The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: angryred on December 08, 2008, 04:44:50 pm
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I'm finishing up my custom control panel, and I'm boggled on how to position the player 3 and 4 joysticks. It's a standard width cab-- an old Phoenix-- and the 4 player panel wraps partially around the sides.
What's getting me is that I can't figure out whether to orient the joysticks so that up is relative to the screen (pointing straight at it) or to the player (which would put it at a steep diagonal, almost horizontal). Is there anybody out there with a 4-player panel who's had to deal with this issue, and how did you resolve it?
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(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b310/mrserv0n/P1010004.jpg)
UP should be facing the screen. not UP as in your pressing up at button 1
So whatever position player 3 and 4 stand in stand like your playing and thats up , so its on an angle not 90 degrees
heres underneath how its mounted at an angle
(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b310/mrserv0n/P1010007-1.jpg)
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Here comes another holy war ;D
I have mine angled (not "up points to monitor"), and I am starting to understand those who don't recommend this approach. I don't play the 3 or 4 player games much, so I didn't really notice until recently. Now I know why my kids were never good at Gauntlet. :o
There have been many debates on this topic, so I would recommend searching.
EDIT: Here's (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79990.msg850559#msg850559) an example
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Yes, this is a common 'holy war', but the fact is that in most 4 player arcade games the joysticks all point the same way (toward and perpendicular to the monitor). Look at the mounting bolts on a Gauntlet CP for instance.
EDIT: here are the 1st four 4p simultaneous games I looked up on MAWS. Every single one has the joysticks all pointing the same way.
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Holy War? Charge!
Angling the outer joysticks, it seems, was a practice born of home-arcade building for whatever reason.
Up towards the monitor avoids any and all confusion. You don't have to be standing against the controls to know it either (see Gauntlet CP in ahofle's post). Angling joysticks, on the other hand, DEMANDS a specific standing position.
Here's another point I always bring up: most (if not all) 4-player simultaneous games were simple to control. "Comfort" for outer players should be way on the back burner (which is why people sometimes angle). If they can reach the stick and buttons, they can play a decent game of Gauntlet.
This thread is repeat information as pointed out. Do a search and you'll have a night's worth of reading on this topic.
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As has been pointed out, mrserv0n's opinion is certainly not the only one. I have only ever come across one cab with angled sticks -- Xenophobe.
For those who choose to angle their sticks, I have one thing to say ... SmashTV.
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For those who choose to angle their sticks, I have one thing to say ... SmashTV.
May I humbly add "Total Carnage". :cheers:
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You can still play smash tv or the any other two-joystick game in 2 Player Mode if you have your 3rd and 4th joysticks in a 45° angled position. In this case you just have to remap the diagonal directions to the normal ones for this particular game in mame. (Of course this only works with a mame cab)
Personally I prefer the angled way, because I played on an original 4Player Gauntlet Cab and its was a pain in the ***, standing as the Warrior on the left with my 3 friends on the right. The Space was limited so that I was forced to stand angled to the monitor struggling with controls aimed at the screen.
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[war=on] ;)
I didn't like the non-angled sticks for 95% of the games in the arcades that had angled sides. Too often I'd end up going diagonal to the direction I wanted to go. :hissy: (My solution: keep BMO4PCP bottom edge straight or almost straight across.)
:dunno To each there own.
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I'd say make a mock up on cardboard or something and try it out. See which way you prefer playing or what feels right. Maybe have the people who would be playing P3 and P4 try it out also since they are the ones who will be affected by this. Easier to change it before you get your CP all done and find out you don't like it.
That being said, I tried angled at first and quickly changed. It just wasn't good.... But, I always play as P1 so it doesn't affect me as much. ;D
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When you are playing a game... you are thinking about the game... and not the
joystick. When you are supposed to react immediately to a situation, for example...
pressing Up to escape a bullet... Your brain will think up is upwards... towards the
monitor. Does not matter that you are standing at an angle... your brain still will think
in relation to the on-screen direction needed.
Not me.
