Monkey Island Bartop - unfinished

[Le Chuck]

I am a long time lurker and have decided to finally get active in the community.  I've just started work on a Weecade based bartop that's going to stray from the plans a bit.  I'll be bumping out the width to accommodate 2 players w/6 buttons each and a push/pull spinner in the center (unless anyone can convince me of a better place to put it.)  I have been struggling to find a theme I can bet excited about and while playing Monkey Island SE on my Ipad it hit me.  So two three days later I'm putting the finishing touches on my art thus far and decide to post.  I welcome all criticism and any suggestions on what to do for my CPO. 

I have been hugely influenced already by  dmworking247's Alien Bartop and intend to integrate a manual monitor like his... we'll see as I don't have his skills 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=84251.0

I am also trying to revive Chris' awesome idea of a hotswappable trigger stick to somewhat avoid frankenpanel but still allow my DOT fixes that are increasingly necessary as I get older. 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=92787.0

I'll keep this updated and should start turning MDF into carcinogenic sawdust right after the holiday.

Here's the art, let me know where I can improve.  Thanks!

[yaksplat]

Wow!  That looks great! 

Yesterday I was thinking how great a Monkey Island theme would be for a cab.  It looks like you nailed it.

Well done. 

[lordnacho]

Awesome idea. 

Can you post bigger pics?  They look great, just would like to see more detail

[Le Chuck]

Lordnacho1:  try this link, http://s479.photobucket.com/albums/rr155/vonjett/ but please let me know if you can't see my album for some reason.  I'll be uploading higher rez pics shortly but at least this one you can zoom and see what's going on.

Pinballjim:  acknowledged, I thought of doing a DOT cab or a classic galaga theme (both games I love) but my heart wasn't in it as far as art production went.  Go with your gut ya know.  I would like to do a nice environmental cab someday, maybe great tiki god head that in the back you play games and in the front beer comes out his nose but I'm not there yet skill wise.  I've only built one other cabinet and it was a refurb.  This is my first scratch-built so better to get my chops paying homage to the masters before I go breaking new ground so to speak.  That's my opinion anyway, but I appreciate your encouraging me to get out of the box and avoid the annals of ikea-dom.

Incidentaly I received today my flight stick that I am modding for a trigger stick.  Still waiting on the wireless presentation clicker.  I'll get pics up once I get it everything ripped apart.  Anybody have a good idea about how to hotswap joystick tops aside from screwing them off and on?

[yaksplat]

Incidentaly I received today my flight stick that I am modding for a trigger stick.  Still waiting on the wireless presentation clicker.  I'll get pics up once I get it everything ripped apart.  Anybody have a good idea about how to hotswap joystick tops aside from screwing them off and on?

I wonder how an air/hydraulic hose quick connect would work...

[lordnacho]

Pics work. 

Only one thing I would think about, the sides and Mala show the darker side of Melee Island, but the marquee is very bright and happy.  I prefer the dark, so was thinking maybe a different marquee, maybe something of Lechuck's ship?

[Le Chuck]

Same thing occurred to me about the marquee.  I was thinking about switching it from day to night, and adding the ghost pirates.  I'll play around with it.  Good call, I was thinking of doing "under the monkey head" for the CPO.  Still working out how busy that would look though.

I will check those out at Home Depot next time I'm there.  I am concerned about the ergonomics but if I recess it enough that could work.  Maybe rare earth magnets and just pop the tops on and off.

[yaksplat]

This shirt from shirt.woot.com reminded me of monkey island and something of a similar theme would look great on a marquee. 

http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=21837

[Le Chuck]

Just mocked this up... melee island at night.  I think it, or something in this vein, will go with the cab better.  Good call.  Wish I had a higher rez background of the town.  I'll keep looking.  This way I get ghost lechuck from MI1 on the front and zombie lechuck on the sides.

[Le Chuck]

incidentally, I spent the most time deciding where to hide Stan and then working a good gausian blur so he didn't stand out from his background too much.

[lordnacho]

I like

[yaksplat]

Man, i really need to get my illustrator skills up.  I have a feeling my cab will be artless for 6 months after it's done.

[Le Chuck]

I know what you mean.  I don't even have illustrator installed right now, just photoshop cs5.  If I had illustrater this would have been done in half the time and I probably would have gotten froggy and vectorized the whole thing.  I had raster but most of these images are high enough rez not to matter.  I've been looking at magnets for the joystick hotswap.  I am concerned that the top will come off in my hand while playing.  Maybe a hidden cotter pin or something to lock it down... although once you go cotter pin you may as well just start unscrewing things.

[Le Chuck]

Proposed CPO is up.

[Nephasth]

No start buttons?

[Le Chuck]

Knew I forgot something.  I plan on having a coin button for each player near a modified return and an admin button as well.  A pause, shifted exit.  I need to play around with the placement tho, I'll have a small front panel that hasn't been designed yet, but for simplicity the current graphic will likely just wrap down into a black field where I can put that stuff.  Good catch.

[gbeef]

Looking good. nice work love the concept.

[yaksplat]

You've got so much good art from the MI series to choose from.  Are you grabbing it from screen shots while playing the game?

[Le Chuck]

Almost not at all.  Screenshots of the older games are near worthless and of the special editions you'll max at the native resolution and you're still capturing a sprite.  I've been trolling the developer's forum and publicity pages for both Lucas Arts and Telltalegames to find releases of the concept art.  Mostly it's in onesy and twoseys but there are few gold mines hidden out there.  The one background taken from a screen capture is the night Marquee, and I just redid that one last night with the captured work.  An improvement over what I had but still not as crisp as the character art, which I had to blur a bit so they didn't stand out so much.   



