Mini Consoles Theme - RetroSai Nostalgia - Form over Function 2.2.1

Wow! Pretty amazing stuff! But I'm guessing that the games-text list isn't quite ready? I'm having issues with each platform while using the text-list view of the theme, while the full cover box view seems to be working fine and looking great. For example, here's what happens in the text-list view with Atari 5200. There's no response to the controls while trying to navigate in this view but theme music continues to play in the background.

2 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

Wow! Pretty amazing stuff! But I'm guessing that the games-text list isn't quite ready? I'm having issues with each platform while using the text-list view of the theme, while the full cover box view seems to be working fine and looking great. For example, here's what happens in the text-list view with Atari 5200. There's no response to the controls while trying to navigate in this view but theme music continues to play in the background.

So the Games Text View is specifically used for the Games Detail View that transitions from the main Horizontal Wheel 1 View. The only two valid views should be HorizontalWheel1View or CoverFlowView.

Thats why I left a bolded note in the description above.

“THIS IS IMPORTANT! The Game Details View Menu for each custom platform is technically hidden, to give the impression of starting the game or not.”

Also, as stated above, make sure you have in your configuration to NOT skip the Game Details Screen. This is required for the background audio to stop playing when you launch a game, otherwise the music would keep playing while your game is playing. Unfortunately I’m not able to resolve that any other way.

8 minutes ago, Saieno said:

So the Games Text View is specifically used for the Games Detail View that transitions from the main Horizontal Wheel 1 View. The only two valid views should be HorizontalWheel1View or CoverFlowView.

Thats why I left a bolded note in the description above.

“THIS IS IMPORTANT! The Game Details View Menu for each custom platform is technically hidden, to give the impression of starting the game or not.”

Okay, gotcha. I thought I had done something wrong on my part or that was something was incomplete. Either way, this is truly fantastic looking and looking forward to seeing some more of those 'oddball' systems added in there in the future

1 minute ago, bundangdon said:

Okay, gotcha. I thought I had done something wrong on my part or that was something was incomplete. Either way, this is truly fantastic looking and looking forward to seeing some more of those 'oddball' systems added in there in the future

No problem! Did that resolve your issue? Also I’m not sure what other platforms I’ll personally be making special views for, as currently I made views for the systems I personally use. If I expand out or there are specific requests for views I can do my best to create them. Doing the regional views was pretty difficult as I didn’t have those systems growing up so I had to ask a friend from Europe to validate hahaha.

one thing I will be updating is the arcade views to put a release year and additional information as I noticed that’s not there currently. But I’ll get that updated sometime soon.

9 hours ago, Saieno said:

No problem! Did that resolve your issue? Also I’m not sure what other platforms I’ll personally be making special views for, as currently I made views for the systems I personally use. If I expand out or there are specific requests for views I can do my best to create them. Doing the regional views was pretty difficult as I didn’t have those systems growing up so I had to ask a friend from Europe to validate hahaha.

one thing I will be updating is the arcade views to put a release year and additional information as I noticed that’s not there currently. But I’ll get that updated sometime soon.

Actually, it was just a matter of me not paying attention and missing a key part of your theme's details/info and that pretty much resolved the issue. Anyways, there were a few missing platforms I noticed, and I'll make a list of them later today when I get home. Actually, I'm from the U.S. so you don't have to worry about any rare or unusual European computer systems being requested 

 

On 6/26/2023 at 5:51 PM, bundangdon said:

Actually, it was just a matter of me not paying attention and missing a key part of your theme's details/info and that pretty much resolved the issue. Anyways, there were a few missing platforms I noticed, and I'll make a list of them later today when I get home. Actually, I'm from the U.S. so you don't have to worry about any rare or unusual European computer systems being requested 

 

Here's the current list of supported platforms with custom views, so if you see one on the list here that isn't working correctly it might be a Platform name issue, otherwise feel free to suggest a platform:
 

