRC.PKG.zip then something isn’t right. I’m not sure if any other programs like Tugzip, Winzip allow you to change the archive extension type. If not, try 7Zip.

Next we need some boxart. One you have a suitable image downloaded, use MS Paint/Gimp to resize the image to 188×214 pixels and save as either a .jpg or .png. For this example i’ve used src.jpg

With your iDevice connected to your PC, use iExplorer to browse to apps/idos/iDOS.app/packages

Copy your SRC.PKG and src.jpg files to this location.

Whilst in this folder, drag a copy of one of the existing .CFG files to your PC desktop. In this example i’ve used DUKE.CFG.

Open the file with a text editor and change it to the following – (changing the pathname and .exe fie to suit your own if not using Stunt Car Racer.

#—————————————————–
# GamePad Key Bindings
#—————————————————–
[gamepad.keybinding]
button0=ATL,ALT
button1=CTRL,CTRL
button2=SPC,SPACE
button3=ENTR,ENTER
button4=ESC,ESC
button5=y,y

[start.iphone]
cycles=2500
cd \3drealms\SRC\SCR\SCR
car.EXE

[start.ipad]
cycles=3000
cd \3drealms\SCR\SCR\SCR
car.EXE
———————–

Save the file at SCR.CFG

Also, take a copy of GAME.plist (also dump a backup copy of the original somewhere for safe keeping).

Edit and add the following line before the end line –

dict>
ConfigFile
SCR.CFG
CoverImage
scr.jpg
PackageFile
scr.PKG
TargetFolder
3drealms/SCR
Title
SCR
UUID
supa1

———————

Again, you might need to exchange the word ‘SCR’ for your own game files.

Save the file and copy this and SCR.CFG back to your iDevice.

Restart iDOS.

Go to the My Collection area.

Yay, Stunt Car Racer has appeared. Click the box art to install.

After installation the game will now show as available so click on it to start.

Woohoo!

Virtual Keyboard, Virtual Joystick, Virtual D-Pad and touch screen mouse support. iDOS supports them all!

In landscape, full screen mode.

Another HUGE bonus with iDOS is that it supports Bluetooth keyboards too. One feature i’ll be checking out a lot! Now, to find my X-Wing floppies

Have fun and feel free to post any questions if you get stuck (this probably isn’ the best guide).

Gunpoint – Indie game intro

Gunpoint is a indie game currently in development for the PC and one I’ve been closely following for a while now. There’s a pretty cool introductory video available now to show you what the game looks like and what it’s all about etc….and I for one, cannot wait until it’s released!

Awesome-ness!

More Another World.

Continuing my renewed interest in all things Another World, I’ve been having a dig around the interweb looking at reviews and tube video for some of the other console and computer conversions. Suffice to say, I’ll be dusting down my 3DO console soon and also checking out the rerelease on the PC. On my journey I also happened across the Another World website.

http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/index.htm

Despite not having an update for a few years now, it contains a whole heap of Another World goodies including an insight into the making of the game and sketches and concept paintings.

Deluxe Paint on the Amiga rocks!

Early cover concepts.

Lester’s amazing office.

Great reading and well worth a look. Also, head over to the download section to pickup a copy of that great cover art. Makes for a great wallpaper too

DIY Retro Dual Stick Controller – PART 2

Right time to put the sticks into a case and as I mentioned yesterday, I’ve found the perfect item to use for it.

Behold!

Yep, it might look like a standard office box file, but you’d be wrong,this is actually a custom dual stick case….honest

Firstly we have the custom camouflage paintwork which perfectly suits our tank busting antics with Atari’s Battlezone.

We then have the sturdy plastic side panels to keep everything from crumpling into a cardboard mess when the action intensifies. Also note the smooth curved edging for comfort whilst playing

We also have the prefabricated ‘service hole’ where one can poke ones USB cable through.

…and to top it off, we have a flip lid giving instant access to the components inside and easy maintenance as well as a push button lock for security…..em?

O.k, so it’s a box file, but with all the ‘features’ listed above, you can kinda imagine what I was thinking when I saw it.