In order to consistently use the outside player sticks without messups, I would have to physically orient my body so away from me was up on the screen, crowding the middle players. I knew a few friends who were the same of needing to orient the body back in the day (the ones I still have contact with don't play anymore AFAIK). I found that top view games had a less problems for me, but side view and 3/4 view games sucked pretty bad, and left or right messed up more than up or down. Left & right is and always will be sideways relative to my body, the easiest movement possible with elbow acting as pivot point. And the time-critical moments are when I messed up the most often. But that's me, others differ.
Of course, when I tried building my own with angled joysticks, I couldn't consistently use them without messups, either. (My up & down seem to be more screen oriented, as xiaou2 describes) :(
Thus my current solution of non-angled CPs, or play only the middle players. (My prior solution was to half rotate the sticks, but that's doesn't work very well.)
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FTW :applaud:
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Here comes another holy war ;D
Yes, this is a common 'holy war', but the fact is...
Holy War? Charge!
...Oops. ...Heh.
For those who choose to angle their sticks, I have one thing to say ... SmashTV.
Yes, that's convincing. And Karate Champ. And others I'm sure I won't think of 'til I try to play them with angled sticks. It's a fairly simple matter in MAME to reconfigure diagonals if that feels better for someone in particular; and even though my panel is designed for players 3 and 4 to approach at 45 degree angles, it's probably better for me to keep them straight for the 2 player dual joystick games, as those will most likely get more play.
Anyway, didn't mean to start a fire. ;) Thanks for the advice and information. I was going to go with angled, but I see now a lot more reasons to keep them straight, at the very least as far as what-games-will-get-played-most is concerned. Thanks.
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You can still play smash tv or the any other two-joystick game in 2 Player Mode if you have your 3rd and 4th joysticks in a 45° angled position. In this case you just have to remap the diagonal directions to the normal ones for this particular game in mame. (Of course this only works with a mame cab)
That doesn't work.
You won't be able to shoot at the diagonals that way.
You can map UP=Up&Right and RIGHT=Right&Down, but that won't let you shoot to the upper right by hitting Right only.
When you hit between your diagonals you won't get ANY input to the game.
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You can still play smash tv or the any other two-joystick game in 2 Player Mode if you have your 3rd and 4th joysticks in a 45° angled position. In this case you just have to remap the diagonal directions to the normal ones for this particular game in mame. (Of course this only works with a mame cab)
That doesn't work.
You won't be able to shoot at the diagonals that way.
You can map UP=Up&Right and RIGHT=Right&Down, but that won't let you shoot to the upper right by hitting Right only.
When you hit between your diagonals you won't get ANY input to the game.
Yup, You're right! Miscalculation by me. thx
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It's still possible to play SmashTV when P3 and P4 are angled - you just need a couple of extra joysticks. ;)
To be honest, I never play with the P3 and P4 controls - and my friends and family have never complained. But... you've all convinced me. My cp has the room to change the orientation and it's just four screws per stick - so I'm going to make the change.
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we have a 4 player panel right here at work, where player 3 and 4 are at 45degree angles, and just played some sunset riders, TMNT, gauntlet, and crime fighters, taking turns between player 3 and 4, and i cannot imagine trying to play them if the sticks were not rotated 45 degrees. in my mind, up is away from me, not up on the screen, right it towards the buttons.. no matter what angle i am playing at, the joystick needs to be relative to my body, not the screen. it does limit your ability to play dual joystick games, but for 4 player games, i can't imagine it any other way. if i were playing with other people and the joysticks weren't rotated, i'd have to be standing along the front edge of the panel, and not at an angle like the buttons are
just because people tell you it needs to be one way, doesnt make that true...your best bet is to make a mock panel and test it.
