The Act kit in Blast city cabinet.

ccatalyst

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Hello everyone,I acquired a Cecropia "the Act" Kit a couple of weeks ago and since i had quite a few blast cities laying around, see

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/170532-ccatalyst-gameroom-collection/

pages 2 & 3 to see them.

I thought i would attempt to install the kit into 1 of them, and after 1 week of going through as few metal shops and printers, the act is now finally in a sega blast city cabinet, there are a ton of pictures, so i will start at the begining, First i had to go to a metal shop and had them cut a piece of metal to match the original size of the blast city's cp. Once that was completed, I was off to a sign shop and had them scan both the control panel and the marquee graphics, i had them resize both to the proper dimensions in order to fit the blast city,and we had to redesign the control panel's graphics by cutting and pasting a few images to extend the graphics to the proper location of the cp, i wanted the words "the act" all the way to the left, under the original design it puts the T in Act right under the controller, hence the modified graphics.

Once it was finished we laminated and installed it onto the metal cp plate, i was ready to proceed. I noticed I could not get the controller to fit into such a small control panel as the blast city,Damn, always something, so i tried to take it apart and see if i could do anything else with it to makie it fit better, nope , it would have been a major pain the butt, to rebuild this onto the bottom of the control panel, and i would'nt have felt it was well protected, so after 30 minutes or so of tweaking and moving around the controller under the panel,to see if it would fit better anywhere else under the cp, i finally settled for it being right in the center, where i originally was going to put it anyways, but the problem with that is that there is a mounting screw hole right there on the top of the control panel holder and it would not let me put the controller in, at least not without me cutting the control panel holder itself, which i did not want to do, so my solution to thie problem was to space the controller so the screw holder slides between the controller and the panel. It worked like a charm, however when i bolted it all together, the graphics twisted under the turning pressure of the screw, i tried 2 washer sizes, and finally went my 3rd largest size, yeah i know it's a little big, but it works great and it does not bunch up the graphics no matter how hard i turn the screws on it.

I also took pictures of the inside of the arcade system itself, it is basically a pc with an additional board underneath the main motherboard, it seems to be some type of jamma adapter, and security key in one, if you unplug it the game gives you a security violation message and wont play. And there is also an ultimark cga converter board mounted towards the front of the case, So after rebuiling the pc back together, getting the cp finished, and finally installing the marquee. I had to add a surge suppresor inside the cabinet in order to power the arcade pc board, and that is all there is to it. As the french would say, "Simple, No." Well actually no, it was a pain, but i believe the final results look pretty good, im going to be touching up the cab in the next few days and cleaning it up a bit more, and im done.

Well onto the pics, I could not post more than 5 so if you go to the link listed above and go to the end of page 3 you will see alot more, Comments welcome.

Rick
 

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What was your attraction to The Act and blast city cabinets?

I dig laserdisc and/or animated games and also a fan of the
more elaborate nippon cabinets, but those generic cabinets
and a failed proto kit (aside from its uniqueness) don't really
raise an eyebrow. That said, you did a nice job on the kit and
have a neat addition to your impressive collection.
 
Really nice install job. I don't know if the game is any good (I've never played it), but I have to say I like the thought of it being in a cabinet rather than in a box on a shelf.

Nice work!
 
Very cool. I watched some gameplay of "The Act" and it looked like a pretty cool game. Not sure about replay value, but still neat.
 
That's a nice job you did there. I would love to get some new control panel artwork for mine so I could redo it.

The knob on mine died about a year ago and just so you kno, if your's ever fails, it can be replaced with any USB spinner. I'm currently using the kind found in the new Wheel of Fortune arcade game.

It's really too bad that so few people have played this/know about it, it's really a unique arcade experience. The software needed a couple of tweaks to make it better for arcades - generally I see people shy away from it unless they see someone else play it. But it does carry some replay value to it due to the little different things you can try out in many scenes.
 
What was your attraction to The Act and blast city cabinets?

I dig laserdisc and/or animated games and also a fan of the
more elaborate nippon cabinets, but those generic cabinets
and a failed proto kit (aside from its uniqueness) don't really
raise an eyebrow. That said, you did a nice job on the kit and
have a neat addition to your impressive collection.

Well im a big fan of Japanese arcades, and almost all of their games are put into these type of cabinets, they do not weigh as much as the woodies we have over here, they do not warp, burn, or swell when water hits them, and everything pretty much cleans off their surface. So even though i have a few games in my collection, i still have a sweet spot for these cabs not only from an asthetic ,but also from a maintainance/convertability into other games standpoint.
I managed to get my hands on quite a few of these candy cabs at a very low cost, and i am now in the process of restoring them, mostly fixing monitors, paint touchup, cleanup etc.
As for "The Act" I am also a fan of laserdisc games, even though I only have 2 - both of them Star-Riders, I also have an MSX system with 7 laser games, and several other lasers only the disc though. But they were always a maintainance nightmare, with this kit i never have to worry about a player or the disc, and the graphics are spectacular, i personally really like the game, and everyone that has played it has given me thumbs up on the game play. Very unique. It might not be a great shmup or platform or gun game ,etc, but it is very different and beautifully animated, so im very glad i was lucky enough to add it to my collection.
Also just to put it to rest, I could have done Daphne for some of my laser games, to cut down on rapairs, but "The Act" is not emulated anywhere and neither is Star-rider nor many of my MSX laser titles, and most important of all, i like to play them. And isn't that all that really matters.
Finally thanks for cudos above.


Rick
 
Really nice install job. I don't know if the game is any good (I've never played it), but I have to say I like the thought of it being in a cabinet rather than in a box on a shelf.

Nice work!


Thank you, i very much agree, it kills me to have so many of my games on my shelf.

Rick
 
That's a nice job you did there. I would love to get some new control panel artwork for mine so I could redo it.

The knob on mine died about a year ago and just so you kno, if your's ever fails, it can be replaced with any USB spinner. I'm currently using the kind found in the new Wheel of Fortune arcade game.

It's really too bad that so few people have played this/know about it, it's really a unique arcade experience. The software needed a couple of tweaks to make it better for arcades - generally I see people shy away from it unless they see someone else play it. But it does carry some replay value to it due to the little different things you can try out in many scenes.


Thanks for heads up, i will be looking for one of the knobs starting tonight.

I may be taking mine to the Florida Arcade show next week to have other people see it and get a chance to play this game.

Rick
 
CC,

Just out of curiosity, where did you snag the kit from? It's pretty hard to find.
 
CC,

Thanks for the info. Good to know there are still some good people out there. Incidently, you wouldn't happen to have any copies (digital) of those scans of the control panel and marquee graphics, would you? I have a kit as well, but the graphics were not in great shape when I got them, so I'd like to be able to repro them.
 
CC,

Thanks for the info. Good to know there are still some good people out there. Incidently, you wouldn't happen to have any copies (digital) of those scans of the control panel and marquee graphics, would you? I have a kit as well, but the graphics were not in great shape when I got them, so I'd like to be able to repro them.

The print shop i got it done at, subbed out the scanning of the cp to another company, i will call them up today and see if they still have the images and can send them over to me.

Rick
 
Avidgeek has an Act game that he brings to CAX every year.
It gets played constantly and people seem to really enjoy it.
 
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