J8son's Super Comic Theme II: Turbo

J8sonMesser

Hey folks, Jason Messer here, Editor-in-Chief of Cheat Code Central and full-time retro lover! I have been on a quest for years to find just the right emulation front-end for my collection. After experimenting with just about every theme and program you can think of over the last decade, I set out to create my own that suited my needs. After discovering the perfect storm of EmulationStation and TMNTturtleguy’s comic theme while browsing YouTube a while back, I knew with some redesigning and coding I could finally create the setup I’ve been looking for for so long.

Below are a few screenshots from my redesign, which has been completely overhauled. As you can see, this puts more of an emphasis on the covers and art work of the games themselves, which I feel most themes lack. It was also important to me to accommodate all the different layouts you find in the varying systems. It’s been a huge source of frustration that most themes look really cool visually, but rarely pay attention to this detail and lack this basic concept covering all the possible art. If released, I’m planning to do as many layouts for consoles as I can, so everything is covered.

The screenshots here cover the designs for the “basic” view (for those looking for a minimalist approach), the “detailed” view (for folks who just want a nice screenshot) and the “video” view (which has all the bells and whistles like cover art, video preview, cart scans, etc). It’s all tied together with more of an old, damaged comic book look to add to the nostalgia. The console screens have all been updated with new cover art and half-tone coloring, to give it a print feel. I have used some art from Maximus Arcade, which I still have to get approved before release. I have also included a snap of the updated retro/comic video intro I’m working on.

I welcome any feedback, as this is a labor of love and is the culmination of various front-end design ideas I've been toying with for the last 10+ years. I hope to make this my definitive front-end for the future, maybe even porting it to various formats if the community likes it.

SPECIAL THANKS to TMNTturtleguy for creating a great base-theme that I started with. He provided ALL his original files and made my life 100% easier! I really appreciate that, can’t thank him enough.

alt text

pootis spencer

Looks really good. Any chance of a video of the splash intro?

J8sonMesser

@pootis-spencer Thanks! Will be doing more previews later, including a video walk-through of the menus and the intro, if there is enough interest in the community (this is just a personal project up to this point, but will share if folks want it).

KimDb

Looking great! What bothers me a bit though is - in some screens - the meta data and info of the games isn't fully aligned to the game select dropdown box on the left, showing a bit of a gap inbetween. Any plans on addressing that?
Planning on installing this theme by the way. One of my favorites besides 'Hey Chromey' from Hursty and a few others.
A big thumbs up!

J8sonMesser

@KimDb said in J8son's Super Comic Theme II: Turbo:

Looking great! What bothers me a bit though is - in some screens - the meta data and info of the games isn't fully aligned to the game select dropdown box on the left, showing a bit of a gap inbetween. Any plans on addressing that?
Planning on installing this theme by the way. One of my favorites besides 'Hey Chromey' from Hursty and a few others.
A big thumbs up!

Thanks man! Being anyone's favorite anything is always a good day! As for the alignment, that text box auto-scrolls. I think you're just seeing me taking snaps at different points in the scroll. It's all already uniformed.

KimDb

@J8sonMesser Ow, I see. Nice! Following this thread in order to see when there's a release. Keep up the good work, J8son!

rand0m

@J8sonMesser great theme Jason, really like how different panels are setup. can't wait for a release candidate :)