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UPDATED! *New Design* UAII - Critique My Control Panel
DaveMMR:
I vote to go back to the Double Decker as well but less controls would be better. Personally, I've never missed a second spinner and every control uses the same cache of buttons. Sometimes less is more, at least to make the panel more friendly to guests.
Sorry, I'm totally not digging the six button layout you have. I read your reasoning but when you're go to play SFII (one of the few reasons to have six buttons in the first place anyhow), you or you're guests are going to be hating it.
But at least you're joysticks aren't angled anymore. ;)
web.geek:
Thanks for all of the feedback everyone! It helps me with my OCD and Perfectionist nature ;D
I have been cruising klov.com and prioritizing the games I would play if I had all of the ROMs ;). It has convinced me that there are more 6-button games that hold my interest than I originally thought; therefore, I am going back to a more traditional button layout.
DaveMMR - I have seen other debates about angling the joysticks. What is the biggest drawback with angling them? Wouldn't the angle be intuitive in my double deck design where P1 and P2 CPs are angled out?
Mauxe - I have been thinking more about multiple specialized CPs, but I would probably go with swappable instead of rotating. Have you designed/built your CP yet?
DaveMMR:
--- Quote from: web.geek on October 14, 2008, 02:56:00 pm ---DaveMMR - I have seen other debates about angling the joysticks. What is the biggest drawback with angling them? Wouldn't the angle be intuitive in my double deck design where P1 and P2 CPs are angled out?
--- End quote ---
Intuitive? The answer is: "it depends". Forget about authenticity for a second, my whole argument with angling joysticks is that you're assuming someone is going to be standing square with the controls. Even with the shape of the wood guiding people, angled sticks leave little room for error. The Gauntlet CP is always my favorite example. The outer controls were still lined up with the monitor so people could space themselves out any which way but still know, intuitively, which way is up.
If you do a search (which you have, I see), some people swear that there are no problems with the angled sticks while others regret the design decision, saying that there's weird discombobulation when trying to move, some even being accused of assigning friends "broken sticks".
But forget about 4-player cabs and let me address more specifically, your layout since you asked: As much as I'm not a fan of angling sticks on 4-player CP's, there is absolutely no need to angle sticks on a 2-player cabinet. Many builders, myself including, have had no problem fitting 2 people with as little as 24" width. (For the record, my panel is 25" - trackball, spinner and 6-buttons each - with not so much as an elbow, accidental bump, etc. during a game - and I'm a big dude.) Just looking at my cab while standing at 45-degrees to the screen, I can tell you right now it's not as optimal as it would be to stare straight at it while playing.
web.geek:
Okay, I think I'm going with this double decker design. I mocked it up in cardboard, and the control positions feel pretty comfortable. One final question though.
I tested Championship Sprint (a favorite "wheel" game) using the trackball, and it was very playable (in fact I may have improved over using the wheel). I then tried Discs of Tron and the crosshair was very jittery. Has anyone gotten DoT playable with a trackball instead of a spinner? How about Arkanoid? If I can get those games to play with the trackball, I can avoid adding spinners.
DaveMMR:
AFAIK, I don't recall very many 4-way games that were 2-player simo (oops - see edit). (I found 40 results in MAWS using those requirements and that includes clones). I would ditch one and put the single 4-way in between the 2 trackballs so 12-year-olds can giggle and you'll give each Marble Madness participant a little more room. Or just add a single spinner where you'd put the rightmost 4-way.
EDIT: I just noticed the rightmost 4-way is angled, which I assume is for Q*Bert/Congo Bongo. Disregard most of above, though I would still space out the trackballs a little. You have the room, it seems.
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