MAME ROW #16 - Mystic Riders

[obsidianspider]

I think we can just choose between the two playable options, but I'll defer to the group if there is a lot of support for re-choosing that option.

[obsidianspider]

Mystic Riders crashes for me as soon as the first stage starts when using lr-mame2003. I switched to lr-mame2010 and with that emulator the game runs fine.

[meleu]

@GtBFilms said in MAME ROW #16:

Shall we redraw game number 2, seeing as probably very few people will be able to play it?

We discussed about it on MAME ROW #4. And decided that when this kind of things happen we'll leave the list as it was sorted by the random numbers.

When it's clear that the game is a quiz or a mahjong I usually discard the game and mention it on the post.

I think it fits the K.I.S.S. principle.

[meleu]

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #16:

Mystic Riders crashes for me as soon as the first stage starts when using lr-mame2003.

It didn't happen here. I'm using mame2003 and reached the stage 2 with no crash.

Nice game, by the way.

[UDb23]

Bagman: used to play it with a friend after school, waiting for the bus to get back home.
High School ;-)

[UDb23]

(Slightly) off topic: recently found really nice Bezels made by Comboman for quite rare (in terms of original cabinets) Universal games.
Asked him and it is ok if I use them to create Retropie "adaptations"....
expect some new overlays coming ;-)

[GtBFilms]

I gave both Super Bagman and Mystic Riders a try last night.

Super Bagman is an odd one, it wasn't bad but strikes me as the sort of game I used to play on my home micro (8 bit ZX Spectrum), it isn't what I have come to expect from an arcade game at all. It requires a lot more planning and thought that a traditional arcade coin-gobbler, and doesn't really seem to have a 'flow' to it.

That said, I didn't dislike it.

Mystic Riders, while not perhaps an IREM classic, does look excellent. Perhaps just a little too busy at times, it doesn't have the pure visual clarity of earlier titles like R-Type, and suffers a little from the 'unexpected death from a bullet I didn't notice' syndrome. Button-mashing both buttons at once seems to work well when things get chaotic, which does detract a little from the feeling of skill in playing.

For pure arcade-style play, and the fact it does look really nice, my vote this week goes to Mystic Riders!

[meleu]

Grab your brooms and let's shoot some cute enemies!

[obsidianspider]

A few tips I've figured out:

You can charge up your shot by holding down A (using the default controller bindings), and if you press Down then Up quickly you'll do a backflip.

The "I got killed by a thing I didn't see because of everything going on" factor is strong with this game.

[meleu]

@obsidianspider I think you and @GtBFilms got one of those Usopp's diseases. :-)

(He is an One Piece's character.)

[obsidianspider]

@meleu I definitely had to Google "Usopp" ;)

[meleu]

@obsidianspider One of the most frequently used excuses when he's scared is that he gets a disease named, for example, "I-can't-go-on-this-island-or-I'll-die-disease".

One Piece is really fun manga. I started reading it when I got the I-have-a-kid-and-I-can-use-this-as-an-excuse-to-read-mangas disease.

[lilbud]

@meleu I tried reading manga, I just can't. It hurts my brain after a while.

[meleu]

@lilbud does it happen because you have to read/turn pages from right to left? You'll get used to it after a while...

[lilbud]

@meleu Yeah, I can't do that. I have tried several times.

[backstander]

When I was in grade school I picked up this odd habit of browsing through magazines in reverse. Like I would open at the back of the magazine and flip through the pages moving towards the front and I would stop at the articles I wanted to read, then when done with that article, I would keep moving towards the front. I had forgotten about this until @meleu mentioned "read/turn pages from right to left". I mostly did this when I was waiting at the doctor's office or wherever.

[GtBFilms]

@meleu I had never heard of usopp before, but you're right, I definitely have that disease!

In the words of Tony Hancock, "Hypochondria is about the only disease I'm pretty sure I DON'T have"

Here's my-best-score-so-far score!

151700

For some reason the screenshot won't upload though. (edit: was Firefox weirdness, it worked using Chrome instead)

I've replaced the screen on my cabinet with a 12 inch rather than an 8 inch which makes things a bit easier to see!

[obsidianspider]

@GtBFilms Nice. I've been looking for a thin 4:3 display and they're few and far between, almost all are old monitors from ten years ago. It's almost impossible to find a "large" one or any that have a digital input.

[UDb23]

@GtBFilms nice cab ! Can you post some pictures ?

[GtBFilms]

@UDb23 Thanks! I jump at any excuse to post pictures of my cab!

It's a modified Picade (desktop) kit from www.Pimoroni.com.

It's gone through quite a few changes, as I have got a little addicted to tinkering with it!

From the stock build I've changed the artwork, added a marquee light, changed the joystick and buttons (multiple times!), changed the joystick handle to a heavier solid aluminium one (recommended), changed the joystick restrictor place to a circular one (still not entirely convinced this was a good idea), moved the volume control to the back, added a PowerBlock switch to shut down safely, and the last (maybe?) thing was to swap out the screen for a bigger one. (the new screen is a relatively cheap one from a Chinese Ebay seller, it's okay for the money, but the viewing angle is pretty shallow and the lighting isn't uniform from top to bottom - only really noticeable when the screen is entirely black though, there are better screens about, but it was pretty cheap!)

This is it now:

Previously, with the standard 8" screen:

Size comparison with my bartop (this was the reason for building it, because that bartop is made of extremely heavy PVC and isn't as portable as I expected it to be, whereas you can carry the picade in one hand!)