Arcade Games - 1p vs 2p vs 4p cabinets

[Dandelion]

Greetings.

I have some ambition to make myself an arcade cabinet to play some 'old school' arcade games - those kinds I grew up with in the 80s.

I always have some grand illusions of all the things I can do - but we'll see what comes to fruition.

I'm going to start with a 2-player cabinet. Once I'm successful, I want to move on to a 1-player cabinet and eventually a 4-player cabinet.

I'm thinking that if I want the old school feel of playing something like Pac-man, I want to play it like I did as a kid - on a 1-player cabinet.

I guess I'm wondering if there's some database somewhere of arcade games and what their joystick/button layout was. That will help me to know how many buttons I should plan for on each of the cabinets.

How's that for grand illusion?

Thanks in advance.

And if anyone has any recommendations of threads or groups I should check out - please feel free to send them my way.

[IanDaemon]

@dandelion said in Arcade Games - 1p vs 2p vs 4p cabinets:

I guess I'm wondering if there's some database somewhere of arcade games and what their joystick/button layout was. That will help me to know how many buttons I should plan for on each of the cabinets.

That's a deep rabbit hole. I don't know of one source. It could be out there, but almost all resources are "incomplete works-in-progress". There are a few styles of arcade cabinets and sometimes multiple cabinet versions for a single arcade game. (Upright/Cocktail) There was also an edict at some companies at one point for games to have unique controls. Try searching on the web for the games that you're interested in playing. http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm seems like one place to start.

• https://retroonly.com/what-arcade-games-use-8-buttons/
• It's almost entirely preference.
  https://i.redd.it/qhbppc4ijm361.jpg

[dankcushions]

I guess I'm wondering if there's some database somewhere of arcade games and what their joystick/button layout was. That will help me to know how many buttons I should plan for on each of the cabinets.

https://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

can filter by controller number, type, etc.