Arcade
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Jaguar
Atari Lynx
Bandai Wonderswan
Bandai WonderSwan Color
ColecoVision
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft Xbox One
NEC TurboGrafx-16
NEC TurboGrafx-CD
Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo 64
Nintendo DS
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Game Boy
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo Game Boy Color
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo VirtualBoy
Nintendo Wii
3DO Interactive Multiplayer
Sega 32X
Sega CD
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Game Gear
Sega Genesis
Sega Master System
Sega Saturn
SNK Neo Geo AES
SNK Neo Geo Pocket
SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color
Sony Playstation
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Sony Playstation 4
Sony Playstation Portable
Sony Playstation Vita
Super Nintendo Entertainment System

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Saieno

Very ambitious theme and I love it so far. 😀 I don't use BigBox very often and I want to know what settings you have to change in order to make the console specific music and console list music muted? I have my own music set up and I'd prefer it over the theme's music ATM.

8 hours ago, wantwon said:

Very ambitious theme and I love it so far. 😀 I don't use BigBox very often and I want to know what settings you have to change in order to make the console specific music and console list music muted? I have my own music set up and I'd prefer it over the theme's music ATM.

If you go into the themes folder, Media, then BGM, you might be able to remove all the music from there tho that might provide an error if the file doesn't exist. Let me know if that works for you, and if not I'll make a 'silent patch' with replacement files you can put in there that are silent.

Edit: It also might be in Theme Specific Options? I'm not exactly sure to be honest.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Saieno

Hey Saieno, to answer your question you asked in my review here is a video showing what I mean for Coverbox Platform title cards.

2034548265_2023-06-2723-42-53.mkv

This looks really rad!

If you ever do a new platforms update, I'd love to see ones for Windows / Steam, the other major computer systems like DOS & C64 (the latter of which has a mini console to go off of), Nintendo Famicom Disk System, Nintendo Game & Watch, and maybe something for Pinball?

Other critiques / nitpicks

- The Panasonic 3DO platform uses a different name than the one that Launchbox uses by default (3DO Interactive Multiplayer). Is there a way to fix that?

- The Sega Game Gear, Nintendo DS, SNK Neo Geo Pocket, and SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color platform borders are REALLY low quality and have heavy artifacting.

- I really wish the Arcade platform had a better look instead of just a watered-down text-only Unified.

- The HorizontalWheel1GamesVIew of Sony PlayStation 2 doesn't show the front boxes.

- The WheelGamesView of Sony PlayStation 3 doesn't show logos or game text.

- Game description text starts scrolling way too soon. Also I feel the text window could be extended downwards a bit more.

- The Nintendo Wii's Game Details are way too blurry (I also noticed that one some of the graphics for the PS2 Demo Theme but I assumed that was what the original looked like)

- A Game Details screen for the generic FullscreenCoverFlow look (or a version using Horizontal Wheel 1) would be nice.

- Don't know if I like the Sega CD and Saturn game boxes being forced into the square case instead of their original long boxes.

- The Nintendo 64 platform stretches most of the boxes too tall, and JP vertical boxes are fully cut off.

- Not really a nitpick, but a showing of an ESRB/PEGI age rating for games would be nice, to make it seem more official, that and the fact that my current LB build is being made to bring over to family gatherings and the like.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Mr. Skerpentine

4 hours ago, vahn65 said:

Hey Saieno, to answer your question you asked in my review here is a video showing what I mean for Coverbox Platform title cards.

2034548265_2023-06-2723-42-53.mkv 2.34 MB · 1 download

Ah I see, I dunno if I have any plans to do that but I think you might be able to set that as your platform view if you have both themes downloaded.

3 hours ago, Mr. Skerpentine said:

This looks really rad!

If you ever do a new platforms update, I'd love to see ones for Windows / Steam, the other major computer systems like DOS & C64 (the latter of which has a mini console to go off of), Nintendo Famicom Disk System, Nintendo Game & Watch, and maybe something for Pinball?

Other nitpicks

- The Panasonic 3DO platform uses a different name than the one that Launchbox uses by default (3DO Interactive Multiplayer). Is there a way to fix that?

