Twin stick multi options?

carolinamarcg

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Have a smash tv & am looking for an easy jamma multi to play some other twin stick shooters. Pandoras box seems to be the best bet. Wondering if anyone else is doing this, best version of pandora for it, other options short of spending a bundle on dedicated boards.
 
I had gone down this road years back. (I have a Total Carnage machine). There are not many games that are twin stick shooters that I know of, so not sure if it's worth it. However, I DO have a separate MAME cabinet that has dual sticks for each player. What's great about that is there are a couple of good PC games that support dual stick co-op. Obviously I am running a PC inside so it makes it worth it. So I use that instead.

For my Total Carnage machine: My final solution was to get a JAMMA switcher in the machine. So now I can run the original PCBs: Total Carnage and Smash TV. In addition I can run a Williams JROK for Robotron, a ZooQ JROK for Space Dungeon and a Mylstar JROK for Krull (krull is vertical but JROK allows it to run on horizontal setup). YMMV, but it works for me!

Del
 
SmashTV
Total Carnage
Robotron (JROK/Jamma)
Cloak & Dagger w/ my jamma adapter

>> that's my desired twin stick setup (horizontal)
>> end result = awesome (totally worth it)
 
Atari Black Widow is another fun twin stick game.
Technically that's a vector game and wouldn't work well with a switcher since it needs the monitor swapped from raster to vector as well. (Assumming he's going to go with real hardware). But if he's going the JAMMA Pi options Black Widow is emulated to work on raster monitors. And yes, it's a fun game for sure! :)
 
I had gone down this road years back. (I have a Total Carnage machine). There are not many games that are twin stick shooters that I know of, so not sure if it's worth it. However, I DO have a separate MAME cabinet that has dual sticks for each player. What's great about that is there are a couple of good PC games that support dual stick co-op. Obviously I am running a PC inside so it makes it worth it. So I use that instead.

For my Total Carnage machine: My final solution was to get a JAMMA switcher in the machine. So now I can run the original PCBs: Total Carnage and Smash TV. In addition I can run a Williams JROK for Robotron, a ZooQ JROK for Space Dungeon and a Mylstar JROK for Krull (krull is vertical but JROK allows it to run on horizontal setup). YMMV, but it works for me!

Del
Del,
Wonder if you could point me in the right direction. I am new to this. I have Mame64 on my PC and I currently play using the keyboard. I love playing Space Dungeon, but wanted to see if I could build my own console with dual sticks. I did some research and found kits on amazon, but they are just 1 stick per player. I have decent woodworking skills and was wanting to just try to build me a console that would plug into my PC with USB and I could play with dual sticks on my PC.

Robert
 
Del,
Wonder if you could point me in the right direction. I am new to this. I have Mame64 on my PC and I currently play using the keyboard. I love playing Space Dungeon, but wanted to see if I could build my own console with dual sticks. I did some research and found kits on amazon, but they are just 1 stick per player. I have decent woodworking skills and was wanting to just try to build me a console that would plug into my PC with USB and I could play with dual sticks on my PC.

Robert
When I started playing around with MAME my goal was to get a decent twin-stick layout so I could play Robotron to my heart's content. I also do woodworking, so I just ordered an IPAC encoder from Ultimarc.com and 2 Happ joystick and a dozen buttons from Happ Controls (now SUZOHAPP) and I built myself a control panel box and mounted the controls, wired the encoder, and just plugged into my desktop PC to test out. I played around with different layouts as well.

I would avoid the kits from Amazon. They normally contain the cheapest components. Check out the quality stuff from Groovygamegear.com or Ultimarc.com. They specialize in controls, joysticks, buttons, encoders, etc for the emulation hobbyist. Check out BYOAC forums, they are all about emulation and controls.
 
I have looked at the Tankstick. But will it work on games like Space Dungeon that require dual sticks to play the game?
 
It should work on Robotron, Space Dungeon, Krull, etc. Any game that uses 2 joysticks for player 1 input.

The MAME application lets you map the buttons and joysticks to your liking.
Just hit TAB while you are in a game then navigate to Player 1 Inputs and map out your corresponding joystick and buttons inputs on the Tankstick.
 
I have looked at the Tankstick. But will it work on games like Space Dungeon that require dual sticks to play the game?
Tankstick will work with everything
It is already set for mame control standard
I just checked space dungeon you just hit tab and set up each stick for left and right
 
Love the Space Dungeon.

My Smash TV cabinet, I have Smash TV, Total Carnage, Robotron 2084 (JROK) and Tetris (Atari Games), Riddle 4 way switcher.
Surprising Tetris plays really well with twin sticks and it is head to head.
 
It should work on Robotron, Space Dungeon, Krull, etc. Any game that uses 2 joysticks for player 1 input.

The MAME application lets you map the buttons and joysticks to your liking.
Just hit TAB while you are in a game then navigate to Player 1 Inputs and map out your corresponding joystick and buttons inputs on the Tankstick.
Thank you ArtMAME for all your help. Did some research on Happ and IPAC. I've started purchasing and am going to build just something small to start with and play around with. Thanks for the comment on configuring MAME. Didn't even think that you could setup a 2 player board and just configure the game with player 1 joystick and then player 2 joystick. very good. Again, thanks alot for the help. This helped me out a great deal!!
 
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