Arcade homebrew

[ArcadeHomebrewer]

I would like to create my own arcade homebrew game. I don't mean running a pc game inside a arcade cab, I mean an actual arcade game like the good old days of pac-man. If someone could please give me advice on how i can do this and post links to tutorials for this it would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

[paigeoliver]

You write the game the exact same way you would write any other video game but write it with an arcade cabinet in mind. Your finished game would still probably run on PC hardware as designing custom hardware for a one off game would be financially viable.

[ArcadeHomebrewer]

So there is no way to say use the same boards used in pac-man, but write a different game that will run on them? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

[CheffoJeffo]

It would take expertise, a lot of dedication and some specialty equipment, but if you want to get started:

http://www.jeffsromhack.com

[paigeoliver]

Ok, you didn't specify in your first post that you wanted to write for an old platform. Very possible, although a lot more difficult than using modern hardware.

So there is no way to say use the same boards used in pac-man, but write a different game that will run on them? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

[eds1275]

I am currently involved in 4 arcade-style game projects that run on PC. I am using game maker from http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio. It's pretty easy to get something basic down and seems to be fairly good for customization. I suggest going through the 2 tutorials that come with it. The second tutorial is very poorly written, but if you can get your head around that then you should be good to go off on your own.

[Well Fed Games]

Yeah, I'm working on a similar project, but I am just going the PC-in-a-cab route... having an actual Arcade PCB with a custom game would be cool, but how to do that? Cheffo's link is probably your best bet. D2K is an example, but it is not an original game, just new levels and some tweaks using existing game resources (not that the creator isn't a frickin' genius). Hopefully soon I will have a blog up about my project... once I get a couple other cabinet builds squared away. What kind of game you thinking about?

eds- I am using gamemaker too! Can't wait to see what you are working on!

[ark_ader]

Learn C# and get yourself a book on XNA 4.0

Make yourself a space shooter, PONG or Space War.

Lots of resources out there for you to get started.

You might make the next Pacman. 

What are you waiting for?  Get coding! 

[ArcadeHomebrewer]

I started reading into it and want to do it in 6502 assembly language.Is there a "arcade board" emulator(I don't mean MAME) where i can just emulate the boards itself for Bega's Battle? I want to assemble my code and try running it using emulated boards. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

[404]

I started reading into it and want to do it in 6502 assembly language.Is there a "arcade board" emulator(I don't mean MAME) where i can just emulate the boards itself for Bega's Battle? I want to assemble my code and try running it using emulated boards. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

Welcome to the site. You must be really good or completely suicidal. 

Just joking on the suicidal part. if you know assembly and want to get started on some sort of proto board, have a look at http://www.6502.org/homebuilt/

I remember some years ago there was a generic 6502 kit that one could buy that had audio, video and io pinouts ready.

[ArcadeHomebrewer]

Is there any arcade specific arcade projects that i should look into on that page? All i see is a giant list of links with not much specifically for arcades. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ArcadeHomebrewer

[404]

unfortunately, no. You just might be the very first person i've heard of doing a project like this. If i were you I would first find a 6502 based development platform the basics you need. Good debugging, good support, video out, audio etc and then go from there.

[Gray_Area]

I would ask the gents over at MAMEWorld. The first thing they might say, given you're wanting write in assembly, is learn to emulate it. Focus on a game(s) that used it.

Actually, you might just ask Don Hodges.

[paigeoliver]

Is there any reason why you would specifically target such an impossible to find platform to run your game as Bega's Battle? There are probably only about 10-20 of those machines kicking around the entire world.

[cgbartek]

Cool idea. I wish you luck on learning 6502 ASM, low level programming isn't terribly easy to grasp. I would gravitate toward the Gamemaker route that others have mentioned, then put it on a cheap PC... this would be a much easier way to create the game, or at the very least prototype it before you create it in assembler. This hobby doesn't have much of a homebrew scene, but then again probably because there's so much hardware out there.

[bkenobi]

Maybe I'm missing something, but MAME does emulate the boards.  You would have to build your own rom that would be compatible with the original rom you are replacing, but you should be set with MAME I believe.  If you want to program your own game using Pacman hardware as an example, you would use all the same stuff in MAME except for whatever rom chips contain the actual game code.  Those roms would have to be written and compiled by you using whatever the appropriate tool would be.  Once you get the rom working in MAME, you would burn it back to a real rom chip and drop it (or them) into an original Pacman board.

I thought that was the primary purpose of MAME...keeping the original hardware/software saved for future generations.   

[paigeoliver]

If you hack an existing rom (which will likely maintain most of the original code), then it will almost certainly work in mame, but something written from scratch might work in mame and then fail on the real board or vise versa.