As an example of screen captured characters check out the smoking skeleton on the far left.  He looks okay but not great.  If I can't find his original art I'll probably just have to redo it.   

[Le Chuck]

Have started the wireless hot-swappable trigger stick sub-project.  Presentation pointer was a complete success and installation was a breeze.  As of right now the unit is functioning smoothly with no discernible delay.


$14 worth of "I hope this works" is way better than $100... or $15 even


Take that dastardly trigger stick


$9 worth of... you get the idea


Taking this apart was a bit tricky, I used an exacto and a pry blade


Wired

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr155/vonjett/07Thefit.jpg
Fitted


Handle next to dongle, reassembled

The to-do list for completion:

1) Wire battery interrupt on/off switch/button onto faceplate or into side in none grip area

2) Epoxy unit into handle

3) Fix faceplate (sand flat, fill holes, add MI theme art)

4) Experiment with rare earth magnets for hot-swap

5) Cry when that doesn't work and sculpy in a nut for screw on functionality

[tommywright]

Awesome idea.... loved that game!

[Santoro]

That trigger stick is Genius.

[Dalgaard]

This is awesome! Monkey Island...! Perfect! I wish I had done that. Can't wait to see the rest of this project!

[opt2not]

Nice theme! We worked on the PS3 port of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition just a couple years ago. It was awesome to be a part of the legacy of this game, even though we only ported it.
Never seen a Monkey Island arcade cabinet before, so it looks like you're joining a small part of the legacy too!

Keep up the progress! 

[Le Chuck]

Thanks for all the activity.  This project became the Darkade.  Once I got the art to the point you see here I got distracted by a shiny penny and ended up going with Star Wars.  If anybody wants the art let me know and I'll get the full rez images posted somewheres.  I am still planning on creating a dedicated adventure game platform but it likely won't look like a wee-cade though. 

Opt2Not, that is totally awesome that you worked on that port.  I love the lucas arts games, I just wish that Grim Fandango would get a facelift like MI has.  That was an awesome game. 

Santoro - danke, I'm polishing the howto wiki entry now and should post in the next few days.   

[ark_ader]

I am doing a weecade build at the moment and that artwork would look sweet on this cab.

Please can I have access to the artwork?

Thanks

[Le Chuck]

I am doing a weecade build at the moment and that artwork would look sweet on this cab.

Please can I have access to the artwork?

Thanks

Ark, no issues, you and anyone else is welcome to it - I'll be posting this weekend once I find an upload site that isn't going to charge me through the nose for 3rd party downloads.  It's only 110mg or so, I can probably torrent it but am open to suggestions.  Eitherway I'll get it posted somewhere easy. 

[Santoro]

Any noticeable delay with the wireless trigger?

[Le Chuck]

Any noticeable delay with the wireless trigger?

Not a bit.  Also haven't had to switch out battery yet either.  I can click on a game from the mala menu and in the time it takes to load and boot I can have the balltop switched out and the triggerstick activated (battery button on and a few clicks of each trigger to make sure it registers).  I can send rounds out as fast as I can pull the trigger.  Wiki is up on it under the controls section if you're interested in a full how-to.  Next time I make one I'll use a TRON stick housing from GGG so it's a bit more legit looking but other than that I won't change a thing.   

[ark_ader]

I am doing a weecade build at the moment and that artwork would look sweet on this cab.

Please can I have access to the artwork?

Thanks

Ark, no issues, you and anyone else is welcome to it - I'll be posting this weekend once I find an upload site that isn't going to charge me through the nose for 3rd party downloads.  It's only 110mg or so, I can probably torrent it but am open to suggestions.  Eitherway I'll get it posted somewhere easy. 

Thanks I have this mini weecade sitting naked to me.  I just love Monkey Island and DOT.  A Sam & Max cabinet would awesome too, but I cannot draw to save my life. 

[Casianb]

Lordnacho1:  try this link, http://s479.photobucket.com/albums/rr155/vonjett/ but please let me know if you can't see my album for some reason.  I'll be uploading higher rez pics shortly but at least this one you can zoom and see what's going on.

Pinballjim:  acknowledged, I thought of doing a DOT cab or a classic galaga theme (both games I love) but my heart wasn't in it as far as art production went.  Go with your gut ya know.  I would like to do a nice environmental cab someday, maybe great tiki god head that in the back you play games and in the front beer comes out his nose but I'm not there yet skill wise.  I've only built one other cabinet and it was a refurb.  This is my first scratch-built so better to get my chops paying homage to the masters before I go breaking new ground so to speak.  That's my opinion anyway, but I appreciate your encouraging me to get out of the box and avoid the annals of ikea-dom.

Incidentaly I received today my flight stick that I am modding for a trigger stick.  Still waiting on the wireless presentation clicker.  I'll get pics up once I get it everything ripped apart.  Anybody have a good idea about how to hotswap joystick tops aside from screwing them off and on?

Hey, are the pics still on photobucket?  The folder seems to be empty.
Thank you!

[Le Chuck]

Weird. Just checked. Still there. I'll fiddle with settings.

[PL1]

Lordnacho1:  try this link, http://s479.photobucket.com/albums/rr155/vonjett/ but please let me know if you can't see my album for some reason.

Hey, are the pics still on photobucket?  The folder seems to be empty.

The pics aren't displayed in Firefox, but they are there in Internet Explorer.   


Scott

[Le Chuck]

Lordnacho1:  try this link, http://s479.photobucket.com/albums/rr155/vonjett/ but please let me know if you can't see my album for some reason.

Hey, are the pics still on photobucket?  The folder seems to be empty.

The pics aren't displayed in Firefox, but they are there in Internet Explorer.   


Scott

Chrome seems to work as well