Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 08:29:58 am
What controls would you have and how would you lay them out to enable as many old arcade games to be playable as possible?
No frankenpanels allowed, it has to look at least somewhat sane.
Post by: Mike A on August 24, 2018, 08:35:33 am
A cocktail cabinet with four control panels is an abomination.
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 08:51:27 am
Post by: Mike A on August 24, 2018, 09:06:09 am
Post by: 05SRT4 on August 24, 2018, 09:09:42 am
Having a controller on all 4 sides is not necessary unless they specifically wanted to play the 2-3 games that were actually made for it.
Keep it legit with one on each side, if its a must then do a 2 player setup on just one long side.
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 09:11:14 am
To start with, it would have to sit in the middle of a decent sized room. You have to accommodate a grown adult sitting in a chair on all 4 sides. A regular cocktail cabinet takes up a ton of space. I have 2 of them. They are a total headache when I try to floor plan my arcade room.
So for the purposes of this thread lets assume you have a decent sized room and the perfect setting for it.
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 09:14:04 am
Buy a pre-built one online and up-sale it for PURE PROFIT.
Having a controller on all 4 sides is not necessary unless they specifically wanted to play the 2-3 games that were actually made for it.
Keep it legit with one on each side, if its a must then do a 2 player setup on just one long side.
Ok so let me clarify :) ... the purpose is to be able to play as many games as possible... it's NOT to be able to play on all 4 sides concurrently. When each game loads it would be configured to be oriented to the most suitable side/control panel for that game.
Post by: Locke141 on August 24, 2018, 09:18:16 am
Are you thinking like a the two player vertical go on two opposing sides and the horizontal games go on the other two sides. If so, I don't think this is a good idea.
Post by: Mike A on August 24, 2018, 09:21:25 am
Playing as many games as possible is a no win situation. You would be much better off taking some time to figure out what games you actually want to play and work from that list. Then if you still want a 4 position cocktail, we will be in a much better position to figure out the controls you will need for it.
If I haven't dissuaded you yet, there is no use in continuing to try. So I will just try to help you make your cab the best it can be. :cheers:
Post by: jdbailey1206 on August 24, 2018, 09:25:07 am
Post by: 05SRT4 on August 24, 2018, 09:33:26 am
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 09:46:18 am
I have an upright already, and am building another. I want a cocktail for my front room. Family and friends will play it, a lot of kids will play it. I'll play it the most. There's enough space in my lounge, but I've also been considering building it so it can swivel (much like a swivel chair). So you could orient it however you want instead of moving to the side the game is setup for.
I figure that taking the above into consideration, and that you can configure MAME to orient the video of each game however you like, a cocktail cabinet is actually well suited to having more controls panels to enable more games to be played, as it has 4 possible locations for control panels that don't really take up more space when not in use. Mike, perhaps it might not be your cup of tea and of course that's fine, but you might be able to swap your 2 cocktails for just 1 if you went down this route :)
I've recently managed to bag 4 x 17" CRT Hantarex Polo's (from the last UK remaining stock - win!!) so this will most likely be using one of them. For my own preference of games, as well as general single player 8-way horizontal and vertical shooters, I'd ideally want all of the following playable: -
- Out run and other single player dial (spinner) controlled games
- Bubble Bobble, Pang, Hat Trick and other 2-player horizontal games
- Street Fighter
- Centipede
- Asteroids (tho I've never been able to get this to look good on a raster CRT)
- Robotron
- Joust
- Super Sprint
- Arkanoid
- Pac Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Scramble and other classic oldies
- Gauntlet
- Warlords
- Wizard of Wor
- Hypersports/Track and Field
- Tehkan world cup
I'm sure there would be others, but there's a start.
Post by: Mike A on August 24, 2018, 09:49:37 am
Now separate the game list between vertical and horizontal games.
Post by: JDFan on August 24, 2018, 09:58:25 am
If money was no object, and you were tasked to build a cocktail cabinet with 4 control panels, one on each side....
What controls would you have and how would you lay them out to enable as many old arcade games to be playable as possible?
No frankenpanels allowed, it has to look at least somewhat sane.
Don't do 4 control panels as that means you have to sit the thing in the center of a room to use it - and the monitors/games are not designed to look at from all 4 sides ( with a few exceptions like Gauntlet) so someone is playing upside down. IF you want a feel for what that is like start a game and turn your monitor upside down and try playing.
