Pre-made MAME32 game lists?

[ddrtist]

I am currently using MalaFE with Mame32 Plus! .122 and it's romset.  I am in the process of setting up custom rom lists using Romlister to add to Mala on my MAME cab.  I would like to have a list specifically for retro games (cocktail, 2 button or less, vertical)...games like DK, pac-man, galaga, space invaders...the essential stuff.

My problem is that when I use Romlister for these parameters, I get 500 results.  Over half of these results are clones, so I tried using the no clones parameter.  This eliminated many of the North American romsets for many of the games I want to play.

My question is:  Does anyone have a pre-made Mala game list or any list that contains the classic arcade games?  If so, can you please PM me the .txt or whatever readout you have?

[TheShanMan]

Problem is, how do you define "the classic arcade games"? What's classic to one person isn't to another. Sure, there would be plenty of games that would be in the vast majority of people's lists of classic games, but where do you draw the line between classic and not classic?

If filtering out clones eliminates versions of a game that you prefer, then manually switch those games. Personally, I have never cared about which region my roms are for. I think puckman is in my list instead of pacman, but I don't care enough to change it.

Also, when I first set up my game list I typically spend a half hour or so going through the whole list of originals looking for the games I like. Doing that on a list of 500 doesn't sound so bad to me.

If someone does have such a list to give you, great. But don't you think that list would be missing certain games you would want (but perhaps have forgotten about)? That's why I think going through the list manually is the way to go.

I know this isn't the kind of answer you're looking for, but maybe you just haven't thought of it this way until now. Hope it helps.

[NOP]

I'm not sure how removing clones killed off all the games you wanted to play.  Pac-man/puckman and maybe crush roller/make trax are the only ones I can think of where the clone is the US release.  (there was a thread about this a little bit ago-I think pole position also came up, but you probably aren't playing that on your cocktail machine)

anyway, I'd be happy to send you the list of games I've come up with.  My cocktail machine is 3 buttons each player and a U360 for each.  There are only about 5 or 6 games that use 3 buttons and support cocktail mode, so those should be easy to knock out.

I believe I've got ~335 games on it.

I would suggest then going through that list by hand and making your own flavor of classics.
(right click on the game title in mala->add to list->myCLassics)


If nothing else, getting some feedback from other cocktail owners about what additional games should/should not be in the list is often interesting.  We started a wiki page about this stuff too:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Lists

-jeff!

[Ummon]

ddr, you might be interested in creating your gamelists in Mame32 and then importing them. This is what I did. I wrote a small tutorial in a MaLa thread but don't have the address on hand. Should be easy to find.

[ddrtist]

I would like to export game lists to mala, but I cannot create custom folders in mame32 (.122).  I can add them to favorites, but romlister cannot find the roms inside of the folder to add to a list. 

Might there be a plugin or add-on floating around that would allow me to make custom game lists in mame32?

Also, I could not locate the thread you were referring to.

[Ummon]

To create folders and sub-folders in Mame32/UI, you have to go into the folders ini and write it. It's simple, just observe the syntax already used. Then, you can do two things: copy and paste game names in the ini to other sub-folders in the ini, or to other ini's. I guess each ini corresponds to a folder in the gui. Or, you can click and drag games within the gui. Having started with Mame32, this is what I did over time and continue to do when I add new games. Using romlister and all that I've never bothered to learn.

The thread mentioned is in the Mala forum.