MAME ROW #108

obsidianspider

This is the MAME Random Of the Week #108

The three random numbers for this week are: 41 2004 382

Click here to vote! Which game do you choose for MAME ROW #108?

The result of the poll is posted on Wednesday, so we have Monday and Tuesday for experimentation.

41
Game Name: Alley Master
Company: Cinematronics
Year: 1986
ROM file name: alleymas.zip

2004
Game Name: Takeda Shingen (Japan, Japanese)
Company: Jaleco
Year: 1988
ROM file name: tshingen.zip

382
Game Name: Dark Planet
Company: Stern
Year: 1982
ROM file name: darkplnt.zip

What is the MAME ROW?

MAME ROW stands for MAME Random Of the Week. We randomly select an arcade game from the 0.78 MAME Reference Set to play on the week. The idea is to play games we've never played before, interact with other forum members, post hi-scores, share game strategies, fun facts, and (the most important) HAVE FUN!

Notes:

We usually post hi-scores screenshots after playing with only one credit. If you used more than one credit, please mention it on your post.
There's no need to use RetroPie to join the MAME ROW! You can play it on any platform you want.
Feel free to post your hi-score (or any content about the game) anytime you want on the previous rounds topics (link below).

Every Monday we create a topic at the "General Discussion and Gaming > MAME Random Of the Week" forum section with the 3 random games to be voted. And on Wednesday we check the result.

These "rules" are constantly being improved!

Previous Rounds

obsidianspider

There were literally zero votes.

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AndersHP

3 new games then?

Lyle_JP

Yeah. I couldn't vote for any of these.

thelostsoul

@obsidianspider If I would have voted, I would do Takeda Shingen. But I am not playing, so thats why I thought it is unfair to vote. Maybe random vote/select then?

obsidianspider

@Lyle_JP said in MAME ROW #108:

Yeah. I couldn't vote for any of these.

If you mean "I didn't like any of them" then you're missing the point of MAME ROW. It's to vote for the best of the options presented.

If the poll was broken, that's different, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

obsidianspider

@AndersHP said in MAME ROW #108:

3 new games then?

Nope. Lack of interest has been showing for a while lately. I think MAME ROW either needs a reformulation or something since many weeks get only a handful of participants, but based on post view counts, many lurkers.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #108:

Lack of interest has been showing for a while lately.

I knew I wouldn't have much time to participate past October, so I jumped in with both feet a few months back. Even then I noticed that we were maybe getting three people to join in on a good week. Heck, a few weeks ago we had 'Donkey Kong', arguably the most popular arcade game of all time, and still we only had two people outwardly interested. To be fair, the lack of interest is most likely compounded by many busy schedules, but I'm sure everyone would agree that it's not fair to saddle you with this responsibility, week after week, if no one is even going to vote. Until a better idea comes along or interest increases on its own, maybe you could further automate things as much as possible. You could take @thelostsoul's suggestion above as a weekly contingency and randomly select one of the three any time there's no votes. That way the silent lurkers could still participate, if in fact they are. At any rate, we don't say it enough, but thank you for everything you do here.

cyperghost

@mediamogul I agree

@obsidianspider
Maybe a week is just to short lived? I think a rule change in setup 3 games in on Monday and let the poll run up to Sunday. And then up to next week we can play?
So we have not RoW, but maybe a Ro2W Roms of two weeks - more relaxing for you and it gives people more time to play? Consider it as a relaunch?
Thank your bringing this to live! But that's life and ....

AndersHP

@obsidianspider
As I've stated earlier, your dedication is awesome, and even though I haven't participated much the last months, I'm in here every week to check.

Honestly, the reason for my non-participation has been the quality of the random chosen games. There is, in my eyes, definitely a lot of low-end games in the MAME library, that I would never consider playing.

On the other hand, the Mame ROWs with quality titles like R-Type, Bubble Bobble, Chopper I, Joust etc. have been base for some of the most fun gaming experiences for me in ages.

If I should come up with an idea for the future Mame ROWS, maybe it could be something that adds to the probability of getting some quality games to play.

How about:

4 games each week
if two games in one week gets much attention/votes, the "losing game" could get carried to next week's Mame ROW, for a second chance?
Two weeks to play (if there's a lot of interest/votes for the chosen games)

Just my thoughts.

Edit: oh, and I agree with @mediamogul and @cyperghost. One week can be too little time, I really wanted to take part in Donkey Kong, but before getting time, the week was gone. Just added it to my above list.

thelostsoul

Here some ideas:

Winner game from last vote can be voted this time. So, we have 4 games to vote from and it have a chance to be extended for a second week. This would solve the problem if a game is really, really interesting and much more appealing than the current selection of new games.
Maybe a fifth vote option could be added for a new dice of random selection. So, if there is no interesting game in the selection and the "old" game is also not very appealing, then this would solve this problem. This also means the game loses the first 2 or 3 days. On the other hand, with the rule above it could be extended for another week.

obsidianspider

MAME ROW #109 is live