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we have a 4 player panel right here at work, where player 3 and 4 are at 45degree angles, and just played some sunset riders, TMNT, gauntlet, and crime fighters, taking turns between player 3 and 4, and i cannot imagine trying to play them if the sticks were not rotated 45 degrees. in my mind, up is away from me, not up on the screen, right it towards the buttons.. no matter what angle i am playing at, the joystick needs to be relative to my body, not the screen. it does limit your ability to play dual joystick games, but for 4 player games, i can't imagine it any other way. if i were playing with other people and the joysticks weren't rotated, i'd have to be standing along the front edge of the panel, and not at an angle like the buttons are
If angle sticks works for you and the friends, that's great. I think the main issue, though, is that many new builders think that angling is the defacto rule. There are people who like (or, at worst, live with) the angled sticks and those who regret it. Yes, a preliminary mock-up for testing is always recommended, but absolutely required for 4-player panels.
just because people tell you it needs to be one way, doesnt make that true...
I don't think anyone's telling anyone else what anything needs to be (at least not intentionally). Angle away! ;)
But people do come here with questions, and others give advice based on a combination of personal experience and those fussy arcade standards. It's all just guidelines; do with it as you will. ;)
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You can still play smash tv or the any other two-joystick game in 2 Player Mode if you have your 3rd and 4th joysticks in a 45° angled position. In this case you just have to remap the diagonal directions to the normal ones for this particular game in mame. (Of course this only works with a mame cab)
That doesn't work.
You won't be able to shoot at the diagonals that way.
You can map UP=Up&Right and RIGHT=Right&Down, but that won't let you shoot to the upper right by hitting Right only.
When you hit between your diagonals you won't get ANY input to the game.
Actually, it's technically possible to map the diagonals in mame. More steps to set up, and in the past (haven't tried recently) there sometimes was a one frame hiccup going to diagonals. :-\ Anyway...
Example: player far left has stick angled 45 degrees clockwise. To "unrotate", there are three cases when mame should send the game "Up": jUp + jLeft (as straight up), jLeft (as up+left), and JUp (as up+right). So in mame's up, map:
jUp jLeft OR jLeft NOT jUp NOT jDown OR jUp NOT jLeft NOT jRight.
To physically do this, enter mame's Input menu, enter, move stick straight up, wait until mame registers, enter, diagonal up left, quickly center, quickly double tap diagonal up right, quickly double tap diagonal down left, wait, enter, diagonal up right, double up left, double down right. (Or you could hand edit the cfg file, if you know how) The other directions need to mapped similarly, of course:
mame down: jDown jRight OR jRight NOT jUp NOT jDown OR jDown NOT jLeft NOT jRight
mame left: jDown jLeft OR jDown NOT jLeft NOT jRight OR jLeft NOT jUp NOT jDown
mame right: jUp jRight OR jUp NOT jLeft NOT jRight OR jRight NOT jUp NOT jDown
Sorry for going techie again. ;D
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Captain America and The Avengers used angled sticks for p3 and p4. My MAME cab is a gutted Cap Am, I can prove it with the original CP and bolt hole patterns.
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Actually, it's technically possible to map the diagonals in mame. More steps to set up, and in the past (haven't tried recently) there sometimes was a one frame hiccup going to diagonals. :-\ Anyway...
Example: player far left has stick angled 45 degrees clockwise. To "unrotate", there are three cases when mame should send the game "Up": jUp + jLeft (as straight up), jLeft (as up+left), and JUp (as up+right). So in mame's up, map:
jUp jLeft OR jLeft NOT jUp NOT jDown OR jUp NOT jLeft NOT jRight.
To physically do this, enter mame's Input menu, enter, move stick straight up, wait until mame registers, enter, diagonal up left, quickly center, quickly double tap diagonal up right, quickly double tap diagonal down left, wait, enter, diagonal up right, double up left, double down right. (Or you could hand edit the cfg file, if you know how) The other directions need to mapped similarly, of course:
mame down: jDown jRight OR jRight NOT jUp NOT jDown OR jDown NOT jLeft NOT jRight
mame left: jDown jLeft OR jDown NOT jLeft NOT jRight OR jLeft NOT jUp NOT jDown
mame right: jUp jRight OR jUp NOT jLeft NOT jRight OR jRight NOT jUp NOT jDown
Sorry for going techie again. ;D
I am sorry to dig this up from a 4 year burial, but I need to ask if anyone knows if this technique can be used to remap 8-way joysticks for use in q-bert. I'd love to be able to play q-bert and when I mapped the diagonals, it worked like crap. Does anyone do this to get q-bert playable? Where can you manually set this in the game specific ini in mame? Sorry for being a noob.
