Lo-res Vertical mame layout for TV's and Arcade Monitors

[EvilDindon]

Hey,

The excellent work made by jeepguy81 on his cocktail vertical themes made me want to make my own vertical layout for my home-made 70% pacman mame cabinet. (see this french Thread )

Even if HS 2.0 isn't out yet, jeepguy tried successfully to run HS on a vertical mon, just by rotating artworks and make some adjustments.

I plan to use his fabulous wheel images and scaling them down to 230 wide, so they can feet the lo-res 640x480 layout.

Here's a quick mockup of what I intend to do :

Actually, the title logos I'll use are the official HS wheel images that are 400px wide and fit perfectly the 480px of the screen

I'll maybe use as artwork 2 the manufacturer logo + date using the grow center shrink animation, artwork 3 the title logo that bounces from top, and artwork 4 a character art that eases in.

Artwork 1 maybe the ambient light that hovers somewher eon the top left side of the screen, to make some kind of a "windows media center" effect.

Do you think I must make a single theme for each game, or i can just make a default theme, and place the images of each game in each artwork directory ?

[EvilDindon]

Small update (not sure about the font + color of special art - press start and free play)

[EvilDindon]

Update 2 : added a "3d" perspective ground .

Kinda love it it adds a cool depth to the theme.

[EvilDindon]

Update3 : changed the style of the year + added a shadow to special art :

[jeepguy81]

Thats coming along awesome! got a little tron-ish feel adding the background on that last one.

For the special art, did you try an 8-bit font? maybe a turquoise emboss on it? just spittin ideas.

One note on using the default theme to house some of the universal artwork. I tried that with my backgrounds (so i didn't need a folder of 100 of the same images) and if my wheel started on a background using the default theme then it worked, and kept the background throughout all the games. But if i started on a game with a theme of it's own, it didn't grab the background and stayed blank on the next games until I landed on one that used the default, then once it pulled the artwork it was ok.

At least thats how it acted when I tried.

I mentioned this to BBB and he's made of note of it.

[EvilDindon]

Thanks for the comment.

So it's better to include everything in each game theme zip ?

[jeepguy81]

For the most part yeah. I left mine open to change only because it started as kind of an open-ended project at the time.

[bLAZER]

Nice, I don't like the arrows and the fonts though.

[EvilDindon]

Yeah, the arrows have been done too quickly ; have to work on that.

The red outlined arcade font for the year looks good to me, but I have to admit that the plain red style suits better the vintage eighties feel.

I'm still not sure about the special art font too. It's an antialiased arcade font. Maybe should I use the same simple arcade font as the year ?

[EvilDindon]

Hey I found a ton of retro 80's fonts here, look at it it's impressive !

http://www.typenow.net/themed.htm#games

I should find one that suits my theme, for sure.

[EvilDindon]

Well, I tried several fonts and style, but still can't decide.

Can you help me please ? :

I actually like the sin city and the mask fonts a lot.

The shining font too (the turquoise outlined blue font)

Back to the future is not bad too (very 80's)

The 28 days later font isn't bad too (the yellwo on the right)

What you think ?

[EvilDindon]

Added jeopardy, terminator, friday 13 and an orange one (dont remember) :

I kinda like the Friday13 script font (the purple one next to jeopardy)

[EvilDindon]

Well I think i decided on the red sin city for "PRESS START3 and a green the mask for "FREE PLAY"

Is it a good choice ?

[EvilDindon]

Update 4 : better isn't it ?

EDIT : Finally, I find this font is too much "horror movie" and not so arcade stylish. :/

[jeepguy81]

What if you tried a smaller font size, to my eye it kind of takes control a takes my focus off the overall layout. maybe?

[EvilDindon]

Yeah you're def. right. Thanx for the tip.

[EvilDindon]

Update 5 : Pacman Theme, with different light color and special art font :

Looking at those themes, I find something is missing on the right of the screen. Ideas ?

Maybe a Mame logo or another neutral thing to fill this empty space ?

PS : Jeepguy, actually, Pac Man is a midway game. PuckMan, the original, is from namco. I'll maybe change for a midway logo.

[EvilDindon]

Donkey Kong Theme :

[jeepguy81]

aaah, ok i'll swap on the wheels! thnx

[Babymaggie]

This looks cool!

Love the little Pacman cabinet aswell - Me jealous ;-)

Yeah just chuck a mame logo on the right sounds like it will fill a gap nicely with nothing to lose.

Hey I found a ton of retro 80's fonts here, look at it it's impressive !

http://www.typenow.net/themed.htm#games

I should find one that suits my theme, for sure.

Thanks for the fonts link they are going to be real handy - Great find.

[EvilDindon]

Mappy theme :

Still missing something on the right side. Ideas ?

[EvilDindon]

Dig Dug theme :

[EvilDindon]

Galaxian theme :

I've got an idea : I'll maybe change the backgound light behind the video snap to match the color of the background in the wheel for each game.

[EvilDindon]

DK Jr. Theme :

[EvilDindon]

My first flash animation !