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Gyruss and Time Pilot, the way they were meant to be played
Loafmeister:
have not been around this forum for a while and a google search brought me back here.
So what brought me here? Something similar but for a different game. I have a retropie system to play retro games (along with mame on the PC like most civilized fans eheh). One game that drives me nuts and is outright unplayable is Front line because of its use of a digital rotary instead of a standard spinner. Would there be a way to modify its control so that we could play the game and remap the arm movement to an analog spinner, which on a control pad could be the L or R buttons or Left Trigger / Right trigger? Games like Tron are superbly playable by mapping them to a controller via the L/R buttons. nothing beats a spinner but at least in letting us map that control to those two buttons, it's playable. Front line without, is not playable at all on a control pad
anyway just a thought
PL1:
--- Quote from: Loafmeister on May 08, 2025, 03:03:48 pm ---One game that drives me nuts and is outright unplayable is Front line because of its use of a digital rotary instead of a standard spinner. Would there be a way to modify its control so that we could play the game and remap the arm movement to an analog spinner, which on a control pad could be the L or R buttons or Left Trigger / Right trigger? Games like Tron are superbly playable by mapping them to a controller via the L/R buttons. nothing beats a spinner but at least in letting us map that control to those two buttons, it's playable. Front line without, is not playable at all on a control pad
--- End quote ---
Front Line is one of six games that use a "Taito Aim-n-Fire" style controller:
- Front Line
- The Tin Star
- Wild Western
- Sheriff (Nintendo)
- Bandido (Exidy -- licensed re-release of Sheriff)
- Western Gun Part II (Taito -- licensed re-release of Sheriff)
The "Aim-n-Fire" acts like a top-fire 8-way joystick where a cardinal direction (U/D/L/R) or diagonal is always pressed. It is used to . . . aim and fire. :lol
- On a twin-stick cab (think Robotron), you can map the right stick to both the aim inputs and the fire input.
- You should be able to do the same with a gamepad that has twin thumbsticks. :cheers:
Another option is the rotary joystick from GRS. They are available as a stick you can install on your cab or as a fightstick.
--- Quote from: PL1 on June 29, 2023, 12:05:14 pm ---With the right settings in MAME, the appropriate mode selected, and the correct handle installed, this stick works like these specialized controllers:
- Mechanical rotary joystick
- Optical rotary joystick
- Taito Aim-n-Fire
- Atari Twist-to-Turn joystick (Xybots)
- Push/Pull spinner
--- End quote ---
Front Line gameplay shown from 49:20 - 56:23.
Scott
Loafmeister:
Thanks for the detailed response. I tried mapping the second stick a la robotron but it doesn't seem to work for me at all. Perhaps it's because of the mame version used on the raspberry pi. I'll have to double check on my windows pc to see if I can map it to the second stick .
The video is a nice glimpse of how it plays using the proper controls. Hopefully I can find a way for it to play using a control pad. I still think having a spinmame "hack" would serve better but let's see if I can figure out a way to map as you suggest.
PL1:
--- Quote from: Loafmeister on May 08, 2025, 11:22:17 pm ---I tried mapping the second stick a la robotron but it doesn't seem to work for me at all. Perhaps it's because of the mame version used on the raspberry pi. I'll have to double check on my windows pc to see if I can map it to the second stick .
--- End quote ---
The problem could be that the gamepad's thumbsticks are in analog mode instead of digital mode.
- When my knockoff USB PlayStation2 controller is in digital mode, the left thumbstick shows up as four D-pad directions and the right thumbstick shows up as four button presses.
Scott
Loafmeister:
I see; I'm not certain how the retropie setup can see the sticks as digital. I'll have to read on it. The gamepad I'm using is a nintendo switch pro controller, possibly n0t possible with it
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