Go with the regular 3 control panels if you need 4 sets of controls. 2 small ones on the ends and a 2 player set along one side. That way if playing 2 player fighting or horizontal games you sit on the one side and both players get the correct view of the screen instead of 1 playing upside down ! - if playing vertical games you play on the 2 ends like a normal cocktail table and you can place the machine against a wall still to conserve space if wanted. :cheers:
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 09:59:10 am
Post by: Vigo on August 24, 2018, 10:00:01 am
Post by: yotsuya on August 24, 2018, 10:04:49 am
Post by: Jimbo on August 24, 2018, 10:06:42 am
No offense, but it sounds a little nightmarish to me, at least my understanding. So you plan on having a machine that has a different base controls on each panel, and meaning that you would sit in a different spot to play centipede, vs robotron. Then the orientation would also be automatically changed based on game selected to cater to the controls requested be the cab. How is someone like a kid understand what they should be doing when they have to play musical chairs to play each game? Kids are not familiar with the games either, so expecting them to know something is a trackball or spinner or whatnot is even worse than on an upright. If you are even gonna touch that noise, I would make sure you find a front end that clearly can mark out where you sit, how the screen will be orientated, and what controls are going to be used.
Thanks - you make a fair point, and no offence taken :) I think it wouldn't be too bad for a kid understand it tho... they'd pick a game, it'd load in the specific orientation, so they'd either know to move to that side, or (if I build it this way) swivel the cocktail round. I think the "know which controls" could be aided with LEDs highlighting them, but that's not something I was considering tbh.... until now!
Post by: Howard_Casto on August 24, 2018, 01:33:34 pm
Post by: jennifer on August 24, 2018, 01:46:45 pm
Post by: Malenko on August 24, 2018, 01:57:14 pm
I cant imagine anyone wanting to play Street Fighter on a cocktail.
Post by: BadMouth on August 24, 2018, 02:37:07 pm
Narrow side 1 - the Shmup side: a dedicated shmup joystick (with short throw and engage) on the left, 3 action buttons, and I don't really want to, but I would end up adding a 4-way leaf joystick in between them for original cocktail games that flip the screen on the basis that building a cocktail cabinet that couldn't play original cocktail cabinet games would be wrong. A better approach might be to use a single Suzo 500 (which is a good shmup stick) and add a mechanism to rotate the base to switch between 4 and 8-way.
Narrow side 2 - the old school side: spinner, dedicated 4-way leaf joystick, 2 leaf buttons. You could add a Tron stick on the right. I wouldn't, but you could. If so, make that spinner a hi/lo one.
Long side 1 - The 2 player Neo Geo/Street Fighter side: Happ Supers, straight 6 button layout (concave buttons), no 7th button. If there is room, I'd squeeze the trackball into this side to play The Irritating Maze. If you want to get crazy add another for player 2 for Marble Madness and a few other games I don't remember.
Long side 2 - two 360 degree steering wheels, one button each, and pedals for playing games like Super Sprint and Super Off Road. Add a shifter in between and use the left wheel to play the rest of the 360 degree wheel games. You may be tempted to add a flight stick, but all flight stick games suck. If you do add a flight stick, make sure it's analog.
By not having trackballs on the end, you'll miss out on Atari football and Centipede, but they are not worth it IMO. You could still play Centipede from the side, but the vertical image on the horizontal screen will be small.
EDIT: on the driving side, I'll add that switch pedals work fine for the games I mentioned, but you'll need analog ones for games like Pole Position and Outrun. Also Outrun didn't use a 360 degree wheel so requires modifying MAME to make it play correctly with one.
Post by: RandyT on August 24, 2018, 02:39:53 pm
Post by: 8BitMonk on August 24, 2018, 03:08:20 pm
If you do go ahead you might consider making the top angle-able so you're not limited to staring straight down. Check out this project: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,118776.0.html (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,118776.0.html)
Post by: jdbailey1206 on August 24, 2018, 03:10:07 pm
if money is no object...... build 2 or 3 instead of trying to jam everything into 1.
There is a computer program I can't seem to put my fingers on. What it essentially does is it tells you what controls you use for the game you typed in. My thinking would be to get this program put in the games you want and you can then verify what controls you need. My thoughts outside of the specialized games like Tron, Qbert, and Ikari Warriors everything should fall into a standard category of 2,4,8 way + 2-4 buttons or a SF type of game that would require 49 way and up to 6 buttons. Either way like Malenko said your standard player will have, at most, 1-2 cabs. And if you even went down to 1 cab you could save money (which doesn't seem to be an avenue you want to go down) and purchase restrictors. Your call.
Post by: Ian on August 24, 2018, 08:27:34 pm
To start with, it would have to sit in the middle of a decent sized room. You have to accommodate a grown adult sitting in a chair on all 4 sides. A regular cocktail cabinet takes up a ton of space. I have 2 of them. They are a total headache when I try to floor plan my arcade room.