- The Sega Game Gear border is REALLY low quality and pixely

- The NEC TurboGrafx-16 platform won't work (presumably due to the G in Grafx not being capitalized in the system list you provided)

- I really wish the Arcade platform had a better look instead of just a watered-down text-only Unified.

- Game description text starts scrolling way too soon.

- A Game Details screen for the generic FullscreenCoverFlow look (or a version using Horizontal Wheel 1) would be nice.

- Don't know if I like the Sega CD and Saturn game boxes being forced into the square case instead of their original long boxes.

- The Nintendo 64 platform stretches most of the boxes too tall, and JP vertical boxes are fully cut off.

- Not really a nitpick, but a showing of an ESRB/PEGI age rating for games would be nice, to make it seem more official, that and the fact that my current LB build is being made to bring over to family gatherings and the like.

Woo! Lots of really great feedback! Lemme see if I can tackle this!

So this may sound odd but I don't really have any intentions of doing computer style platforms as I just use a controller when using BigBox and the theme was created with that intention. I may look into a Famicom Disk System though not sure about Game & Watch or Pinball. I know this theme can't be everything for everyone, so apologies if that comes as a disappointment.

I can look into changing it for a future release but you can also fix the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer by renaming your platform to Panasonic 3DO and keeping the scrape as 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. I can probably get a release out to support both in the next release.

I have fixed this and its available in the current release.

The Sega Game Gear border is low quality and pixely? Can you share an image? It doesn't look like this?

Yeah the arcade view I'm not overly happy with, its something I've been thinking about though I enjoyed the Unified theme previously and this is my first theme. Not sure what I'll do for it but I'm thinking about something for the arcade stuff.

I'll adjust the game description text scrolling in the next release, no problem.

The default system Game Details screen should be used when using the FullScreenCoverFlow for systems that don't exist. Not sure which LaunchBox version you're on but I think the default system theme fits really well and looks great on the latest versions. Not sure I have any plans to change that as its really solid and fits the needs for my themes purpose.

There are a few ways to tackle Sega CD and Sega Saturn boxes but there are different sizes for different regions. US got full size cases, EU and JP got usual jewel cases. I could change how its presented depending on the region like I do now, but this was the middle ground I decided on for the moment. If I come up with a better alternative I'll look into it for sure.

The N64 boxes shouldn't be stretched and should be normal size, but I'll double check. The JP boxes I'll look into adjusting but if you have an image example of the N64 I'm curious how it looks for you.

In regards to the ESRB ratings, I didn't have that considered for the themes and might be able to stick them somewhere it makes sense, but some older games just don't have ratings and when they do they should be on the box art for the most part. But I'll see if I can get that fit somewhere, not in the next update but maybe in a future one.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Saieno

The only way I could do this is to edit this theme with CTC files in the Community Theme Creator to add this opening Transition title card to your theme.

Just now, vahn65 said:

The only way I could do this is to edit this theme with CTC files in the Community Theme Creator to add this opening Transition title card to your theme.

Ah you were referencing the transition title card, not the platform view specifically. I can look into that for a future release.

Awesome! Also to piggyback Mr. Skerpentine if people play at higher resolutions things can appear low Res. I play at 4k and noticed a few things appear a bit low res or blurry but it didn't bother me too much. 

Just now, vahn65 said:

Awesome! Also to piggyback Mr. Skerpentine if people play at higher resolutions things can appear low Res. I play at 4k and noticed a few things appear a bit low res or blurry but it didn't bother me too much. 

Ah gotcha. Yeah some of the things are intentionally blurry as a design decision to make it low res to fit the platform/aspects of menus from the time. Purely aesthetic of course, but also going to be subjective for sure

3 hours ago, Mr. Skerpentine said:

- The Nintendo 64 platform stretches most of the boxes too tall, and JP vertical boxes are fully cut off.

