Chicuelo Theme

cosmo0

Here's my work so far. What do you think? Do you see something that could be improved?
I still have to do puzzles, rpgs, sports and strategy.

The PacMan and Metroid figures are actually amiibos. Maybe I should remove the grey pedestal? Maybe it looks a little weird...

I'm not always convinced by the items, but finding theme and style-matching images is HARD! :D

I think the "games by genre / wow" line could be improved. Maybe typing the name of the genre? Various "exclamations" where the "wow" is?

movisman

Wow!

I have been really busy again unfortunately for the past few days and just catching up on this thread! Some seriously good progress on the artwork front @chicuelo and @cosmo0 - really nice stuff indeed. I'm so impressed.

Do we potentially have an Atari 7800 image on the way..? :)

I had an idea regarding the short description for the consoles - at the moment it says how many bits the console is eg '8 bit console' or whatever. Bits are slightly contentious because so many consoles have both 8 and 16 bit components, or 16/32/64 bit or whatever so it's difficult with some systems to define how many 'bits' they truly are.

I was wondering, do you guys think it would be better for the consoles to have the year of release and generation?

For example, for Sega Genesis / Megadrive:
Fourth Generation Console (1988)

Or Atari 5200:
Second Generation Console (1982)

All taken from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_video_game_consoles

What do you think? It would be nice and consistent across all supported systems then and the information is easy to find if future ones need adding. Or do you prefer to keep the 'bits' (as is)?

If you think it's a good idea I can go through each theme.xml and make some changes.

Thanks!

ohmycommodore

how often is this theme updated, as far as using the update tool to get the latest?

cosmo0

@movisman I like this idea. The NeoGeo "24 bit console" striked me as a bit weird, and I like the "console generation + year".

Of course, it's up to @chicuelo :)

cosmo0

@ohmycommodore Well, these last few days, it has been updated several times a day :D

chicuelo

@cosmo0
I like the way you are going, but some items have a strange perspective. For example the pizza, its better using a pizza with a top view or even 2 or 3 pizza slices matching the blank space, the same for any other item, it could have a top or a side view, avoiding perspectives like the Metroid ones. In some cases you can use photo real items that they will match fine if your figure is a good render.
I totally recommend you to remove those pedestals, because it gives a confusing perspective, also the Donald carpet. Guybrush Threepwood I think you could find a more realistic one. Also try the feet to look the same way, that will suggest the character is looking front. Searching for good images takes a lot of time! but the results are significant!

I agree too on changing the uper flash, but I don't know what to put there, may be the genre could be a good option.

Here are some objects you can use and replace

chicuelo

@movisman said in Chicuelo Theme:

(as is)?
If you think it's a good idea I can go through each theme.xml and make some change

I thought about it, but what people really cares is the capabilities of the console. I remember as a child when I knew the sega genesis was 16 bit and I was amazed by that graphics, then with the N64 and then whit the psone always admiring that power so I decided to include that info on the top but I think it would be good to add the release year taking US as a parameter because we will have the same console released different years on different countries. what about "1994 - 64 BIT CONSOLE"?

chicuelo

@ohmycommodore
We are making a fast progress adding systems and updating others. I think we have left a few systems to cover the most used by the people. If you look on the GitHub repo you will find with systems are up and wich are on the pending list!
Also thanks to @cosmo0 we are improving the custom collections

Fully supported systems:
3do
Amiga
Amstrad CPC
Apple II
Arcade
Atari 2600
Atari800
Atari5200
Atari Lynx
Commodore 64
Family Game
Final Burn Alpha
MAME / MAME LIBRETRO
Neo Geo
Game boy
Game boy Color
Game boy Advance
Gamecube
Nintendo 64
Nintendo NES
Nintendo Snes
PCEngine / Turbografx 16
Playstation 1
ScummVm
Sega Gamegear
Sega Genesis
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Saturn
Sega 32x
Sega CD
Sega Master System
Sega Megadrive
Virtual boy
Steam
Ports
Sony Psp
Retropie Setup
Auto Favorites
Auto Last Played
Auto All Games
Power Menu

Coming Soon

Atari7800
Atari jaguar
Atari ST
Colecovision
Game and watch
Intellivision
Kodi
Neo geo Pocket
Neo geo pocket color
Vectrex
Wonder swan
Zxspectrum
DAPHNE
MSX
MSX2
Nintendo DS
Sega SG1000
VideoPac (Odyseey2)

ohmycommodore

@chicuelo thanks!

ohmycommodore

will certainly be nice to have a new broad-reaching theme. always a drag when trying a new system out, and that one system sticks out without a theme.

movisman

@chicuelo @cosmo0

No worries, the decision ultimately is yours! I get what you are saying, back in those days we did refer to the consoles at 8 bit, 16 bit, etc. But some consoles like GameCube, PC Engine, it isn't really clear how many bits they truly are, because CPU, GPU, memory etc are all different. As @cosmo0 says, NeoGeo is strange listed as a 24-bit console, but what else would it be? Maybe it's 16? It's quite difficult to find out the factual information.

