|
Skinned
I mainly use Mame32 on my PC as I find this a good app for searching/organising
games, especially if you have it running at a high resolution (1600x1200).
But for my cabinet I wanted something simple and quite plainly less
Windows looking.
| The idea is that anyone should
be able to walk up to the cabinet and use it without being computer
literate, and I’d also like to include some form of on
screen instructions for simple usage.
There are literally tens of MAME front-ends available, some
good, and some bad.
So I set myself a few requirements and spent a couple of weeks
playing about with various front-end offerings.
|
click
to enlarge |
Front-end Requirements
| (1) |
Fully Skinable with options to show artwork elements
(screenshots/titles/marquees) |
| (2) |
Ability to define game categories (favourites, classics,
shooters...) |
| (3) |
Ability to use other emulators with it (PSX, GBA...) |
| (4) |
All options apart from major configuring available
via the main control panel (wireless keyboard for setup and O/S
related issues. |
After not having much success with a lot of them Howard Casto released
a new re-write of his Lazarus front-end (which would never run successfully
on my PC) called Dragon
King. At first I had a few problems running this, but after a
couple of updates were released I got it working and found it did
exactly what I wanted.
| 
click
to enlarge |
One of the main
selling points of this front-end I found was the skinning app
allowing users to create they own layout design for their front-end.
I downloaded a few of the available skins and played about with
them via the skinner then sat down one evening and put together
the skin you can see on this page.
Note: I no longer have the white borders around
the screenshots as I’m now using the snaps/titles available
from Crash Test Emulation
page.
|
I still have a few things to do to this skin before I’m completely
happy with it but its beginning to take shape. Also may put together
the same skin for other Front-ends (e.g. Emulaxian, MameWAH).
Wishlist for next version of this skin
| (1) |
Add start-up animation (have started work on this) |
| (2) |
Add game intro/exit sounds |
| (3) |
Create animated category logos |
| (4) |
Custom font sizes for each text element (gamelist/path/etc..) |
As with everything though it’s finding the time, but if you
like the look of this skin free to download it here, M.A.M.E
– Game Not Over (Dragon King Skin).
Feel free to manipulate it and do what ever you want, my only request
is that you credit me for my original efforts, and hey send me a copy
of your results as I would love to see them.
|
