Wonderboy

All posts tagged Wonderboy

This is a very very belated post – although I will back date it to October last year (2011) when it occurred.

Several times in the same week, I finally broke the 1 million point barrier on Wonderboy.

Current best score (MAME) – 1,052,060.

I have since stopped playing the MAME version now that I have my cab running with an original Wonderboy PCB running. All future wonderboy scores will be posted based on original hardware 🙂

A little late with this post given the scores are from mid July – but – July saw my Wonderboy scoring break the 700K barrier.

There will be some more scores posted shortly from early August 🙂 I have also started analysing points per levels and deaths per level to highlight where I am losing ground and where deaths are most costly (score wise). This information goes into a spreadsheet with a pretty graph to show progress. I will post a picture of that also at some point to better highlight.

My second project is now starting to gather some momentum, so I thought it time to post something more than just a few pictures to share my thoughts, plans and progress.

After being very happy with the results on my Galaga cab, it was inevitable I would begin another at some point. Thanks to an Aussie Arcade member it was sooner than expected with his sale (and my purchase) of an original Wonderboy board. This means the cabinet will be fitted with a horizontal screen. Given the number of games I’ve been playing of my 60in1 board on the Galaga cab, I plan to also install one of those 19 in 1 horizontal game boards also. The thought of twin sticks for Robotron is very appealing 🙂

My first thoughts were to research a cab shape I liked. I couldn’t find anything for Wonderboy that impressed me. I actually can’t recall the cab shape I used to play on all those years ago. I love my Galaga cab – I love the Galaxian cab – and I can’t help but love a good PacMan cab. The colour and artwork is top notch – and a hot looking cab means it will be allowed to live in the home :). Given my experience with putting together a cab with that shape, I decided that was the direction to take. There will be some modifications though which will mean it’s not a proper PacMan cab:
– Horizontal screen
– Screen artwork (will be custom pac man themed)
– Control panel (again pac man themed, not authentic)

It’s also an opportunity to do things a little different this time by addressing some of the issues I encountered last time.

After that was decided, I went through my Galaga plans, and mapped out a purchase list along with a plan. Given I’m on limited funds at the moment, the plan will help get the parts purchased in a good order to keep me working on it and not held up.

First purchase was the wonderboy board:

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I decided to keep an eye on eBay for any decent PC monitors that would go well with the new cabinet. After using a 21″ in the last project, I was happy to go with a 19″ this time. The 21″ screens are much harder to come by, so replacing them is tougher. Last week, a monitor came up that I thought would suit this project well. It’s a black Dell 19″ monitor. Being black is a big bonus as I will not need to spray (or use contact) to turn it black. A $5 purchase from eBay – Five times more than my last two monitors for the last project 🙂