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Q*Bert is only going to work right with a 4-way stick installed at a 45 degree angle.
And this webpage right here is single handed responsible for people angling player 3 and 4.
http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/30.html (http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/30.html)
The guy who wrote the website mistakenly thought side sticks were supposed to get angled, wrote that, and now hundreds of people have built cabinets that are hard to control. I don't really care if you are some exception ninja who can play with your angled stick, most people can't and that is why only a tiny handful of real arcade games angled the sticks (and almost all of those bombed hard)
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Q*Bert is only going to work right with a 4-way stick installed at a 45 degree angle.
And this webpage right here is single handed responsible for people angling player 3 and 4.
http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/30.html (http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/30.html)
The guy who wrote the website mistakenly thought side sticks were supposed to get angled, wrote that, and now hundreds of people have built cabinets that are hard to control. I don't really care if you are some exception ninja who can play with your angled stick, most people can't and that is why only a tiny handful of real arcade games angled the sticks (and almost all of those bombed hard)
Looking at that photo, Paige, I see that the problem is that the BUTTONS should be angled. If they were (like Gauntlet is), all would have been fine.
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Unstupids rule regarding 4 player panels: "Don't build a 4 player panel!"
This rule is not for anyone specific, rather it is for anyone reading these boards:
Here is why you don't build a 4 player panel:
1. We all know you don't have 3 friends!
2. You will probably not find 4 people that all want to play Simpsons, X-Men, Gauntlet or NBA Jam at the same time.
3. If you do find 4 people that all want to play Simpsons at the same time they probably won't be at your house, Why not? See #1!
:D
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My wife asked me why I was going to build a 4-player cab and I said it was for when "people come over". She promptly replied "What people?" and I built a 2-player instead.
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We have housefuls of people all the time.
Wife: you should make one four player
Me: so two people can watch two other people play street fighter but have sticks to lean on?
Wife: I don't understand anything about your toys
Me: :timebomb: I'll be in the garage
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I am starting to figure out this don't angle your joysticks thing. Got saddled with a outside joystick this weekend and something didn't feel right, mine are angled. So I temp did it no angle and it still didn't feel right. I can't decide to angle or not to angle, need to invite friends with beer over and figure it out. :lol
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I know what you mean, Trip. Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
I've played on angles and straight and 90 degrees, and found them all to work equally as crappy. I believe any choice that is play tested on the cabinet first is the best choice. But, go with straight if possible simply for Smash TV, just as Cheffo commented (4 years ago).
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I know what you mean, Trip. Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
I've played on angles and straight and 90 degrees, and found them all to work equally as crappy. I believe any choice that is play tested on the cabinet first is the best choice. But, go with straight if possible simply for Smash TV, just as Cheffo commented (4 years ago).
I need to try Smash TV to see what ya'll mean. It's not one of my favorites, so I haven't played it in years.
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I need to try Smash TV to see what ya'll mean. It's not one of my favorites, so I haven't played it in years.
It's basically coop 2-player Robotron...each player uses two sticks. If the outer two sticks are angled differently than the inner two, that makes it...challenging. :)
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It's basically coop 2-player Robotron...each player uses two sticks. If the outer two sticks are angled differently than the inner two, that makes it...challenging embarrassing. :)
FTFY ;)
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It's basically coop 2-player Robotron...each player uses two sticks. If the outer two sticks are angled differently than the inner two, that makes it...challenging. :)
Oh ok, yeah I don't think that would be good with my current control panel even if the joysticks weren't angled. Seems like it would get really confusing sitting at the 3rd and 4th player spots using the 1 and 2 joysticks.
