Spaceballs the mame cabinet

[kayoteq]

Too much spare time perhaps? inspired by Rogue Synape's Space Paranoids and Last Starfighter builds, I have this generic cabinet needing custom art.. and I figured, hey, let's make a game that Atari never licensed but make it look like they did. Just a crude mockup, I need to retake photos with the controls on. The cartoons are from the new animated series promo on G4tv.

(it's a Atari Asteroids deluxe cab I got that's been Jamma'd.. Hey, better fate than the trash bin)

I know, difficult-y, but I liked the typo.

If I 'go all the way' with this, the CP will have 'ludicrous speed', plaid and other buttons inspired by the movie, (I have 14 buttons(!) to work with) and possibly a hacked game (or mame front end)  that appears to be the game that never was.

I can hear purists screaming even in space..

[ChadTower]

I thoroughly approve.  Very nice choice of cab, too. 

[shardian]

Very neat project. Hope to see it come to fruition!

[kayoteq]

After all, it's a parody of Star Wars.. so why not continue the theme?

This could get hazardous, cause if me and other maniac tech get the vaccu-form table going.. a 3-D bezel.
which gets me to thinking..  is there demand enough for folks needing the real Star Wars part?
I may need to take a survey, cause that would both justify and pay for a decent vaccuform table
for this and many other projects.. I nearly got an old Gorf when I bought this one, and that would have been _perfect_ for indicating ludicrous speed mode, but I wanted horizontal. Really, that's all I was going for. Asteroids cabinet was just a bonus.

The side art will be the big challenge. pun intended.
Here's mockup 2- the cleaner version. Decided to go with plaid for now.

now to figure out the logistics of painting this..

[btp2k2]

Oh that is too cool!

I love the "Use the Quartzters" on the bottom.

But....will it have the bleeps and the swoops?

[ChadTower]

which gets me to thinking..  is there demand enough for folks needing the real Star Wars part?
I may need to take a survey, cause that would both justify and pay for a decent vaccuform table
for this and many other projects..

There might be, I know I see folks looking for one a couple times a year.

[kayoteq]

Oh that is too cool!

I love the "Use the Quartzters" on the bottom.

But....will it have the bleeps and the swoops?

The plan is to have the 'don't even THINK about pressing this button unless you really, really mean it!' button,
and perhaps that will trigger the bleeps and the swoops.

Updated marquee art: Still 'practicing' to get it to fit in the panel, the brackets mess with my layout, but this is the planned one:

Why yes, half of that is a AD screenshot.  Implying the prototype game inside is really just Asteroids with a few tweaks
it might go away if I can get some good screencaps and integrate the maid spaceship.


So far: the cab has plastic siding on the front and sides, and the original artwork is covered in adhesive. So, as the Rolling Stones say, 'paint it black'..  I finally extracted the last of the SF2 overlay on the cpo, swapped out joystick shafts so they're consistent,
and basically 'blanked' out everything in preparation for new art.

 Have been 'spritzing' the sides with chrome spraypaint at spittle level for random stars, up to the point where I can print out big art and put it in there. Again, the concept is a 'lost prototype' where it looks as commercial as possible. Not sure if my other 'mod' matches a commercial look; The red, blue and yellow button parts have all been mixed together to create two-color buttons..

[bvicarious]

this is a great idea and open to so many gags.. are you actually putting this on the cab or just making a flyer mockup?

[BASS!]

I would love to see the back of spaceball one on the kick plate with the bumper sticker: we brake for no one!

[Dazz]

I have always been a Mel Brooks fan... Spaceballs is one of my favorites!  I love the idea and theme of this cab.  I approve!

[thefuture]

This is gonna be a good one. Can't wait to start seeing the progress!

[kayoteq]

Sorry that there's not been much progress reports..

I've been utterly, completely distracted by the pile of arcade parts I acquired a couple of months back. When that includes a complete Galaga, you tend to focus on what distracts you most. ..

Anyhow, among the parts is this little gem:

A faded Escape from the planet of Robot monsters marquee.
I ended up with the complete frame and surprise surprise, it will fit on a Atari cabinet, which is exactly what I am seeking.
So I ended up re-doing the whole marquee art so it will fit this marquee shell. This is pieced together from some hi-res scans of the Spaceballs DVD, posters, the new cartoon series, anything that would work.  best I could find was some 150dpi but it should turn out
pretty neat I hope.

I know the original movie posters use a plain white SB logo, but the shaded one looks 100% cooler.




Using an outline of the Escape marquee, I moved the elements around to make it work. This will absolutely require a very good printing
so I'm saving up for some mamemarquees goodness. Rather give them money than a print shop, especially after that so-and-so at Kinko's refused to print my Centipede marquee 'for copyright violations'.  It wasn't, but then again they are clueless on arcade stuff anyway, to them it's just a color print. Ironically, I would have gotten away with it had I not purposely put the (c) Atari on it..


Next up I need to take apart the control panel, photograph it so I can start designing the CPO. Or get hold of another panel and start over.
I would think that the 'game' would utilize some balls, so a dual trakball interface may be necessary. Dunno.

Control Contemplations:

two trackballs with a joystick in the middle.? Well.. it's supposed to be a very elaborate joke, after all.. But then, it is my Mame cabinet,
so I want to have playability as a priority.

 A Star Wars yoke? ideal, but unobtainable, so I'm doing the DIY route on that part because I want to mangle as few original parts as possible. .

I don't want a Frankenpanel.. okay, too late for that, but it's supposed to be 'Atari Prototype' so it's 'limited' to Atari-type controls. I want a spinner in among the things, maybe a button that comes out and a spnner module plugs in, so it looks okay when not playing x game.

Or go really nutters and put a spinner _around_ the joystick in a hideously elaborate solution.

Impossible? To consider that, is why you fail, young Skywalker Lonestar..

Will have to decide on that. It's been years since I've been able to play Star Wars 'for reals' sitdown, had the high score
but then there wouldn't be room for other controls. Maybe modular, or a set of matching panels I can take a few minutes to swap out.
I want this to have good Fung Shuei or something like that. There's only so much room on that thing anyhow.

The original plan was to use a Xbox-to-jamma adaptor, which worked for the video, but the controllers on the cabinet won't respond 
so I'll have to learn some Mandarin Chinese to ask the folks I got the thing from what might be going wrong there. It's _supposed_ to be jamma, and jamma games work fine, so I don't know what's going on there. I may have to go for a PC in the cabinet, but it's so.. darn.. close. Plus there's a volume problem (I thought the speaker was going to blow out, but the Asteroids Deluxe speaker held up, surprisingly. turns out there's a pot on that x-box interface, so I may try adjusting that next.




The side art is still a tricky bit. I've played with some silver spray paint on sputter, make some background stars.. may end up doing some composite that's a variation on the Star Wars side art. Or not.

The kickplate idea "brake for no one" sounds good. I'll figure that one out when it comes. Do need some balance, can't have all good characters..