First job, cut to holes for the joysticks to poke through. A sharp craft knife was used here as the cardboard was thicker than I thought and way too much for my poor old scissors.

Joysticks positioned and loose cables tie wrapped out of the way. The Keyrah interface will sit inside the case with the USB cable threaded though the hole in the front.

I needed something inside the case for the joysticks to rest on as the case was a little too deep for them. For this, I’ve used one of my heavy gardening books which not provides weight and stability, it also a smooth glossy surface for the joystick sucker pads to attach to and stops them from slipping around. I was still about 1cm short so, keeping it Retro, a copy of Amiga Format magazine from January 1993 filled the gap quite nicely.

The last job was to cover the joystick holes, so I cut two black circles out of a magazine cover and wrapped these around the joystick base.

Here it is – my oh so cheaper than a cheap thing, retro dual stick controller Who needs Steel Battalion

Setup with my PC.

Mame32 and Battlezone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymapiTeKlNI&sns=em

DIY retro dual stick controller – PART 1

Following on from my previous post re dual controls for Battlezone, I was driving home from work one evening thinking about how I could go about creating a (very) simple dual joystick control system that would let me play Battlezone the way it was meant to be played. Ideally I want to use proper old school joysticks reminiscent of BattleZone and other arcade games rather than simply using a modern USB dual thumbstick type affair.

I had two type of joystick in mind here and both are from the 80′s – either the Cheetah 125 or the Quikshot II. Both are black flight sticks with bright red fire buttons and both are smooth and silent having leaf switch contacts as opposed to clicks micro switches.

Two problems – Firstly, I only have one of each type of Joystick and although they look very similar they don’t match. Secondly, both sticks are old fashioned 9-pin type joysticks used on early computers like the Commodore 64 so if I intend to plug them into my netbook I’m going to need some sort of USB adaptor.

The first problem was easily solved, a quick chat with Andy at the Retro Computer Museum last week and he’s lent we two matching Cheetah joysticks for my little experiment.

The second problem, could have turned into another larger project itself if it wasn’t for the fact that I already owned what I needed to get the joysticks converted to USB.

You might recall this wonderful bit of kit from my previous posts about my Commodore 64 ITX PC project, this is the Keyrah interface board which is designed to connect a whole range of classic commodore keyboards and convert them into a modern USB keyboard. for use USB. It also sports two 9-pin joystick ports that can convert older joysticks as key presses on modern PC’s.

Here’s the setup – Both joysticks are connected to the Keyrah which in turn is connected to my Netbook via USB. Each joystick movement represents a keyboard press which, in this case, it’s the numerical keys 0-9 – four for each joystick movement and one extra for the fire button.

The first thing I wanted to try out was replicating the dual stick converted edition of BattleZone on the Atari 2600. Here i’ve used Atari 2600 emulator called Stella and mapped the various controls for each stick.

Gotta love those retro sticks.

Although the game isn’t the best looking version of Battlezone, the twin joystick setup worked perfectly and although I’m setup in the kitchen, got on step closer to ‘real’ Battlezone.

Next up is the dual stick retro classic Robotron to see how this setup performs when the action heats up. I’ve decided to use the C64 port using Vice64, again mapping both joystick controls.

Again, it worked perfectly without lag or any issue when two joystick movements where performed at the same time.

Of course, what I really wanted to try was the arcade version of Battlezone, so with MAME fired up , tank buster StiGGy was on the war path.

With the dual controls it totally transforms the game back to how it was invented to be played.

A couple of other games I played via MAME was Total Carnage and Smash TV, the latter being such a joy to play again after all these years of playing it with one joystick and keyboard

Does anyone have any other dual stick game recommendations?

Here’s a few vids I’ve shot with the setup in action. Hopefully the iphone footage isn’t too wobbly this time thanks to my camera tripod and a huge dollop of blu-tack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhIAegJV_ng&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZHjeInk9Jw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjNyP3QrS54&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Does anyone have any other dual stick game recommendations?

My next job is to wrap up the setup in a DIY case. I’m going for the no frills, one step up from the kitchen table option here and have already got something in mind using something I fished out of the scrap pile at work.

I’ll be back with more soon.