Ah I see what you're saying. The boxes are only slightly stretched taller than usual for a couple reasons. The first is to make it more seamless with the wheelbox, as the wheelboxes are actually black or red based on region (shown below) and generally flow into each other. And the second is because overall I personally thought it looked better with the US and PAL boxes when they are next to each other. It was also intended to give the vertical JP boxes more room but I needed to fix that. I've not seen anything that looks overly warped or odd personally, though vertical JP box art for a game that is marked as NA or EU will be stretched because of the region. but if you have any specific examples please feel free to share.

I've also adjusted the JP boxes so they show completely within the WheelBox and have it in the latest release which is available now.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Saieno

On 6/28/2023 at 2:58 AM, Saieno said:

Ah gotcha. Yeah some of the things are intentionally blurry as a design decision to make it low res to fit the platform/aspects of menus from the time. Purely aesthetic of course, but also going to be subjective for sure

  

On 6/28/2023 at 2:58 AM, Saieno said:

Ah gotcha. Yeah some of the things are intentionally blurry as a design decision to make it low res to fit the platform/aspects of menus from the time. Purely aesthetic of course, but also going to be subjective for sure

I figured that what you were going for was some of the views such as the NDS! I appreciate the update, the game gear does look much better, and I am looking forwrard to any further additions you may think to add.

With that said, have a few more ideas I would like to float but you by the way! Don't feel like you have to do any of this, I just personally think it would be cool to add or improve(Subjectively) a few more things to make things a tad more feature complete
 

• Gamecube Demo Disk Menu opition. Heres some Ideas: 
• Making the Gamecube Detail Menu a tad more personal to the system, maybe just making the color purple or something.
• I am not sure this is possible but on the Game details menu a way to perhaps access the Game detail options such as switching discs or choosing an alternate ROM file if need be. As it is now, if you wanted to, you would have to go into Launchbox and change the default ROM/ISO then go back into Bigbox to play with the other file.
• Another 3DS view option, perhaps a Wall view to simulate having more games on screen in a grid-like manner. Kinda like what you did for the Vita
• If possible have the background of the PS2 Horizontal view 1 animated.
• I Love the PS2 Demo Disk view and think it would be cool to have one more view Here are some Ideas: 
• I know as it stands making Switch games fit without using the Home Screen Squares is difficult, so I offer the solution of another view that is like exodus_cl's where it is just the Normal Box - Fronts, as users may not want to change their switch games to use the Home Screen squares as it ruins the 3D box view. Another solution is to have users put the Home Screen squares in the Box - Front - Reconstructed folder and the code needs to read/point to that folder instead of the Box - Front folder if that's possible.
• The view for the PC Engine and PC Engine CD with the same or similar functionality of the TurboGrafx-16 and CD
• Super Famicom Boxes made to fit into the boxes without being cut off/zoomed in.

Edited June 29, 2023 by vahn65

Oh this is great! Lemme see if I can address all of this!

9 hours ago, vahn65 said:

  

With that said, have a few more ideas I would like to float but you by the way! Don't feel like you have to do any of this, I just personally think it would be cool to add or improve(Subjectively) a few more things to make things a tad more feature complete
 

• Gamecube Demo Disk Menu opition. Heres some Ideas: 

This is great! I never had GameCube Demo Disks so I wasn't aware they had them! (Discs were so small I didn't think they'd make them!) But this looks great! Would be a lot of metadata required for it to work properly, so as long as each game has the appropriate media available I should be able to put something like this together! I won't have an ETA on it or anything but I like it!

9 hours ago, vahn65 said:

 

• Making the Gamecube Detail Menu a tad more personal to the system, maybe just making the color purple or something.
• I am not sure this is possible but on the Game details menu a way to perhaps access the Game detail options such as switching discs or choosing an alternate ROM file if need be. As it is now, if you wanted to, you would have to go into Launchbox and change the default ROM/ISO then go back into Bigbox to play with the other file.
• Another 3DS view option, perhaps a Wall view to simulate having more games on screen in a grid-like manner. Kinda like what you did for the Vita
• If possible have the background of the PS2 Horizontal view 1 animated.
• I Love the PS2 Demo Disk view and think it would be cool to have one more view Here are some Ideas: 

