Thoggo

I'm back with a new set of vertical MAME bezel overlays, this time based on the Atari System 1 cabinet series. For the uninitiated, the Atari System 1 was a well-known Atari arcade game cabinet used from the mid-to-late 80s, which was the home of five great Atari games (ok, some were greater than others, but all worth playing) – scroll down to download them all. (There was a sixth game, Relief Pitcher, that was an unreleased prototype, which I haven't included but might add later.) I created a look based on the System 1 cabinet hardware, using marquee and control panel art from a variety of sources. These all include two screen looks (curved and straight – you will need to choose based on your shader configuration and preferences), each with two screen sizes and two brightness levels. Unlike a lot of vertical overlays, these designs include the controls, as the control panel art is one of the few actual pieces of art on the game cabinet. These games will not be optimally playable for everyone, as each game had its own control scheme. Indiana Jones and Peter Pack Rat both used a standard 8-way joystick, while Marble Madness used a trackball, Road Runner used an analog (hall effect) joystick and RoadBlasters used a kind of weird steering wheel (basically a Star Wars-type yoke with only x-axis movement) and a pedal. For Road Runner, if you don't have an analog joystick, an 8-way stick basically maxes the joystick speed, which isn't unplayable – you'll find you easily outrun Wile E. Coyote and have time to double back when you miss birdseed. RoadBlasters would be best with a steering wheel, though sensitivity may be an issue – I've actually found it playable, if not optimal, with an 8-way stick if you turn the sensitivity way down. Thanks, and enjoy! Feedback is definitely welcome.

Xenophobe One of my all-time favorites, this one was more challenging because of its unique cabinet design. I created a look inspired by the original cabinet, the only overlay I’ve created that includes an arcade scene in the background. There are two variants, with and without the three joysticks. I’m still playing with the brightness/contrast and overall look of this one, so it will likely evolve. Xenophobe.zip

Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo MesaI hadn’t actually heard of this game until recently, but the art style and gameplay are excellent. The original cabinet art is nice but it has no bezel art, so I created a bezel style based on various art of the characters and a couple of new elements. Not strictly authentic, but more fun than the original in my opinion! Wild West C.O.W-Boys of Moo Mesa.zip

Magic Sword An earlier side-scrolling hack-and-slash game, but a classic – this was the first one I made, with inspiration from the version ArsInvictus created. I brought in some of the cool control panel art at the bottom, and I included a couple of US quarters lined up on the control panel edge, the universal symbol for “I call next game” (obviously not relevant for non-US players – this is a separate layer you can remove or replace with your currency of choice). Magic Sword.zip

Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara One of the deeper fantasy hack-and-slash games, I thought this would be a fun one to put into a vertical format. However, the original cabinet didn’t include much art other than the marquee, so I adapted other existing Mystara art for the regular cabinet (it's more visible in the medium version, not shown above), and I added some new textural art for the lower area. This cabinet existed in many different form factors (generally as a conversion kit I believe), most of which would be difficult to depict on a vertical screen, but I did include a version based on the Dynamo Big Blue format. I may try to add more of the versions based on some of the cabinets out there in the future, for kicks. DND Shadow Over Mystara.zip

Updated 7/7/20: I just launched a new website, VerticalArcade.com, to give my overlays a permanent home (but I will continue posting them here as well). I also just posted the Bally Midway Attack Pack, a new set of vertical overlays celebrating 12 great 80s games from, you guessed it, Bally Midway. Jump to the second page to find overlays for Satan's Hollow, Tron, Journey, Tapper, Timber, Two Tigers, Zwackery, Rampage, Blasted and Pigskin 621 A.D. (the full pack also includes Wacko and Xenophobe). Updated 5/27/20: The all-new Atari Later 80s Pack, featuring such hits as Gauntlet II, Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters, Xybots, Cyberball and Toobin'. Plus two bonus games, Wacko and Vigilante. Updated 5/9/20: Atari System 1 series – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Marble Madness, Road Runner, Peter Pack Rat, RoadBlasters Hello! This is my first real thread here, and I figured I would post these here instead of just the downloads section so I can describe my what I'm doing, but if people find that annoying I can move it. ? Now that I have my vertical MAME cabinet up and running, my latest pandemic project has been creating vertical bezel overlays – the perfect union of two of my obsessions, classic arcade games and graphic design. I've been having a lot of fun with it, so I figured I would share my first set. There wasn't a specific rhyme or reason to my first set of game choices, but they all ended up being various flavors of run-and-gun/hack-and-slash games from the late 80s and early 90s. I also tried to choose some games and approaches to representing the cabinets that I haven't seen yet. Huge thanks to ArsInvictus for inspiration and tips, and a shout out to Orionsangel, Mr. Retrolust, VCabinet and others in the community for their great bezel work that I’m building on here. Credit also to coinopart.com, arcadeartwork.org, Mr. Do’s Arcade and other sources for artwork I’m using in some of these. Some notes on my approach: My goal is to create immersive overlays that celebrate these games and make them more fun to play, not specifically to authentically recreate the original cabinets, though I’m doing that as much as possible. Plenty of great games had minimal or uninspired cabinet art, so I chose in some cases to create something new that’s in the spirit of the game. Most of these include two game screen sizes, and all include normal and darkened versions, which can be selected from the Video Options menu. The purpose of the dark version is to better simulate a dark arcade, where the printed bezel art did not glow the way the marquee and screen do (not unlike Mr. Retrolust’s Lights Out series). I’m still working on exactly how dark the dark ones should be and how to best create that effect, so let me know if you like that approach and how it feels to you. Also worth noting – at this point, these all just include a 4:3 window for the game screen, with no monitor bezel art, as there are many bezel variants and shader options out there. I may update these with an option for monitor bezel art in the future. These are all works in progress that will likely evolve as I refine my approach. I'll post each of these below in a separate post to keep it simple. Please note that the Zip files below include instructions and notes, so you'll need to unzip that file to get to the Zip file you need to put in your MAME artwork folder – if people prefer I can just post the art zips. The zip files are larger than normal because they contain multiple versions of the overlay (the AVP overlay below includes 8 4K PNGs). Alien vs. Predator I created two variants for this game, one in a generic cabinet format and one that’s designed to simulate the look of the Capcom Dynamo Big Blue cabinet that this game sometimes appeared in. The artwork here draws mostly from the original cabinet art, except for the bezel around the monitor, which I haven’t found a great source for, so I created a new one in the style of the original. Alien vs Predator.zip

Great stuff! It works especially well for an arcade-only setup. The simplicity of this theme and the arcade focus make it a perfect candidate for a vertical theme -- essentially you would just need to move the arcade machine image to the left (where the empty space is on the default view), and it would look great on a vertical arcade screen. How difficult would that be to do? I know nothing about creating or editing BB themes, though it would seem to mostly be a matter of moving things around (I may be vastly oversimplifying). Just curious how big a task that would be... this would make a great vertical theme, and there aren't a lot of them out there.