Vertical screen non-shoot 'em ups.

Clyde

@udb23 You mean that I'm not as important as I think? 😭

quicksilver

@douga Mappy is one that comes to my mind

BennyProfane

One under-appreciated vertical game is Gain Ground on the Sega consoles. Can take some time to get into but can be fun in multiplayer.

pjft

@bennyprofane I didn't recall that one being vertical, but you may certainly be right. Runs great on AdvMame.

I believe Bomb Jack and Spy Hunter would also be good additions there.

UDb23

@pjft said in Vertical screen non-shoot 'em ups.:

Bomb Jack

Yes, great game.

btw: Gain ground is vertical according to progettoemma.

Clyde

@pjft I second you on Spy Hunter, but it may require some work to make it playable. It has issues at least on vanilla Mame 2003 (it spawns a non-removable Mame menu over the game) and it was originally controlled by a steering wheel and pedals that have to be mapped to analog or digital controllers without a wheel. Did you make it work on Retropie? If so, how exactly?

@DougA If you're interested in this great game, see this forum thread about its issues and some potential solutions: Spy Hunter

wstanek

Zookeeper, Rally X, Qix, Pooyan.

Oops Pooyan is a shmup.

markwkidd

@clyde is there a github issue filed yet for Spy Hunter?

Clyde

@markwkidd Alas, I don't know. I searched https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/issues and https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/issues. I found the following issues, but I lack the expertise to say if they're relevant for the popping up of the mame menu.

markwkidd

@clyde said in Vertical screen non-shoot 'em ups.:

@markwkidd Alas, I don't know. I searched https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/issues and https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/issues. I found the following issues, but I lack the expertise to say if they're relevant for the popping up of the mame menu.

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/issues/121

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/issues/34

Thank you for taking the time to look through those github repositories.Based on your experience, I think this is a distinct bug from those two issues. If you're willing, I'd like to suggest you create a new github issue in mame2003-plus just for your Spy Hunter problem.

I would be glad to take a look at it in a few days and there are some other developers active in mame2003-plus who might also have ideas.

DougA

@markwkidd Thanks. I will have a look, but I am no expert.

AndersHP

@caver01 I think your input to this thread could be helpful, since I think you must have been setting up your fair share of upright 4:3 games in your build?

caver01

@andershp No doubt. My cabinet is very similar to a vertical design, except that it is a 4-player cocktail. Horizontal games play from the long side, and vertical games play from controls on the ends. For the latter games, it is effectively a vertical setup since I am basically running them in manual 'tate' mode with the video rotated to fill the whole screen.

As for the games themselves, we are talking about many/most of the early, 4-way joystick arcade classics.

Tempest is vertical, requires a spinner
Centipede --trackball
Popeye
Punch out
APB - All Points Bulletin
Journey
Tetris (I always use the cocktail version for inverted head to head play)
Commando

Somewhere, there is a MAME list of just the vertical games. That might be worth finding. I can never remember all of my favorites.

caver01

@caver01 Somebody needs to mention Time Pilot. There. I did.

markwkidd

@clyde I just tried spyhunt.zip in mame2003-plus and I don't see the problem. :confused:

mediamogul

@markwkidd said in Vertical screen non-shoot 'em ups.:

I just tried spyhunt.zip in mame2003-plus and I don't see the problem.

I haven't tested it myself, but the work done recently concerning the MCR Midway titles is likely to have fixed this.

Clyde

@markwkidd Alas, I can't test it on mame2003-plus because it fails to build in Retropie at the moment. :( I didn't have the time to try the workarounds suggested in the issue's comments, yet. I may do so this weekend.

@caver01: I didn't mention Time Pilot because the TO explicitly asked for non-shooters. It's one of my all time favorites, although I only played it on the C64 back in the old days. I recently played the arcade version and was surprised how good at it I still was, being now in my late forties. ;)

caver01

@clyde said in Vertical screen non-shoot 'em ups.:

I didn't mention Time Pilot because the TO explicitly asked for non-shooters

I wondered about that. For some reason, I don't think of TP the same way as other shoot em ups. Maybe because you can fly in any direction it feels somehow different. To me it is more of a dogfight game.

DougA

@caver01 I cannot believe i missed Tetris! Thanks. for al lof these.

Clyde

@caver01 I see your point. Still, you shoot things the whole time in the game. :) But since @DougA didn't say what games fall under the term, I think it's okay if we mention some shaky candidates, as long as the thread isn't drowned in them.

The dogfight feeling of TP really sets it apart from the majority of other shooters; it's the main reason for its special place in my retro gamer's heart …