How do I convey HyperSpin controlls to the user?

[coldcoffeecup]

So I've setup my HyperSpin cabinet. Everything works swimmingly. The problem I have, which can't be unique, is that I have no way to inform somebody who is unused to my arcade how to navigate through the FE.

 

My thought is to use the HS special art to display some graphic that shows what each button is mapped to. ie: enter, select, skip up/down, genre, favorites, etc.

 

My problem is I'm terrible at creating artwork, and have no way to create this art.

 

Does anybody have a suggestion on how I can implement something that will solve my problem?

 

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!

[Metalzoic]

Do it like actual arcade machines do. Build it directly into your control panel artwork or add a physical artwork bezel/card to your arcade machines glass with instructions on it.

[coldcoffeecup]

Do it like actual arcade machines do. Build it directly into your control panel artwork or add a physical artwork bezel/card to your arcade machines glass with instructions on it.

I know, I know... this would've been a fantastic idea, and is absolutely how I would've done it, had this not been an afterthought I built the arcade, then setup the software.

 

The only idea I have now is to use the special art, and just display it over the normal HS bezel. And actually, now that I think of it, even if it wasn't an afterthought, I still would've had the problem of creating the artwork beforehand.

 

I found some decent looking button images, but the problem I have is that I don't know how to make the text/formatting look good. I'm generally bad at this type of stuff...

 

Edit: Ok I misread your suggestion, and was thinking you meant put it on the CP. That's not a bad idea, but I still need some way to design the artwork that I would have printed and applied to the glass.

[damageinc86]

Maybe you could make some small stickers of your button and joystick layout to put on top of your control panel.  Or under your control panel overlay if you have one.  Like little icons somewhere off to the side so when you look down at the controls you just see them there.  

[ninja2bceen]

Use a fade screen in rl or add to artwork in pause

[coldcoffeecup]

Thanks for the ideas.

 

For the time being (I have a party tomorrow so I want a quick solution) I just made some quick images in gimp, and threw them in the special art areas. I hated the default HS special art, so I've long since removed them anyway. I placed these in the bottom left, and bottom center part of the screen. The backgrounds are transparent. I also had to hide the game text, which I'm not sure whether I like or not.

 

http://imgur.com/a/28679

[Metalzoic]

Those look great. I thought you said you suck at the art stuff.

I thought Special Art had to be Flash SWF files? Are these just PNGs? I like this solution of yours and might like to do it to mine.

Your enter and back keys are your playable buttons?

[VanSkalen]

What font did you use? Looks nice!

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[Metalzoic]

What font did you use? Looks nice!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They do. You should attach the full png here so we can use it!

[coldcoffeecup]

Those look great. I thought you said you suck at the art stuff.

I thought Special Art had to be Flash SWF files? Are these just PNGs? I like this solution of yours and might like to do it to mine.

Your enter and back keys are your playable buttons?

 

Lol, I guess I would say I'm more resourceful than I am good at art. Left to my own devices, I never would've come up with text this nice.

 

Fortunately for me, I found this site. I think they watermark their images, but for some reason it didn't show up on the images I used. I just saved each word I wanted to use, and put it over another image of an arcade button with transparent background.

 

As far as the flash swf files, I guess that's only if you want an animation. I really had no idea, and thought there might be an outside chance that a png would work, and it did. Guess I got lucky.

 

I used gimp to put the images together. For whatever it's worth, I shared all the files I used to create this here, although the original font site may be of more use to you.

 

Cheers!