MAMEWorld Forums - Programming - Clueless to programming

> I`ve built a mame cabinet and am currently waiting for the paint to dry, was just
> wondering if its possible and how hard it would be to make a mame compatible rom file
> ( so it would save changing emulator/setup, for a group of drinking games i could
> just add to my list of roms/games, basically the type of timed/reflex games such as
> snap (maybe with configurable/personnalised pictures, or a random countdown timer red
> --> amber --> random time green, first to press on green wins penalty for early
> (obviously these would all be 2 player games, dont need to lose a game on your own
> for a drink all i can think of off the bat, but you get the idea of what i`m asking
> (you all seem to be genius`s (genii ? ) on here I`m just thinking out loud , got a 2
> joystick 6 button for each, pinball buttons, and a trackball setup running mame .146
> windows XP if that helps, would appreciate any info, Cheers

You probably should have ventilated the room a little better.

If I'm understanding what you're asking, you'd have to pick a platform that MAME supports, figure out how to code and build for that platform, and then modify MAME to recognize your new ROM. It might be an interesting exercise for a reasonably experienced programmer to learn how to write for some obsolete platform, but it wouldn't remotely be worth the effort just to have a game to play on your MAME cab.

You could probably throw together a simple game like you're describing in a few hours in any current language, but you'd have to already know how to write code. Add in the time it takes to learn programming from scratch and you're looking at a few weeks of work, at least. If you're interested in learning to code it's definitely worthwhile, but again, it's a lot of work if you just want to have a game on your cab.

I'd just poke around on the web, somebody's probably posted a free game somewhere that is close to what you're looking for. I think most frontends can be configured pretty easily to launch a game on your computer instead of an emulator.