SITE UPDATES - January 4, 2014

In-Game Artwork: 6 new games; 4 games updated artwork

Wow... only one update in all of 2013? That's gotta get better. Sorry guys, 2013 was a helluva year. Good part is I work for a company that seems to actually appreciate me. Bummer part is I had to really work hard to give them a reason to, which cut into my artwork time. Anyway... I finally put everything together this week, so let's get on with it:

• Antny again did an unbelievable job cleaning up the bezel for Astro Invaders. (You'll find it listed as Kamikaze, since that is the parent game).
  
• Antny also cleaned up the bezel instruction card for Space Harrier, so that's been added. He also cleaned up one of the parts of the control panel, but we didn't realize until later that there's two parts to that, so we'll get that in later. Also, I've got the bezel in the garage; I should probably photograph it and add that in later, also. I'd "like" to add in the marquee, as it was cleaned up back in June 2012. Sadly, there seems to be some miscommunication in that partnership.
  
• Speaking of which, Mikonos from Zona Arcade cleaned up the bezel for Guerilla War, from the BYOAC/CAG artwork.
  
• Mikonos also cleaned up my scan of the Super Dodge Ball bezel. Then I followed it up and fixed a few things that he missed.
  
• Many moons ago, zorg vectored the artwork for the stickers on a Tron bezel. Nightvoice then took them, and made artwork for a much nicer looking Tron bezel, replacing the previously photographed version.
  
• Right after the last update, I finished up the artwork for Two Tigers. It had been so long, I thought I included it in the last update, and almost didn't add it here. So... it's here.
  
• I also took some of my free time last month to check off one from TrevEB's list: Kram. What I liked most about this one, is this is the one that finally made me feel like I've actually gotten pretty good at this artwork thing. You see, back in 2006, when I started this gig, I wasn't the guy creating any of the artwork, I was just the guy keeping it all organized, and I figured out pretty quickly how the LAY files worked. My Photoshop skills were "meh" at best (self-taught, like most everything else I've ever learned). It was a pretty gradual process from that point to where I'm at today. Ah, but now I'm rambling; we'll save that story for another day. Let's continue. Wait... almost forgot... zorg vectored the Kram marquee some time ago, so that's in here, too. NOW... let's continue.
  
• Happy days!! After seven years of waiting patiently, the moon from the Taito version of Space Invaders popped up on eBay last year, and I snapped it right up. That moon was one of the last remaining pieces of low-res artwork left over from the old site (the previous version was basically cropped from a screenshot of a picture of the inside of the cabinet). So I got that all cleaned up, added it in, and... ugh. MAME doesn't play nice with multiple backdrops. In the previous version of the artwork file, I used a mask to make the backdrop and moon blend together correctly. I don't know if something changed again in MAME, or I just hadn't noticed before, but it just looked... bad. So... I said screw it, and went back to the old way of how I had it a few years ago; with the moon and backdrop combined in one file, so it looks cleaner on screen. Don't worry, the full pieces are also in the ZIP file, for integrity's sake. Also, while I was at it, I fixed the little "red top hat" issue that John IV reported after the last update.
  
• joey35car pointed out some glaring errors in the current Solar Fox artwork. After I took a closer look, I found even more. Amazingly, this went unnoticed for about seven years. So, it's all fixed up now. It's probably time I finished the rest of the artwork for this game now, so I can make anoid happy. (He's gotta be one of the most patient guys ever, waiting this long for me to finish this game up).
  
• Thanks to the kind folks that created Midway Arcade Origins, I noticed that our Joust 2 bezel, while cleaned up nicely, was a little faded, especially after I went and scoured around checking a few cabinet photos and flyers. It's a bit more polished up now.
  
• Finally, screenshots for crater, espgal, vstennis, and ddpdoj have been created and/or updated, as reported by scythe.
  
• EDIT: Two more quick things: the LAY file for frogs changed, so grab that. Also, ddpdojb was properly renamed to ddpdoj. Thank you MASH.
  

But wait, there's more. Keep reading for "Other Artwork" updates.

Other Arcade Artwork: 19 new games; 17 games updated artwork

• Back in March 2013, a very cool father fulfilled his daughter's request and hacked the 2010 NES version of Donkey Kong so that you play as Pauline, rescuing Mario. You can see video of it on YouTube. Clay Cowgill thinks "hey, that's cool; I can do that for the arcade version." So he does. Rich from This Old Game gets requests to make up some artwork for the "new game." So he does. Robbbert gets requests to add the hack to HBMAME. So he does. I then get requests to add the artwork to the HBMAME version. So here it is. (I'll add the marquee later).
  
• A few years ago, when a 39-in-1 board was dumped, then later emulated, it was the first version of "MAME emulating a pcb emulating MAME." Not wanting to be left out of the "meta" game, the artwork from the game "Midway Arcade Origins" has now been added. We now have MAME Artwork ripped from a game that was itself made with MAME Artwork. I can definitively say that the artwork for the following games was adapted from already existing MAME Artwork: APB, Joust, Joust 2, Rampage, Robotron, Satan's Hollow, Spy Hunter II, Stargate, Super Sprint. A couple others may also, but those are the ones I'm sure about. Oh, this also adds Other Artwork for the following games: 720, Arch Rivals, Bubbles, Championship Sprint, Cyberball 2020, Defender, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Marble Madness, Pit Fighter, Rampart, Sinistar, Smash TV, Spy Hunter, Super Off Road, Tapper, Toobin, Total Carnage, Vindicators, Wizard of Wor (this could have actually been improved with MAME Artwork), Xenophobe, Xybots. I still have to go back later and add in the lamps for Spy Hunter, though.
  
• In addition, I finally ripped the artwork from Namco Museum Essentials for PS3 (both the retail and demo), which gives new cool artwork for Pacman, Galaga, Xevious, Dig Dug, and Dragon Spirit.
  

Well... that's it for this update, along with also updating all the other link pages on the site. Hopefully I'll get better at my time management, maybe some other people will start helping also, and we'll see more artwork releases in 2014. Also, expect updates to the Samples page later this year.