• Oh I actually thought the GameCube detail screen fit really well with the menu screens Nintendo made for the NES and SNES mini consoles, that was the general idea to stay with what they had but I made the background grey and added the controler buttons, etc. I'm actually happy with it for what I was going for.
• So I was hoping to have more control over the game details options menu to display it how I want or where or trigger it with a hotkey, but there's no way to currently do that. The menu still technically exists, and you can technically nagivate it, it's just hidden so you'd need to know what the menu options are which isn't ideal.
• I suppose I could make another 3DS view, it would end up like the WiiU view (nearly identical) and was trying to make each feel a little unique when it came to the respective dashboards. I know it may not seem like it, but thats actually how the 3DS game view was when the 3DS first came out; so was trying to replicate that.
• I did try to make a PS2 animated background for the Horizontal view, but I just couldn't get it to look good, even with completely modeling and remaking the PS2 boot animation. But at least I feel like I nailed the PS2 Demo Disk lol.
• Speaking of the PS2 Demo Disk! This particular PS2 Demo Disk example is a little restrictive since it doesn't really show you where you're navigating to or any other games aside from the one you're looking at.

9 hours ago, vahn65 said:

•   I know as it stands making Switch games fit without using the Home Screen Squares is difficult, so I offer the solution of another view that is like exodus_cl's where it is just the Normal Box - Fronts, as users may not want to change their switch games to use the Home Screen squares as it ruins the 3D box view. Another solution is to have users put the Home Screen squares in the Box - Front - Reconstructed folder and the code needs to read/point to that folder instead of the Box - Front folder if that's possible.
• The view for the PC Engine and PC Engine CD with the same or similar functionality of the TurboGrafx-16 and CD
• Super Famicom Boxes made to fit into the boxes without being cut off/zoomed in.

• Thats a fair point on the switch games and box art. I'll look into implementing something like that in a future update for sure.
• Ah yes I thought I forgot one of the regional views! I'll work on that for a future release as well, and will also try to get the CoreGrafx as well.
• And the Super Famicom boxes I intend on fixing for the next release, either today or tomorrow cause I'm having that issue as well. Again usually looks good in the editor, doesn't when I go in BigBox for whatever reason so its difficult to troubleshoot.

Thanks for all the great ideas/feedback!

15 minutes ago, Saieno said:

• そうそう、地域の視点を 1 つ忘れていたと思っていました。将来のリリースでもこれに取り組み、CoreGrafx の入手も試みる予定です。

Are you referring to ”PC Engine", "PC Engine CD". "PC Engine SuperGrafx"? This is the JP version.
Or the JP versions of "Sega Mega Drive", "Sega Mega CD", "Sega Super 32X"? In the case of Sega, the only difference is the color of the logo and buttons.
I would also be happy if they would also have a "Sega Mark III" version instead of the SMS version.(JP version)

If the PS1/PS2/PSP/PSP is the JP version, the decision cancellation of ◯ and × is reversed. Is there any chance I can solve this with image editing?

By the way, do you have any ideas for MSX/MSX2?

12 hours ago, vahn65 said:

  Super Famicom Boxes made to fit into the boxes without being cut off/zoomed in.

....Is this really how you want it to look? Just making sure.

Shouldn't be a problem (at least for me, or if you're going to imitate the Super Famicom Mini.)
Also, the background is white instead of black.

 

7 minutes ago, Mizuno said:

Shouldn't be a problem (at least for me, or if you're going to imitate the Super Famicom Mini.)
Also, the background is white instead of black.

 

Thanks! I'll have a new release out shortly with the fixes then. Also, I do realize the official is white but I decided to make it darkmode if that is acceptable (also was trying to avoid making it too exact to avoid Nintendos potential wrath)

The boxes for the 3DO don't seem to be working.

20 minutes ago, Mr. Skerpentine said:

The boxes for the 3DO don't seem to be working.

Hmm. How do you have the platform named, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer or Panasonic 3DO? I may need to see if there's a visibility issue with the boxes, I'll check and put out a fix in the next few minutes.