MAME ROW #16 - Mystic Riders

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!)

mviars

@GtBFilms At least it looks like you could make the screen bigger down the road when your ready.

mviars

@meleu said in MAME ROW #16:

@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.

Yeah I definitely enjoy watching the anime of One Piece.

mviars

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #16:

@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.

I'm with you on that one. I am trying to modify my old cab with a 32" tv in it to a 32" high res monitor except I want the monitor to rotate for horizontal or vertical play like this guy did

UDb23

@GtBFilms Great Work !!
Now I'm really tempted to try to build one.

GtBFilms

@UDb23 I'd recommend it, it's a fun project and quite satisfying when you work out a solution to the inevitable problems that crop up. There's a lot of people online who have done similar and can give advice too.

Both of mine have been from cabinet kits of one sort or another, I'm quite tempted to try making one from scratch now too, for the challenge.

My advice is to set a budget at the start, tell that to your wife, then proceed to spend at least three times that amount while you tinker with the build for months and months!

@mviars Yeah, the big selling point of that Picade kit is how moddable it is. There's a decent amount of additional space inside, so you can swap out the screen, buttons, joystick with alternatives and add lighting etc. as you go along.

mviars

@GtBFilms Yeah although I have just ordered the computer parts and monitor to redo that system I may still wait a little while as I am still burned out on building my virtual pinball machine that took about 5 grand and a year of my life to complete.

obsidianspider

I can't get anywhere near @GtBFilms' score yet, but a few more tips I picked up:

Throwing your broomstick is really helpful. Pressing the D pad in the opposite direction of where you want it to fly and then pressing B will shoot it and it's really good for clearing enemies as well as "bullets" that they shoot at you.

Also, the first level boss seems to be easier to beat if you've leveled up and have the "flame" weapon, but the "lightning bolt" weapon seems to work better for me for the rest of the stage.

meleu

@obsidianspider hey man, could you take MAME ROW duties for the next week again? :-)
I'm going on a trip with no computers...

obsidianspider

@meleu I should be able to do that. Do you want me to choose numbers, or do you want to do that?

meleu

@obsidianspider Feel free to pick the numbers. But you have to promise you'll use the first ones that appear and not choose something that please you! :D You can discard the quiz/mahjong games but need to mention it on the post. :-)

A tip for formatting the post: click on the "quote" link (near to the "reply" link) of the first post and you'll be able to take advantage of the existing markdown formats. You just have to delete the > in the beginning of each line (pretty simple to do with vim editor).

Thanks!

meleu

Thanks to the @obsidianspider tips I could get 152k.

UDb23

@GtBFilms said in MAME ROW #16:

My advice is to set a budget at the start, tell that to your wife, then proceed to spend at least three times that amount while you tinker with the build for months and months!

:-))

Thanks for the tips!

GtBFilms

@meleu nice score! I played this a lot last night but still can't beat you.

I did a complete run-through with unlimited credits and although its not a very long game, the difficulty really picks up later on. I think it's one of these ones that benefitted from watching other players, to work out the techniques for taking out the bosses - R-type's bosses were like that too, with sweet spots where they could usually be taken out with ease.

Really enjoying this game, possibly the best ones we've had on the ROW so far?!

meleu

@GtBFilms yeah. It's a nice shooter. And fortunately it doesn't suffer from "lose a life when fully tooled up and you don't stand a chance with your remaining lives without all the powerups" syndrome.

I think my favorite games from MAME ROW are:

Pang!
Phoenix
Puyo Puyo 2

obsidianspider

MAME ROW #17 is live!