Like Dreamcast, I think that has a 32-bit CPU and 128-bit GPU (not 100% but something like that) but what would you choose as the console definition? SEGA probably would say it's a 128 bit console, but it isn't. Bit like the GameCube, this is also unclear. That has various components 32/64 bit.

I guess you could go with what the machines were 'marketed' as, but often this is overhyped. That said, anything before the era of PS2, Dreamcast, GameCube, etc, can generally be found easily enough, and I understand why you might want to keep it as is. I can always go through and correct any which seem odd.

Cheers!

chicuelo

@movisman
All the info I take from wikipedia, and the systems who have that issue I use the higher bits rate so in some cases its weird like Neo geo. If you want to correct the ones you consider are odd go ahead!

cosmo0

@chicuelo Thanks for the advice :) I'll work on the images.

cosmo0

@movisman I also understand @chicuelo about the fact that people know more consoles by the "bitness" than the generation. What is 4th generation? I have no idea without looking up Wikipedia.
Although, after the PS1 generation it's harder to tell. For instance, the PS2 generation has been marketed as 128bit consoles, but no 128bit customer-grade processor has ever existed...

In the end, maybe just adding the year would be enough? It's probably more telling to people.

movisman

@cosmo0 @chicuelo

Hi guys,

Yep agreed with both, it is quite hard to tell what is actually a 4th generation console without checking online for sure, and again what determines a generation is subjective too. I think having the year released is a good idea though, along with the marketed or true "bits" for the console. @chicuelo you have a good point - this is what people are familiar with (including myself!), especially from the 8 / 16 bit era.

After PS1 it does start to get unclear, Dreamcast / GameCube / PS2, they all have "128 bit" components of sorts but not sure what to put them as to be honest. I probably should go with whatever they were marketed to the public as. Maybe I should put any suspicious ones in inverted commas haha!

Cheers

cosmo0

@chicuelo

I've made some updates according to your guidelines. Can you tell me what you think, before I move on to the other ones?

I changed the "games by genre" tagline with the genre name. I think it fits, but maybe I can find something else? What about a description of the content? The Survivor ; The Adventurer ; The Ninja ; The Gobbler... Things like that.
It might be weird and not match the theme, though, and the genre name is fine. Let me know what you think.

Action has a new "medkit" item instead of the plant

Adventure uses a "front-facing" Guybrush, and items from the image you provided

Beat them up uses the pizza slice you provided, another more "front-facing" turtle and all TMNT items.
It's surprisingly hard to find a good-looking turtle. Most 3D ones come from the movies (the 90's one or the Michael Bay one), and are pretty ugly.

Pacman doesn't have the grey pedestal anymore, and there's space for the 4 ghosts now, for which I tried to match the "official" colors.

Kids has a "front-facing" Scrooge, and your diamond, even though it doesn't have the same shape as in the game. I'm not so sure about the money bags, but I can't find one that matches. I'm pretty bad at finding images it seems... :(

I changed the items for Samus : the Metroid comes from an actual figurine, the missile upgrade has a slightly weird perspective.

It's absolutely impossible to find a 3D Bubble Bobble. If you search for "bubble dragon 3D" you will find a lot of ugly things, as well as this cute figurine. They are not the dragons, and they look pretty "large" for the blister, but I think they're really cute. Should I look for something else?
Maybe I should just switch to another game (finding 3D Tetris pieces should be easy), but I like the logo I made :(

chicuelo

@cosmo0
Wooow! I am really impressed with this shots, you have improved not only the looking but your skills and finishing too! you have solved very good the elements and the characters. I love Donatello, its the 90s one and it looks amazing! I also love all of the set

For the upper ribbon, I like more the genre, for the shorter ones like Action or adventure, we can complete the space with the word games. Adventure games or action games so the text completes all the row. Also if you want to try you could change the color of the ribbon trying to match the character and items color: action red like the case, adventure brown, beat em up green, fixed screen orange, kids friendly purple and like that. If you considere its bad its ok to me

Here are some others items I believe it will work fine
For kids a top hat and a coin?
Bubble bobble some balls? or switching to bomber man, you decide
a weapon for metroid?
For the pacman you can try using one ghost, two white dots and another ghost, just an idea

red2blue

Looks great, but i wish you had the Ratings and max players in the theme.

cosmo0

@chicuelo Thanks ^^ I'm doing the best I can :)

I'll try to change the color of the ribbon, it's a good idea.

Where do you find your images? They're really good-looking, I just cannot find ones like that :(

For Pac-Man, I must admit I like the fact that the 4 ghosts are there. I felt something was missing when there was only 2 :D

movisman

@cosmo0 @chicuelo

Wow, really good work on these guys. Seriously impressive.
@chicuelo - thanks for adding the Atari 7800 system btw, looks great.