Games for WIndows? How about Games for Cabinets!

[mhermann]

Well now that I am pretty much done school, I will have a little more time to spend on this hobby. Now currently I am working on a Wiimote Driver, but also what to try my hand at game development.

Now this is not going to be anything fancy to start. But my goal is to learn about game development, and create a simple game to start designed around arcade use. I would like to make use of the various controls that are out there and make more light gun games, spinner, and trackball games, but anything for a cabinet is really the goal.

Obviously this will be nothing commercial, but I hope with some experience we can get some decent stuff out there. So I would like to form a team of some sort here. I am looking for anyone interested in game development. No real experience is necessary although at least some general programming knowledge would be helpful or any artists would be great as well. I would not turn anyone down with experience either.

This will be a fairly SLOW moving endeavor. I only plan on spending a few hours a week on this, but it is something I always was interested in trying. To give a little background on myself. I am 32 and have just about completed my masters in software engineering. However all of my programming experience revolves around business applications.

So if there is any interest let me know. If not I will go it alone. I just registered the domain gamesforcabinets.com and hope to have a site up in a week or so. Wouldn't mind hosting anyone else who has designed games specifically for cabinets there as well.

If this concept is already out there or if anyone else is doing it please let me know.

And just let me state, I am not expecting to create the next great <insert name of game here>, a clone of pacman would be more like it. This will be more of a learning experience then anything else, but something I want to do. You have to start somewhere.

[Franco B]

Sounds good to me

Pongo has been working on a game for BYOAC called Shell Shock, I think he may even be looking for a little help. [Thread]

[mhermann]

Thanks for the link. I will post in that thread and hope to help out if I can.

[mhermann]

Ok I looked at the link and I must say what Pongo has done is great!! I will be contacting him as I would love to host his game once completed. I am going to send him a PM. Unfortunately (for me, not him) he is way ahead of me from a game development standpoint. Based on that thread he  has developed several small games and would most likely be bored in this type of startup.

[Turnarcades]

Like the concept and wish I could help but I know jack about programming! Good luck with it though!

[mhermann]

Ok, I am starting to pick up some steam. I have received a couple PMs and think I am starting to form a small team. Worked on the website last night and am working on getting my development environment up. I think I am going with Microsoft XNA as it seems very beginner friendly and has alot of stuff built in already like network code.

more to come....

[nipsmg]

I'm working on a touchscreen jukebox in XNA.  If you want any advice/resources/etc feel free to PM me.

[mhermann]

Thanks for the offer. Once I get into it a bit more I will take you up on that if I need to.

[Space Fractal]

would been nice to list all cabinet freindly games, both commerciel, freeware and shareware and which controllers they require. Some can also been cab freindly by using wrappers (Like Future Pinball) to launch them.

Nice domain name yet.

Example in the past I created a cab friendly version of Grid Wars (wrote in BlitzMax) based on the lastest source before the project was leaved by the original author.

Otherwice good luck.

[mhermann]

Good idea and I will definitely add that to the site.

[mhermann]

Ok, one of the first things I would like to post for potential developers on my Games for Cabinets site is a list of features an arcade friendly game should have. I took this list from another post by RetroBorg as a starting point. What other suggested feautres should make the list?

1. Make it so you have to insert coin(s) to play.

2. Display the top score on the screen while playing.

3. Once you select the game from a frontend it goes straight into an attract mode that includes the following:

           3.1 Starts with a title screen (something like headkaze's picture but with rotating tank).

           3.2 Followed by a demo skirmish of the tanks ending with one of the tanks being destroyed.

           3.3 Then goes to a high score list.

           3.4 Credits Screen

           3.5 And don't forget to add "Say no to drugs" screen. Then looping back to start.

4.0 All the screens should have "Insert Coin(s)" flashing.

5.0 Fully mappable, customizable controls

6.0 Select cabaret or cocktail mode (so the scores can be displayed on both top and bottom of screen etc).

7.0 Select vertical or horizontal screen (some mame cabs have vertical screens and some have horizontal screens, it would be cool if this game was playable on both screen orientations).

8.0 Another option that would be cool would be an option to submit high score files to a web site and the ability to download a world top ten list which can be displayed in the game. The game would display two high score lists one that shows high scores for your machine and another for the world top ten.