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Maverick I sent you a DM

Wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting, but given all the hype around this game, it wasn't what I actually got. 

If you're someone who backed the indie developed Megadrive/Genesis beat-em-up Paprium and never received your copy of the game, you may be interested to find out it's now finally been fully emulated via Retroarch, using a special genesis_plus_gx_libretro core. Watermelon Development, who produced it, was seemingly only capable of actually making a handful of copies, leaving loads of unhappy customers still waiting on a game they paid for almost a decade ago. Many people have labelled this one of the biggest retro gaming scams ever, with over a million dollars taken and precious little to show for it. Paprium has apparently proven difficult to emulate up until now due to its alleged "custom hardware".

I won't paste any links to it, but it's not difficult to find. The one I found came with the custom Retroarch core. I just had to go to the Retroarch cores folder and replace the Genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll with the new one. After that just load Genesis Plus GX Core then find and load the game .bin.

When you first load the game up you play a fake low res "mockup". To get past the mockup, the very first time you play, you need to let the enemy players beat you in that part, so your character properly dies. If you restart after that, you should be good and the full game should load.

Gameplay video:

Surface Finishing.
The body filler went on uniformly but sanded unevenly. The ABS slurry went on in globs but sanded well. In the end, I think the ABS slurry technique was the most successful. Also, the glue version chemically welds pieces of ABS together and is far superior to other joinery chemicals, compounds, and techniques.




The results are pretty fantastic. For example, I had to print each of these panels in two pieces to fit on my Bambu labs P1P printer, but post-processing you can’t see the seam at all.

Painting.
Early on I got locked into using Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 2X Ultra Cover Spray Paint, supposedly both paint and primer. This stuff actually eats away at ABS. In a side-by-side comparison you can see how the premium build plate texture has been chemically defaced.



As a result, each piece needed about 8 rounds of painting and sanding to achieve decent results. If I had to do it over again I’d find a more suitable paint for plastics.

Assembly.
A whole lot of time went into thinking about how to best assemble the case. It’s engineered to use many tiny screws. The tiny screw heads strip immediately, making their installation more or less permanent without adding any actual structural integrity. So I spent a lot of time extracting the tiny screws and then instead glued the front, bottom and sides together. Screwing the top into place wasn’t an option but neither was gluing it since doing so would entombed the marquee header. I wanted everything to completely disassemble in the event of needed repairs. So I modded the existing header to accept Ikea-like Cam locks. It worked but didn’t cinch tight enough so I modified the model in CAD, printed it again, and the results were excellent!



More later!

This topic has been moved to Wiki Discussion.

https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=169701.0

Thanks! The originals are now free here: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/mini-bartop-vewlix-v2-0 and my redesigns are here and cost $1: https://cyberspacemanmike.com/shop . I'm going to be updating them soon because I learned a lot during the first and second builds. BTW, I'd like to recommend a text book for introductory game development. I wrote it! It's based on the course I created for a SUNY: https://www.amazon.com/No-Code-Video-Development-Using-Playmaker-ebook/dp/B08LGC3LW9?sr=8-1 It's also available on my site for a much better price!

Btw SkyRacket is listed as 384x216 but I just downloaded the demo and it's 480x270.

Mike, this is really beautiful and well done.

Hope you wouldn't mind sharing the files when you finally nail everything down.

Would like to print a bunch of these for my classroom so my students can each an arcade cabinet to showcase the games that they made!

Hi!

I stumbled across the wiki and thence the forum. I would like to contribute to the wiki. There's a ton of good information there but also some simple issues I can easily fix (like "external" links that are actually supposed to link to internal pages but probably got overlooked in a newwiki.arcadecontrols.com → wiki.arcadecontrols.com migration).

I live in Haarlem, I am a software developer, and I like to design and build arcade-ish controllers for home use in everything from fighting games to 3D RPGs.

That looks awesome 

I agree about the older pin tables looking really good. On my vpin the newer tables with lots of decorations always look a little off (2d plane and all that) but the older tables look and feel fantastic.

I've been following this build since you started it and it's definitely my favourite vpin build.

Thanks for following this project markc74, yeah I agree some tables look very promising but once loaded do look a bit flat. One table that surprised me was Spongebob Square pants. It does have some nice depth feel and great lighting too!

You have some really clean fit and finish. Looks factory made. Kudos!

Sorry if I missed it, but did you summarize anywhere what you did for computer software/hardware? I saw you're using PinballX but curious about some of your other integrations and how hi-spec of a computer you used.

Thanks, I spend a lot of time trying to get that factory finish look. Paint finishes and artwork take time. Preparation and small details make the difference. I did cover the hardware briefly, repeated below:


12th gen Intel i7 CPU
DDR 5 supporting motherboard, 32 GB DDR 5 RAM
RTX 3060 Ti GPU

The main table screen is an LG 4K monitor, and the backslash screen is an 21.5" 4:3 NEC monitor.
 The system runs Windows 11, 64bit Visual Pinball and PinballX front end. I will eventually change Windows booting into Windows Explorer shell as well.

With Ond builds it is all about design and eye candy to me anyway   Living the dream vicariously.

This is true, especially the design bit. I can talk design (mine and others) all day long 

I'm getting some R&R at the moment but back soon enough. When this project is completed ill look at doing a video to show it off a bit.