Not going to set up my control panel for a game I don't play a lot. My plan is to get me and a few friends drunk and see if we can use angled or not angled. Which one ever has the most success in that state will be the state my CP stays in. LOL
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Since this topic seems to come up often around here, I've been paying attention to stick angling on original machines. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the layouts are truly originals or someone recreating a machine or doing a conversion. I've seen pictures of Open Ice and Rampage: World Tour machines with angled sticks yet it seems the actual originals were not angled. As far as I can tell, these machines did indeed use angled sticks for the outside players:
WWF Wrestlefest
King of the Dragons
Desert Assault
Violent Storm
Captain America & the Avengers
NBA Jam Extreme
Hard Yardage
Pit Fighter
Combatribes
Xenophobe
Since there are so many 3 and 4 player cabs that I can't even find pictures of, I'm sure this list should be much larger. The Smash TV argument is a pretty good reason not to angle your sticks but I honestly think the whole myth about no commercial cabinets angling the outer sticks is pretty silly.
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Here is an angled cab I found a while back:
(http://www.arcade-museum.com/images/118/118124215667.gif)
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Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
Not on the Beast. ;)
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Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
Not on the Beast. ;)
You cheated, LOL
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Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
Not on the Beast. ;)
Can't argue that one. :cheers:
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You cheated, LOL
:lol
Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
Not on the Beast. ;)
Can't argue that one. :cheers:
Sucks though... I can't get the true Virtua Fighter experience on the Beast... :'(
:laugh2:
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While the cabinet may have angles sides... it does not mean that the actual sticks are angled.
To know that for sure, you would have to see the underside of the control panel (unless the bolts are showing)
... and also to double check it against the games manual.
As said, there were many conversion games, in which someone changed the stick orientation, or left it that
way from a previous game.
And also, its about the kind of game you are playing. Certain games are not as 'direction critical' as others.. and
many of them tend to play slow as well. Some of these may have also had 4 ways in there too... which eliminates the
diagonals issues.
Furthermore, if you list all the games that had the sticks oriented square to the monitor... that list will be like 50 to 1 over the 'true' angled sticked cabs.
All games on the list I made have the bolts showing. I checked multiple sources for all of them. If I couldn't tell, I didn't list it. There were dozens of games that I couldn't find a clear picture at all. I can certainly assure you that the radio would be nowhere near 50 to 1. It's probably around 10:1. Although not the most definitive or complete list, KLOV shows 250 3-4 player games and this includes a bunch of racing games, split monitor games and gun games, none of which would quality for this argument. There is no doubt that non-angled sticks for the side players outnumber the angled but there seems to be a consensus around here that Virtua Fighter (which I didn't even put on my list) and Captain America are literally the only commercially produced games with angling. This is simply not true.
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Ok, lets look at this list of supposed hard evidence for the correctness and awesomeness of angling player 3 and 4. Fully 50 percent of the examples are 3 player titles that had angled joysticks for the sole purpose of getting 3 sets of arms onto a control panel only big enough for 2 people. 1 wasn't angled in the first place. The other 4 all bombed. Great examples.
WWF Wrestlefest - Not angled.
King of the Dragons - Not a 4 player game.
Desert Assault - Yep, slight angle on a Data East title that bombed.
Violent Storm - Not 4 players, not available as a dedicated game as far as I can tell.
Captain America & the Avengers - Yep, another slight angle on another Data East bomb.
NBA Jam Extreme - Yep, slight angle on the game that killed the series.
Hard Yardage - Yep, another bomb with a slight angle.
Pit Fighter - Not a 4 player game.
Combatribes - Not a 4 player game. Picture on klov is a bad 3 player conversion stuffed into a 2 player machine.
Xenophobe - Not a 4 player game.
Since this topic seems to come up often around here, I've been paying attention to stick angling on original machines. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the layouts are truly originals or someone recreating a machine or doing a conversion. I've seen pictures of Open Ice and Rampage: World Tour machines with angled sticks yet it seems the actual originals were not angled. As far as I can tell, these machines did indeed use angled sticks for the outside players:
WWF Wrestlefest
King of the Dragons
Desert Assault
Violent Storm
Captain America & the Avengers
NBA Jam Extreme
Hard Yardage
Pit Fighter
Combatribes
Xenophobe
Since there are so many 3 and 4 player cabs that I can't even find pictures of, I'm sure this list should be much larger. The Smash TV argument is a pretty good reason not to angle your sticks but I honestly think the whole myth about no commercial cabinets angling the outer sticks is pretty silly.
