MAME Cabinet Game – Grid Wars 2

Here’s another fantastic, Robotron-like, Mutant Storm-like game… Grid Wars 2 by Mark Incitti. A dual joystick setup or joystick + 4 fire buttons is ideal.

This game takes you by surprise because of it’s unique mix of old skool and modern graphics and physics. It looks rather plain, and it is for the [...]

MAME Cabinet Game – Mutant Storm

I’ve recently discovered a number of excellent PC games that play beautifully on a MAME arcade cabinet. I loaded them onto my Aladdin’s Castle and they are absolutely brilliant.

Mutant Storm by PomPom

One of my favorite old-skool games is Robotron by Williams. I love the two-joystick action or running and firing in two [...]

Choosing a Display for Your MAME Cabinet

I received an email about my Aladdin’s Castle MAME cabinet recently.  My reply was so thoughful and amazingly detailed that I figured I should use it as cheap content for Ooine.  So here we go:

The email:

I was just reading your blog on your cabinet andreally liked how it turned out.

I’ve just [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 11

Got my marquee from mamemarquees.com (thanks Scott) and it was quite beautiful.  Extremely deep, vibrant colors on what appeared to be something like photographic paper.

So I visited my cabinet and installed that baby between the plexiglass.  Immediately I noticed that the colors get a bit washed out.  But not too badly.  And I [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 10

10/1/2005

This was a big day because everything came together to form a complete, working cabinet.  While not 100% finished, we are getting very close.  I’m almost feeling a sense of disappointment with the completion.  The journey is really what it’s all about.

I fired everything up and it was very cool to see [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 9

9/27/2005

Parts installation, t-molding, cabinet door installation, coin door, painting touch-ups.

I had asked in another thread whether or not I should apply some sort of clear coat to the interior latex enamel paint that I used to paint the cabinet.  A few people said yes and a few people said no.  Well, it [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Marquee

I’ve been finding Arabian Knights-type art very difficult to find on the net.  I have no idea what I’m going to do for side art, but I figured I should at least be able to pull a marquee together.

This is my first try:

The actual file is 26 inches wide, 11 inches [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 8

9/25/2005

Painting final colors.

I am envisioning a cabinet with a black, purple, reddish theme to go with my memories of Aladdin’s Castle.  I’m pretty sure that the logo was in red and that the place was very dark with red and/or purple neon.  I was debating really whether or not to paint the [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 6

9/14/2005

Preparing the front door and cutting for the coin door.

Cutting the coin door hole.

The completed cut.

Coin door test fitting.  At first it didn’t fit.  I had to keep going back with the sander in order to finally get it to squeeze into the hole.

And all [...]

MAME Cabinet Aladdin’s Castle – Construction Day 4b

9/3/2005 – Part 2

Cutting the speaker holes.

I decided to use the Creative Inspire T3000 2.1 speakers ($32) instead of those recommended in the book.

The grill lifts right off of the speakers.  I’m going to see if I can use these as my finished cabinet speaker grills.

I made [...]