Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: Ayrk on September 18, 2006, 10:35:02 am

Title: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Ayrk on September 18, 2006, 10:35:02 am

Hello,

So I figured that the cabinet would be a great place to play the various You Don't Know Jack games. I made ISOs of all of the CDs and tried DaemonTools to run the ISO but for some reason it caused my mini-pac to stop working.

What is the best way for me to get these programs to run? My goal would be to double-click on a single icon to load the iso and start the game or if it is possible to run through MameWah, that would work even better.

Thanks.

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Chris on September 18, 2006, 10:47:05 am

Before you even try this, do you have a keyboard on your cabinet all the time?  I installed YDKJ and of course the first time I had a Gibberish Question I realized I had no way to type in the answer...

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Ayrk on September 18, 2006, 03:59:07 pm

Good point. I do have a keyboard easily available via a drop down door.

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Chris on September 18, 2006, 04:03:20 pm

Well, with YDKJ Volume 2 I didn't have to create any ISO's.  I just installed the program, then created a folder on the hard drive, copied the CD contents into it, and edited an INI file (I can't remember which one, I can look when I get home) in the YDKJ program folder to point to the hard drive folder instead of the CD.  I can't guarantee this method will work with all the YDKJ's.

--Chris

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: unclet on September 18, 2006, 10:01:50 pm

I have six YDKJ games installed using MALA as my frontend (but MameWah should work as well) and they are a lot of fun to play.

I have a keyboard in my cabinet which can be pulled out of a drawer in the front but I still can not answer the gibberish questions  :P.

Anyway, for each YDKJ disc I did the following:

1) Installed the game on my harddrive
2) Created an ISO of each disc
3) Created a BAT file for each disk which first mounts the ISO image using DaemonTools and then executes the game's EXE
4) The "emulator" name in MALA is called "PcGames"
5) The "PcGames" gamelist in MALA simply lists all the BAT file names

example:

YDKJ (Vol 1).bat
YDKJ (Vol 2).bat
YDKJ (Vol 3).bat
YDKJ (Movies).bat
YDKJ (TV).bat
YDKJ (Vol 6 Lost Gold).bat

I then select the PcGames emulator from MALA and scroll down the gamelist and select a game to play.  The game's BAT file then executes, which mounts the ISO via DaemonTools and then starts the EXE software application file.

You should be able to get this working in other frontends which support BAT files, however, there probably is a way to do it without using BAT files ..... but I find BAT files pretty easy to set up and real straightforward so I never tried another approach.

I also decided to add the following PC games as well:

1) Little Big Adventure (Relentless - Twinsen's Adventure)
2) Little Big Adventure 2 (Twinsen's Odyssey)
3) Feeding Frenzy     <-- kids love this one
4) Feeding Frenzy 2  <-- kids love this one

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Howard_Casto on September 18, 2006, 10:13:54 pm

Just for the record we had a HUGE discussion about the ydkj games in this very forum just a few weeks ago.  Try searching before you post, you never know what you'll find.  ;)

Title: Re: What's the best way to start games like You Don't Know Jack
Post by: Ayrk on September 19, 2006, 10:00:49 am

Sorry.  :-[ I read this forum daily but don't remember the discussion.

Off to the search screen.

Thanks for the help all.