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I don't think DarthMarino was trying to put out the notion that angling is magical and awesome, he was dispelling the notion that angling doesn't exist in commercial games. A fact that I have heard ad nauseum from a lot of very smart people here.
I don't agree with your justification as to why 3 player games don't count. All those 3 player control panels seemed pretty wide to me. My 4 player Trog (http://www.mamedb.com/cabinets.small/trog3.jpeg) had a narrower control panel than some of those. An angled control is an angled control, no matter the number of players or amount of room.
Oh, and the Combatribes cabinet. I think he might have been thinking of Mercs. (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=159ce964a9d14536cc5743e8d662956) It's angled. I think combatribes is a common conversion of the cabinet. Also, wrestlefest (http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/flyers_video/technos/67433502.jpg) I believe is really angled, it is just most machines out there are conversions they created 2 different models of the 4 player cabinet at the same time. I think Darth Marino might have done his homework on this one. :applaud:
Edit: Found out more info on wrestlefest.
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Ok, lets look at this list of supposed hard evidence for the correctness and awesomeness of angling player 3 and 4.
That didn't seem to be the point of the list. ???
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Ok, lets look at this list of supposed hard evidence for the correctness and awesomeness of angling player 3 and 4.
That didn't seem to be the point of the list. ???
Ok, then just subtract those words, the results still stand that only a handful of games angled and those titles were not very well received overall.
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Ok, then just subtract those words, the results still stand that only a handful of games angled and those titles were not very well received overall.
So the implication is that those games failed BECAUSE they had angled sticks? I can assure you NBA Jam Extreme would have still sucked no matter what angle the sticks were at. Wrestlefest and Pit Fighter were certainly successful at the time and the former is enjoying a resurgence with it's new Xbox remake. We can now add Mercs to the list, another successful game with several sequels. Vigo's excellent post completely grasps the point I am trying to make. I'm not saying that it's better to angle your sticks, but when the topic comes up, let's try and cut the hyperbole and give people reasonable and accurate information about it.
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we can now add Mercs to the list, another successful game with several sequels.
I wouldn't go so far as to call Mercs successful. I'm sure it did okay but it doesn't exactly make many arcade gamers "top games" list. And there was not a line of Mercs sequels - though that game is considered a sequel to Commando according to KLOV (spritual or direct I don't know - I'm not familiar with the game's story.) Matter of fact, the only port I can think of of that game is the Genesis/Mega Drive version.
And +1 to what Xiaou said there.
But I also like Unstupid's earlier remark: are you sure you really want a 4 player cabinet anyway? They're just never comfortable and the games everyone seems to want to play are one-and-two player games only (e.g. Pac-Man and SFII, respectively). YMMV on that one, of course.
I think a good solution may be to build two stand alone, single-player control panels (like the NES Advantage or similar) that can plug into a 2 player cab and placed on some pedestal for the occasional 4-player game. And you can angle however you'd like since it's not bolted down to anything. ;)
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I think the problem is the word "common" in the OP.
I actually tried to succinctly summarise this for my own benefit when i started my cab prototype a few months ago, and i think it might help clarify the issues for any other newbs.
1. there is no correct answer.
You may as well ask "what is the best colour", there are practical, aesthetic and personal styles involved.
Here's how I initially ran through the problem.
(fig 1) 4 clones in a row takes up about 2m of space - no way I am building a panel that big
(http://www.mytechnologymatters.com/local/images/arcade/angle1.png)
Now we stick a nice big screen in (Fig 2)
(http://www.mytechnologymatters.com/local/images/arcade/angle2.png)
and have a look from above (Fig 3)
(http://www.mytechnologymatters.com/local/images/arcade/angle3.png)
This feels wrong to me, the difference between A and B, so I rotate player 3 to face the screen (Fig 4)
(http://www.mytechnologymatters.com/local/images/arcade/angle4.png)
Now A and B are in the same direction.