Very true... I miss my Time Pilot, but I don't at the same time. It was a nightmare to set up without taking up a good 1/4 of the room.
Post by: leapinlew on August 24, 2018, 09:15:18 pm
Buy two buildings for your arcade games. Have one as a warm spare in case power is out. Have all dedicated hardware. Hire a team of technicians to maintain it. Hire dancers to pole dance and waitresses to bring you drinks while playing. Hire a team of developers to create Marble Madness 2, Tron 2, and Donkey Kong 2 (Donkey Kong Jr. doesn't count), build a factory to reproduce vector/arcade monitors and WICO joysticks. Have $100,000 retro arcade tournaments weekly to keep the hobby alive.
Think big! Money is no object.
Post by: Ond on August 24, 2018, 09:19:48 pm
If money was no object....
Buy two buildings for your arcade games. Have one as a warm spare in case power is out. Have all dedicated hardware. Hire a team of technicians to maintain it. Hire dancers to pole dance and waitresses to bring you drinks while playing. Hire a team of developers to create Marble Madness 2, Tron 2, and Donkey Kong 2 (Donkey Kong Jr. doesn't count), build a factory to reproduce vector/arcade monitors and WICO joysticks. Have $100,000 retro arcade tournaments weekly to keep the hobby alive.
Think big! Money is no object.
:lol
Post by: Ian on August 25, 2018, 09:56:30 am
if money is no object...... build 2 or 3 instead of trying to jam everything into 1.
I cant imagine anyone wanting to play Street Fighter on a cocktail.
Now if you build the cocktail like a Williams Joust? Maybe?
(https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/1e11702a-111e-451d-acbc-a51a015f0b01/e83d1ca4-f51e-4c87-850e-a52400052e6c/540x360.jpg)
Post by: 1500points on August 25, 2018, 12:40:07 pm
4 player atari Warlords and 4 player atari football works well.
This is how to do it right when money or space isn’t an object. 6 player Starlords at CAX.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180825/af82d4d97d081ddc836d4d1dae419619.jpg)
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Post by: Ian on August 25, 2018, 12:48:06 pm
A Joust cocktail has awful ergonomics absolutely awful when you try to play. Might be OK for ET.
4 player atari Warlords and 4 player atari football works well.
This is how to do it right when money or space isn’t an object. 6 player Starlords at CAX.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180825/af82d4d97d081ddc836d4d1dae419619.jpg)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good to know... I never came across one in the wild. That starlords looks pretty slick.
Post by: BadMouth on August 25, 2018, 01:01:37 pm
A Joust cocktail has awful ergonomics absolutely awful when you try to play.
It's the angled joysticks.
Post by: 1500points on August 25, 2018, 01:19:05 pm
It's the angled joysticks.
That reminds me of a donkey kong cocktail with the horizontal joysticks. I bought one of those once and thankfully was able to return it.
With Joust the monitor is slightly angled but it is still hard to see the far corners, you have to pull your shoulders back, crane your neck up and forward, then tilt your head to see different parts of the screen. I can’t believe that ever past the engineering teams playing time in dev
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Post by: Malenko on August 25, 2018, 02:13:26 pm
I actually thought of that cab when replying. Well, the one that was converted to MAME or consoles using SNES "Super Advantage" controllers. Still, no.if money is no object...... build 2 or 3 instead of trying to jam everything into 1.Now if you build the cocktail like a Williams Joust? Maybe?
I cant imagine anyone wanting to play Street Fighter on a cocktail.
Post by: Mr. Peabody on September 04, 2018, 08:07:42 am
Good to know... I never came across one in the wild. That starlords looks pretty slick.
That's because there weren't any.
Post by: Ian on September 04, 2018, 09:21:06 am
Good to know... I never came across one in the wild. That starlords looks pretty slick.
That's because there weren't any.
Then where do all these Joust cocktails come from I wonder?
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/64054242/the-where-do-the-stories-come-from-i-wonder.jpg)
Post by: Mr. Peabody on September 29, 2018, 11:42:23 pm
Good to know... I never came across one in the wild. That starlords looks pretty slick.
That's because there weren't any.
Then where do all these Joust cocktails come from I wonder?
Post by: Ian on October 22, 2018, 04:42:12 pm
Starlords looks like a custom cabinet. Nobody, nor search, is telling me different.
Good to know... I never came across one in the wild. That starlords looks pretty slick.
That's because there weren't any.
Then where do all these Joust cocktails come from I wonder?
I was talking about the Joust cocktail. I never saw one in public.