My Space Invaders Cabinet
Community Forums/Showcase/My Space Invaders Cabinet
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| Hi all, haven't been to the forum for so long. I work in a pub, and decided to mod my "Space Invaders" clone so it used all the faces of the service staff as aliens, and our bosses were the ships that fly across the top. My plan was that we could play it on the big plasma screens in the sports bar. All good, except I had to be there to set it up, which was a drag. So I decided to build a dedicated cocktail cabinet, and the results are here: http://keyboard.freeshell.org/cabinet/cabinetintro.html the aliens drop lethal glasses of beer, and the bosses drop bourbons and coke. cheers :) |
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| a link to the game would be nicer ;) |
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| @Ginger Tea: because the game features photos of our staff, who have ( by default ) only given permission for their images to be used on the machine at their workplace, that's not ENTIRELY possible. However, there is a moddable version, featuring unidentifiable characters, that I did for the Aussie Arcade Forum. The game is immediately playable ( though it looks weird because the faces are blanked a bit ) but any Blitzer could easily mod it to their own environment by editing the png files in the games graphics subfolder http://keyboard.freeshell.org/cabinet/clone.html BTW if your're in Melbourne, Australia, in the St. Kilda area, drop in, high score gets a free drink cheers :) |
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| instead of sooooo many pics you could have made one 800*600 or whatever sized image to house all game sprites and instead of the 'to protect the innocent' blanking of faces just shoddy space invaderesque gfx ... hell its not like the original was a graphical tour de force :p |
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| true and true, though on that count, it was meant to help people not necessarily very skilled in image-editing... |
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| i find if you are offering 'skinnable' graphics sets for simple games like space invaders giving a 'blank' png with a grid (set to your trasnparant colour) is a boon as long as you set guidelines to what can go where eg player animation 8 frames but you have 16 frames on the line, as long as they know that the 9th onwards are not going to be used they wont use em perhaps an X in the image the space invaders anims seem to have 2 or 4 images each thats not that many in a line tbh or make the image as wide as the frames used so 4 frames wide * players + baddies + misc down saves your hard drive clusters from being wasted like how i used to describe clusters in the old days its like putting a shot of jd in a pint glass what would you rather have a bottle of jd or nearly 30 pint glasses with a shot in each? and id rather have one image with tonnes of sprites taking up 2 pints than an intire glass works of single frames :) |
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 i know it only cost you $20 but by eck can you think of anything better than yellow pages to keep it up ;) ... i know in later images you did ;) ... mate of my brother made his own mame cab ... have to pester him for a link im guessing you get better air circlation with cabs over normal cases ... but its a large foot print price to pay |
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| re: sprite info: onboard, thanks :) |
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| GT do you have the plans for your bro's mate's cab? I think I might build one. |
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| aparantly he just copied off one he saw on the net he didnt document its build on the web as far as i can tell from my brother their are TONNES of suitable projects to follow by his accounts |
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| Also an idea to make projects like this cheaper by using USB gamepads instead of a PS/2 or USB device specially made for these projects. You need to solder a bit, but I bought 6 gamepads for 3 euros each and using 3 of them for my cocktail cabinet project. Cannot get those any cheaper :-) I got those from http://www.arcadeshop.de I also ordered my joysticks, buttons and coin mechanism there. |
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| i remember one cab build using microsoft sidewinders hacked up to bits perhaps using the controller and propper buttons and sticks mine, if i did one, would use my spare lcd (got it for my old pc then upgraded a few months later to a full on new pc) might canibalize the pc out of a case and mount it to the mdf and hope for better air circulation but keeping it in the case means its still a normal pc if you want to take it out which some builds i saw did edit: and before i moved darn sarf i worked for a metal work powder painting company whos parent company did refits for a diy chain and had an mdf work shop if i still worked their id know who to talk to bout getting things done and done right :) |
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| I got lucky... http://www.arcadecab.com/Intro.htm I already have the X-Arcade controller, 19" monitor, spare PC, workshop access, 5 DVDs of ROMs and way too much time on my hands. Looks like my weekend just got interesting. |
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| In my first project I mounted the inside of an old computer case to the MDF so it was easier to mount the mainboard. In my new project I'm using a notebook wich was cheap because the previous owner broke the display... I removed the display and battery so it will be cool all the time. :-) I'm using a 15" TFT display from which I removed the casing and build into the cabinet. Still got enough to do, but I will post it when finished.... |
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| Nice project KB I was once tempted to built a mini arcade specifically for playing MAME games. Especially now we have shuttle PC's |
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| wow... 40 bucks for a sheet of 4'x8' sanded plywood. I wonder if MDF will suffice for a cab? |
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| @stayne: yes, the thicker stuff tends to be heavy though. lots of info here http://www.aussiearcade.com.au/forum.php gee, good tip re: the old notebook minus battery, DA. that puts a whole different spin on size and weight... |
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