But let's take a closer look at player 3's perspective (Fig 5)
(http://www.mytechnologymatters.com/local/images/arcade/angle5.png)
We now have a discrepancy between A/B and C, the actual direction of travel as seen on the screen...
I do think I would always naturally face the screen, as per Fig 4, so I started thinking about games I might play in the arcades.
MK type games, I feel is all about muscle memory, special moves etc, I move my hands in relation to my body.
Simpsons type games, I play more in relation to the screen, ie point the joystick towards where I want to go from my perspective.
Then there are those games (which I have never played) which involve 2 joysticks, which have to be in the same plane.
Fig 3 seems to be good, as my movements in relation to my body are in the correct orientation, AND they are in the same plane as the screen, which solves the problem of A/B vs C in Fig 5.
But I just don't see myself standing facing away from the screen, and the space is really restricted.
So there just is no answer... it really depends, do you have 3 mates that want to play? do you like to face the screen, do you relate controls to your body, or to the perspective of the screen to you? and if you are the builder, you are probably not going to be player 3/4 anyway!
I reckon that building something which is perfect for 90% of your gametime, and forget about the other 10% being sub-optimal is best. This depends on what you play, how you play it, and with whom.
I did this, and built a 2 player with the controls slightly angled (only 5 deg), just so we don't bump shoulders (something I have never seen, but it's a bit like an ergonomic keyboard, player 2 is right handed can be a bit awkward when it's straight), and this works for ME.
No wars, just everyone living their lives how they want ;-)
I hope that helps any newbs think abut the types of critieria / issues involved. It seems the arguments tend to stem from one method becoming "de-facto" and those who don't like it saying that is the wrong approach. Which is true. Until they argue that their approach should be the de-facto... and then it's wargames.
A possible answer to "common" is:
1. 4 players straight, all controls face north
2. 4 players in a curve, all controls face north
3. 4 players in a curve, all controls face screen
I built a prototype from cheap ply to make sure I get it right. Problem is we've not stopped playing since, so the build has come to a stop!
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This totally is the Android vs iPhone of the Arcade world :lol
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Nobody has stated, not here.. nor anywhere that Ive seen... that there Never once been a commercial game with angled sticks. People have always stated... that there are VERY FEW games that had done so... and the few that did angle, often had issues, were not very good games, or were passable merely due to the kind of forgiving gameplay that they used.
:dunno Well, perhaps nobody let out an Ultimatum that there have never ever been any commercial games that angled there controls in the complete history of arcade machines, but it is very commonly said that angled joystick games just don't exist commercially except for maybe one or two exceptions. I think that is even touted a couple times early on in this thread.
Heck, you have even pointed out in the past that there are no 4 player games with angled controls.
For one, I can tell you havent seen a lot of the larger 4player cps that were in the arcades. Gauntlet is a rare exception with its highly condensed CP. Most of the others are beasts, and used non-enclosed 25" monitors, with plenty of viewability for all the players. NONE of these angled the sticks, when clearly they COULD have done so to save space and money. Of course, this is all ignoring all the rigorous testing and feedback they got from massed of players...
Which is honestly not a big deal that you said that, lots of others have pointed out the same thing, and ususally experienced people such as yourself. I've probably said it on occasion, and the industry standard is still to not angle them. That point has not changed. I think we need to chalk it up as a dispelled myth that angling really doesn't exist. To be honest, I used to play a ton of Captain America that was at a campground I went to as a kid. I completely forgot that it was an angled game until this thread. ;)
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Someone made the point a little earlier, I believe, but I'll throw my support to it.
I angled the p34 sticks on my buffet build. Not because I had any particular philosophy one way or the other, but because it seemed to make the most sense given the shape of the cp and the angle of the player to the screen. Of course, back then, when I started my build I had absolutely no idea what I was doing (probably still don't know much better :) )
I've had a number of people play it and only one person commented on the outer sticks. Doesn't necessarily mean much but there it is.
