Scratch Built Save the Date game

barrysfarm

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Not really a restoration as much as a complete scratch build, but here goes.

On and off, over the last few months I've designed and programmed a game to serve as my fiancé and I's wedding invite. We're mailing out physical, more traditional, wedding invites but alongside it, there will be an arcade inspired flyer promoting the game.

The game can be played online, though it's not publicly available yet, so I attached some screenshots to this thread. The game is kind of like a cross between Super Mario Bros and Mega Man—it's definitely directly inspired by early NES games.

So, since I spent so long on this game, and because I have a *little* bit more room in the arcade, I'm building a physical cabaret game that'll run it.

For the cabaret game, I started with a computer mockup. I kind of based it off of the Klax cabaret game, though I switched some things around due to the space it's going in the game room. It's 20 inches wide, about 51 inches tall, and about 25 inches deep.

Based off the computer mockup, I cut out the pieces of plywood. The overall woodworking is similar to the upright taito cabinets. Routed grooves in the side pieces, with tongues in all the other pieces. Instead of bolts going through everything, I'm using 2x2's and wood screws on the inside.

Since it'll be hooking up to a computer, the monitor is an old computer monitor. I decased it.
 

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Today, I'm in the process of staining the side pieces. All of the black painted areas have been painted already. I wanted the sides to mimic the faux wood from a frogger, or the cocktail atari games like centipede. I investigated what it'd take to get wood laminate that looked like that, but it seemed like a hassle, so I started with Oak Plywood instead of Birch or MDF, and I'm going to stain it. I found a stain that's pretty close to the atari cocktail woodgrain, and it seems to be working well... though compared to the atari grain, this one looks much more like real wood.

I still need to get the artwork printed... the CPO, bezel, and sideart. I've got the sideart files ready to be printed, but I still need to make everything else print ready.

Also, here's the flyer that's being included with our wedding invites.
 

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I've seen a lot of badass wedding projects/proposal things (Portal 2 wedding comes to mind), this takes the cake man

Looking forward to seeing the completed build, and congratz man!


Edit: I was thinking of building a custom cabaret and it looks almost identical to that, get out of my brain man
 
Wow! Very impressive!

I love the stained oak. What kind/ color of stain did you choose? Are you planning on a poly top coat or something else?

When do we get to see/play the game?
 
Thanks!

We'll release the game to the public about a week after the printed invites are mailed. Other than the beta testers, I want the guests to be the first that play it.

The stain was a Minwax Red something stain. I think it was Red Oak, thought it could be Red Chestnut. I'll check when I get home. I coated it with about 10 coats of clear satin wipe on poly.

Here's how it's currently looking.
kdv11l.jpg
 
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I got the cabinet put together tonight. Went together pretty easily. My phone's camera couldn't quite take a balanced photo with the white primered control panel and the darker woodgrain. The woodgrain is much more obvious in person, though it's not too furniture-y. I've got the control panel overlay and side art ready to be printed, just waiting on a reply from gameongraphix on a format question.

The cabinet on it's right is a zoo keeper that I redid last spring. Awaiting side art to be reproduced.

B955Ol.jpg


nk50Ul.jpg


wXFS6l.jpg
 
Thanks!
We'll release the game to the public about a week after the printed invites are mailed. Other than the beta testers, I want the guests to be the first that play it.

Thats cool. Let us know here so we can play it too...

Did you try black tmold on it? I wasn't liking the white at first but the more I look at it the more I like it.
 
White molding is all i've tried, as it's all I've got on hand. I think I won't know for sure until I've got the CPO on the control panel, because I think the white panel is throwing everything off.
 
I got the game running last night. The one thing about being a collector for the past 4 or 5 years is that I'm finding stuff in my junk drawers I don't need to order. I found a keyboard encoder that worked fine, as well as some replacement bulbs for the coin door.

It looks like the resolution of the screen isn't the same proportion as the flash version of the game, so I'm going to have to tweak all of the graphics to be a different resolution. This only affects the title screen, character selection screens, and menus. The actual gameplay programming is smart enough to figure it out, so the bulk of the game works just fine.

I also need to find a computer power supply that doesn't have a fan, or the fan is much quieter. This one is like an airplane.

bbAs7l.jpg
 
I know it's easy for me to suggest since I won't be doing it, but you ought to re-code it to work on the Uzebox JAMMA board, then it's be a real coin operated game and not just a MAME-like cab! www.uzebox.org

Thanks, but no. I spent about 2 months programming it. I've spent a few hours messing around with the Uzebox stuff a year or two ago, and it was just too frustrating for me. I've had years of experience with flash, so I know how to do what I want it to do with it.

If i was mass producing these, maybe that'd be an option. But since it's just one, the time it'll take me to finish it up the way I intend to is hours of work compared to months of work to recode the thing in a language i'm not familiar with.
 
I got the CPO and the smoked plexiglass in today. Since the graphics were going on flat surfaces, they were really easy to apply. I also put in control panel clamps, and put in the supports for the bezel.

I still need to add blackout paper around the monitor and touch up some of the paint, as well as some tweaks to the game's logic.

EDIT:
Having a hell of a time uploading image... i'll get them up soon.
 

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This week has been mostly a programming week. I changed the games logic to allow for coins, set up an attract mode, and have 2 players, as well as formatting it for a screen with a different resolution.

I also added some blackout paper under the tinted bezel, and touched up the black paint that got scratched as I put the game together. I think it looks great.

Here's what the attract mode looks like:
 
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