Geometry wars dedicated cab!! Questions

[MAME TIME]

Hey

I'm planning on putting together a Geo war's theme cab together, but im unsure what type of controls/joystick config we want to go with, joystick(movement) and twister (shooting), dual joysticks.(types of joysticks) Another problem is that the bomb button needs to be almost instantly accessible for obvious reasons. im going to be using a pc possibly with ipac, any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. pic as she sits

[ChadTower]

I'm very interested in what you come up with.  This has always been a favorite of mine and it just screams out for a dedicated cabinet. 

Geometry Wars and Rez are the two that really need to be done this way.

Is the PC version standalone or is it in some sort of container like Steam? 

[ahofle]

You will definitely want analog sticks like the u360 (http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html), no ipac necessary.  Will also be interested in how you handle the bomb button.

[Le Chuck]

Maybe something like a starwars yoke with a thumb stick on one side to control firing direction.  You can still have three separate switches with that configuration and the thumb stick boards do fit inside that handle. 

[ChadTower]

Star Wars yoke probably isn't fast enough for Geometry Wars. 

Maybe put the bomb button on a pedal?  That would be different.

[CraftyMech]

Great idea! Loved Gometry Wars on the xBox, took me forever to get the 1,000,000 points achievement on one life.

A dual joystick setup like the Robotron control panel, but with analog sticks would be cool. Plus you'd become a master at Robotron incidentally by playing Geometry Wars.

[Le Chuck]

Star Wars yoke probably isn't fast enough for Geometry Wars. 

Maybe put the bomb button on a pedal?  That would be different.

The axis is kinda off too now that I think through it. How about just a simple flightstick with a hat on the thumb position?

[ChadTower]

The axis is kinda off too now that I think through it. How about just a simple flightstick with a hat on the thumb position?

You'd have to make them both flightsticks if you go that way.  Two analog sticks and a bomb button.  Ideally both sticks are the same.  Not all flight sticks have a trigger, I suppose, so you could do one trigger stick and one no trigger.  That would work. 

Using two trigger sticks you'd have to make the CP out of metal for sure and you'd have to have a heavy cabinet.  Flightsticks give a person a lot of leverage to pull forward and believe me people use it.

[Le Chuck]

Why two? Lots of flight sticks have an analog hat on the face. Do you need two? Serious question.

[ChadTower]

Geometry Wars is a dual analog stick game.  Usually done with dual thumbsticks on a console controller.  Think Robotron with analog sticks and a single button for "nuke 'em all" bombs.

[dgame]

Mod one of these in for the Bomb:


But seriously the pedal idea was the first thing that came to mind for the Bomb.

I wonder how it would play. Could be useful for Battlezone and other dual stick one button games.

I have racing pedals so eventually I will be able to try it myself.

Nice project!

[Le Chuck]

The thrustmaster 16000 is a HAL stick with 4 axes. $40. I've been looking at getting one, should have enough axes to run the game one handedly.

[ChadTower]

should have enough axes to run the game one handedly.

[Vigo]

Just because the flightsticks I have used in the past feel a bit too sloppy for me, I'd probably mod a couple 360s instead. I'd opt for topfire buttons instead of triggers since it is a secondary weapon, and I would most likely put a button on each stick having them both do the same thing.

I'd gut something like their old quickshot joystick for the grips, because i don't know any modern grips without a trigger button.



I know im not suggesting the easy route. 

[MAME TIME]

I was thinking of dual u360 with a bomb button or a peddle of sorts , i did however stumble on the mini grip sticks that Andy has on the website, looks like they have a short throw (4.5 inches) and have buttons on the top. Has anyone used them? Any good? what about those top fire joysticks that happs sells, i think they have 2 models? the shaft seems high on them, im just wondering if it would affect the game play, wont be as tight?

[DeLuSioNal29]

+1 on the pedal.  You can simply wire it up to an Ipac.

As far as the Geo Wars game goes, there is a hacked "standalone" version out there. I ended up buying the Steam version to make me feel better. But I use the hacked version.

D

[drventure]

I grabbed a copy of Grid Wars before Incinitti had to take it down. Really good clone, but the real Geo wars is definitely far flashier.

It would look great on a cab like this as well.

[Gray_Area]

I don't think these games have that close of graphics precision and all to merit anything fancy. Try a couple flightsticks, probly do ya just fine.

[DeLuSioNal29]

+1 on the "Grid Wars" game clone.  I have that running on my cab as well and it's just as fun.

D

[MAME TIME]

i'm horrible with updates, you know life gets in the way right  Geo wars retro-fied if you will

Hopefully get it done shortly

[ahofle]

That is so frickin cool. 
Looks like you opted for the pedal idea then?

I just read Le Chuck's idea of using a single stick with an analog hat for firing...that actually sounds like a good idea.

