First, there's the boot screen. Most early video games booted up with a kind of self-test, and the results and other specs about the game were often displayed on the screen. After this was a monitor alignment grid, so operators could tell at a glance that the monitor was adjusted properly. I kind of got this backward, mostly because of the way Windows works and what could be customized. Since the resolution of the boot screen is only 320x400, it's difficult to put readable text on the screen using small "arcade" fonts. I decided to make the boot screen the alignment grid, and save the "specs" for the wallpaper.
Here's a sequence of images that represent what you'd see as the computer was first booting up. I've adjusted the size and orientation of these images... they're not actual screen grabs, just simulations from the actual source images I created.
First, the replacement for the Windows boot screen. Unlike the original Windows 98 boot screen, there's no animation to this one... it just sits there until Windows boots.
Next, there's the "specs", which lists the type and speed of the processor, RAM, and software used to run the Graphical User Interface and the games. This is where I created animation where there wasn't really the capability for it. The first image was set as my standard Windows wallpaper, and the second was an "Active Desktop" item that appeared shortly after the first one. It takes a split second or so for Windows to engage Active Desktop (a feature introduced in Win98 that allowed users to embed things like websites, etc. into their desktop), so the first image appears, and then "GUI READY!" appears at the bottom just before the interface actually loads.
Then comes the fun part... the actual user interface (aka menu). The following image is a still that represents the final appearance of an animation I created with a multimedia authoring program called Formula Graphics. I don't think I'll be able to use Formula Graphics in the new version of the cabinet, but I'm still hoping to have some kind of intro. The way the original animation worked is that the logo would float down from the top, then the Japanese text underneath would appear simultaneously with the "planet dust" logo at the bottom. For this early version, the Japanese text actually said something like "arcade classics" because it came from a listing on klov.com for the arcade game Arcade Classics, which was a multi-game prototype that contained both Missile Command and Centipede, as well as updated versions of those games. Ironically, neither of those games are planned for inclusion in the SGM project.
The very last thing that happens is that the "crowd" of video game characters fades in somewhat slowly. I'd really like to post a video of it, but for now a still will have to do.
Pretty neat, huh? Anyway, this animation was actually intended to repeat every few minutes, with "intermission" animations playing if there were no buttons pressed for a set period of time. As a kid, I had LOTS of ideas I could never really bring to fruition because I hadn't the money and resources, and let's face it... I was just a kid. Two ideas that I remember quite well were "Kartoon Kapers" and "Arcade Antics" (I don't think I ever spelled it Arkade Antiks, but I could be wrong). I'm sure at some point someone has used the name Kartoon Kapers for something, but Arcade Antics is still floating around in my head, and seemed like a good idea for the intermission animations. Basically, it would be some kind of scene involving two or more video game characters from different games interacting in some humorous way. I'm still thinking of doing something like that for the new SGM project, so that's all I'll say about it for now.
I did actually have the GUI programmed to launch a separate "screensaver" animation every so often, and then loop back to start the title animation again. However, as of the time I had to abandon the project, I had only set up a "dummy" animation that was simply the letters "AA" (for Arcade Antics) appearing on the screen, rotating 180 degrees, and then disappearing.
If you did actually press a button or move a joystick at the title screen, this is what you would see:
Now, to illustrate exactly how this would work, let me explain that I didn't really plan to waste a whole screen for just five games. The SGM Top 10 (soon to be called "SGM All-Stars" because it's likely to be LOTS more than just ten titles) was actually just supposed to be the top ten video game franchises, so if you were to move the joystick to the right while highlighting "PAC-MAN", this is what would happen:
See? PAC-MAN changed to Ms. PAC-MAN. I actually had all the games shown on the screen programmed to show at least one sequel, except FROGGER I think, because I'm not sure that had a sequel in the arcades. Anyway, I had lots of problems getting the games to actually launch, but if you were to select PAC-MAN, this is what you would see before the game would launch:
This screen gives you a short blurb about the history of the game, and a choice to view some "exhibits", which would have been things like the sales brochure (Japanese version of course), and other merchandise related to the game. I'm thinking at this point that there won't be any multimedia content at all in the new version of SUPER GAMES MUSEUM, except perhaps some music. The main reason for this is that the analog CRT is really not the best for showing that kind of thing, and now that I have Protovision, which can connect to large hi-def televisions, I might as well use that for all the multimedia stuff.
Well, there you have it... what's left of the original SUPER GAMES MUSEUM intro and GUI. We're not quite done yet, though... there's another image I'm quite proud of, and of all the stuff above, it's the most likely to actually survive into the next incarnation of SGM.
One of the first things I ever collected from actual arcade machines was the manual. I found several at a local amusement company, and the owner sold them to me very cheap. I've since found a few more, and I definitely plan to keep buying them, not so much for the service information inside, but just as small, affordable arcade collectibles. Since I enjoy these manuals so much, I wanted to create one for my MAME cabinets as well. Since I often like to base my designs on existing items, I decided that the manual for the Donkey Kong Jr. cocktail table would be a good choice. The DK Jr. cocktail is nearly identical to the Popeye cocktail, except that it has a vertically-oriented monitor. That would have been useful for this project, but I didn't necessarily have a wide selection of cabinets when I bought mine (and virtually no budget whatsoever), and I think the DK Jr. cabinet had a white top, but I much prefer the black top mine has.
Anyway, here's a mock-up of what the front of the manual is supposed to look like. I may not use the full-color "crowd" graphic in the new SGM user interface, but it's quite likely that the monochrome version will still grace the front cover of the manual, even if the logo changes (which it most likely will).
I have to say I just LOVE that image... I definitely tried to make sure all the characters were proportional to one another when putting together the full-color version, but they look so much more cohesive as a unit in monochrome. Even if I completely redo the "crowd" from scratch, it is VERY nice to have this original artwork to use as a reference, especially in terms of the relative sizes and positioning of the characters.
By the way, here's the short version of what went on behind the scenes to get this stuff off the original hard drive. I bought a device that was supposed to allow me to connect any IDE or SATA hard drive via USB, and it actually did work on one drive. Problem is, I have close to a dozen different drives I'd like to get data off of, and none of the others worked with the device. I finally opened up an old COMPAQ Presario we had in the garage, and disconnected the Zip and CD-ROM drives to connect both the hard drive that actually worked with the USB device, as well as a source drive. I can copy all the data from the source drive to the one drive that seems to play nice with the device, then plug it in and dump all the data into my iBook. I plan to repeat this process for my other drives, providing it works with them as well, and hopefully I can finally get rid of my collection of bare hard drives.
Well, I'm done for now... I am SO FREAKIN' HAPPY that I could finally get that data off the hard drive. I'll go and do a little happy dance, and I'll see you back here for the next blog post.
Bye!
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