The biggest issue with it from my perspective, looking back, is for those simultaneous 2 player/2 stick games like SmashTV. There's not many of them, but they are fun to play 2 players at the same time, and I really can't do so on my cab.
I probably wouldn't angle them if I did it over, for that reason if no other.
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I posted this on March 1, in a similar thread:
This weekend, when I went to Castles N' Coasters, I decided to try this out for myself. My natural inclination would be that yes, P3 and P4 should be angled to the screen in order for things to feel right. They have a few 4 player games there, and I checked - all the joysticks from the factory are installed straight up (no angling).
I put some credits in and I used the P3 controls (far left). I started off by playing straight-forward, directly in front of the machine. Obviously, I had no issues. I then, stepped to the side, playing as if I were the third player and someone were occupying the P1 area. Although my body was angled towards the screen, I had NO issues with the joystick. When I wanted to move up on screen, reflexively I pushed the joystick in the up direction relative to the screen, not "up" relative to me. It the same with the sides. I even moved so that I was standing on the side of the cabinet altogether (you should have seen the looks I got), but it made no difference. You just instinctively know where to go.
So there you go, tested out in an arcade on a real machine 5 days ago. You don't need to angle your sticks.
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Xiaou,
I'm certainly not trying to raise a point about angled sticks on 2 player cabinets. You'll get no argument from me about how rare or pointless that is. I'm talking specifically about the outside players on 3 and 4 player games. The following statements have been made by some of the top posters here regarding this topic:
"On original arcade games, up on the joystick was always parallel with the sides of the cab, even if the player were standing to the side and the buttons were angled. "
"I think that, over all of the years, we have come up with exactly one commercially-produced arcade cabinet with angled sticks ... and that took years to find."
"4 player machines did NOT angle the joysticks for player 3 and 4. The only post 1977 game us researchers could find that did this was Mercs, and playing Mercs on a side position is painful."
I've seen statements like this several times when the topic comes up. That's why when a I noticed a few that were angled I decided to look into it more. There's about 150 games that qualify for this argument. Half the games I couldn't even find a reasonable picture to make a conclusion. I looked at maybe 75-80 games and found 10 machines that appear to have been originally manufactured this way. We've added Mercs and I will now add Tecmo Bowl. It's not overwhelming but some games were manufactured this way.
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I know what you mean, Trip. Bottom line, Being player 3 or 4 sucks no matter how it is orientated. :lol
As Player 3, I can agree with this.
(Besides, how often would four people even meet up at the same time? Party?)
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(Besides, how often would four people even meet up at the same time? Party?)
Somebody doesn't have kids...
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Somebody doesn't have kids...
or friends.
Seriously, why do you guys care so much what people do with their own arcades in their own homes?
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Seriously, why do you guys care so much what people do with their own arcades in their own homes?
(http://craphound.com/images/xkcdwrongoninternet.jpg)
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You know another thing factory 4 player games with angled sticks seemed to have in common? They mostly seem to come from the unsuccessful companies in the industry. A lot of them seemed to come from console software makers who dabbled in arcade games. And for the most part each company that did it only seemed to do it for a game or 2 before either getting out of arcade titles or reverting to standard controls.
Your body isn't really a good reference point in relation to an arcade stick. If it was then Q*Bert would suddenly become playable if you turned to the side a little bit (tried that, doesn't help much).
Not going to get into the 3 player titles which overall seemed to angle as a way to squish 3 sets of arms into a 23" wide panel, with little care given to the playability.
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I'm certainly not trying to raise a point about angled sticks on 2 player cabinets. You'll get no argument from me about how rare or pointless that is.
thanks, seems most have missed my point that what works for YOUR games / style / space / friend visit frequency.
personally I find that MK special moves where up = north west are very difficult, but that is ME! that was my point.
anyway, I will leave the trolls to their fun and games.
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I must be a weirdo, because I made the outer angled joysticks players 1 and 2 to avoid elbow wars. I haven't had any problems playing at an angle so far.