[drventure]

I just read Le Chuck's idea of using a single stick with an analog hat for firing...that actually sounds like a good idea.

That games tough enough with 2 sticks! But I love the idea anyway.

[MAME TIME]

Yeah the pedal just made sense to me, I modified a virtual cop pedal to the cab. It was hard finding the right pedal , because you want to be able to rest you foot on an angle for long periods of time. The end result will be 2 xU360's and the pedal, I'll check into that top hat idea though, sounds interesting

[opt2not]

This is looking great! Can't wait to see it all finished.   

[DeLuSioNal29]

Yes, looks Good!  Keep us updated!

DeLuSioNaL29

[rockyrocket]

Can you play it with a stick and spinner mad planets style?.
Edit - have had time to try it myself, so to answer my own question - no you can not.
With the mouse only having the one axis, rotating the mouse makes you fire left or right and not in rotation around your ship.
I can not think of a way to make this happen with xpadder or the like so thats that idea dead then .

[Generic Eric]

That side art is nice! 

[MAME TIME]

Crappy vid to boot, still needs some finishing touches though, t-molding on the CP and chaning up the color of the buttons and ball top,

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looks great!

A few questions:
-  Does the game directly boot?
-  Did you end up using the standalone version of Geometry Wars (non-Steam)
-  Are any other games built in?
-  Do you have a front end running to choose which game to play?

DeLuSioNaL29

[Well Fed Games]

That is beautiful! Nicely done!

[drventure]

Very nicely done! 

[opt2not]

Hey it turned out really nice!

Any chance I can get a few nice pictures of the cabinet for my records?

If anyone is interested, here's a quick animated gif of the process the side-art went through -- from initial rough sketches, to the vectored coloured final:



Nice job MAME TIME! 

[MAME TIME]

Looks great!

A few questions:
-  Does the game directly boot? (Yes)
-  Did you end up using the standalone version of Geometry Wars (non-Steam) (Yes)
-  Are any other games built in? I have grid wars and echos that im playing around with as well, looking to get waves installed if I can find it
-  Do you have a front end running to choose which game to play? (no not at the moment)

DeLuSioNaL29

Thx again Bryan for helping out with the art, it came together even better then initially thought

[SORHP]

Looks great!

A few questions:
-  Does the game directly boot?
-  Did you end up using the standalone version of Geometry Wars (non-Steam)
-  Are any other games built in?
-  Do you have a front end running to choose which game to play?

DeLuSioNaL29

I know I'm dragging up an old thread, but im getting after building ... Ok , making a multi out of my robotron cabinet and trying to do basically the same thing ... And I'd really like the questions here answered...

Also, geometry wars 3 was released on pc... Wanna update your setup too?

And pray for geo wars 2 on pc:)

[bulbousbeard]

Seems like it'd make sense to put Smash TV, Total Carnage, and Robotron on there too, no?

Is Geometry Wars an analog game? Are those optical joysticks?

[Le Chuck]

GW is analog.

Initially he used digital but found a lot of dead space in the game play so updated to dual pot analog sticks like are found in SW Trilogy using a Kade+ as the interface.

[RetroGreg]

GW is analog.

Initially he used digital but found a lot of dead space in the game play so updated to dual pot analog sticks like are found in SW Trilogy using a Kade+ as the interface.

Just to make sure I get this - he swapped out the u360's for different sticks to work with the kade?

Thanks 

[Le Chuck]

GW is analog.

Initially he used digital but found a lot of dead space in the game play so updated to dual pot analog sticks like are found in SW Trilogy using a Kade+ as the interface.

Just to make sure I get this - he swapped out the u360's for different sticks to work with the kade?

Thanks 

Ref thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,137361.msg1416883.html#msg1416883

Geometry Wars won't recognize two 360s so it wasn't a viable solution, that's why we switched over to the kade+ since it has multiple axis support (4 in this case).  I built the replacement panel for him. 

[RetroGreg]

Thanks! I thought this was the only thread. I'll read it all tonight. I'm definitely interested in seeing how it was done. Geometry wars has to be one of my favorite games. 

[Le Chuck]

Thanks! I thought this was the only thread. I'll read it all tonight. I'm definitely interested in seeing how it was done. Geometry wars has to be one of my favorite games. 

Well the short version is that I used two analog sticks off fleabay, put fresh pots on them and wired it up to the microavr using the same hex from Sharpfork that I used in M's foot controller and my yoke+.  Then it's a simple job to adjust the deadspace in the windows utility and you're off to the races.  I didn't do a build thread on the CP as it was MameTime's and Opt's art but if you have any questions just let me know.

You could use a gamepad hack instead of the kade+ avr (which are somewhat hard to get right now I think), but you still have to come up with those analog sticks.