SpecialEffect at REPLAY 2011

Replay was an exhausting ear-blistering pleasure. It was a privilege to run the SpecialEffect stand populated mostly with games using simplified control methods mostly from my personal geek-a-tronic stash. So what did we have?




1. A dance mat game using alternative controllers. These included single-switch play and a "pogo-dance-mat". In the end,  Dancing Stage Fever on a standard TV just couldn't compete with DDR:UK's real coin-op dance machines positioned opposite, so the slightly shoddy Gottlieb Pinball and very brilliant Destruction Derby took the slack.


2. A one-point or one-press to play game. Shenmue Duck races raised some grins. I guess not everyone was expecting bow-tie wearing ducks. We played so that if you got a top three place, you won a prize. Including 1989 Nintendo bubble-gum. Tasty. That got swapped at times with Tekken 6 that got bashed within an inch of its life. Amazing how tough those accessibility switches are. Thought the table would collapse at one stage.


3. Atari Ms.Pac-Man played against a single ghost (there's normally four coming after you) using a one-handed ASCII Grip controller. Other times I ran Cookie Monster Munch using the Kids Controller. Googly. Star Trigon got an outing here too.

4. Vectrex Minestorm. Quite a few people were left very confused by this. I had a single switch on a Flexi mount. Some people thought the Flexi was a joystick and were wiggling it about.  Others thought the switch was a steering wheel. Later I put a switch on a Trabasack. Some people started to wiggle the Trabasack thinking it was some kind of motion sensitive controller. Nope. It's a one-switch game. Just play!


5. Pure one-switch games: Fotonica and Space Invaders. Both went down pretty well. People found Space Invaders very hard with just one-switch, so after a while I turned off the Space Invaders shooting at you. Wished I'd had the bass thump in effect, but it was loud enough there I guess. Ears took a few days to return to normal.


6. The un-game "Doodle-City" in Atari's I, Robot. This was to show off a free-play and no pressure area of a game. Atari did it first here with their art-toy. When this wasn't running, Uo Poko was up showing off a super-colourful multi-player one-switch playable game.


Most popular of our games was Tekken 6 for sure. And no red-ring of death for the Xbox nor melted Vectrex I was happy to see. On the stand I met some great people, such as the two Andy's from Ovine of Whacka Monty fame, Nintendisco and Mark of the inspirational Games Britannia. I was also chuffed to bits with the inclusion of "A Brief History of Accessible Gaming" in the Replay magazine available at the show.


Away from the SpecialEffect stand, tireless volunteer James Harkness beavered away getting a hugely enjoyable after-show party sorted with proceeds going to SpecialEffect and GamesAid.


And self-indulgently, I loved Blackpool's five miles of illuminations and was plenty impressed by the tower. Games I most enjoyed playing were mentalist Bishi Bashi Special, laser-disk Astron Belt and Badlands (one-switch), Pole Position whilst throwing bugs and glitches at me and the brilliant range of pinball machines. So huge thanks to the organisers Dave, Matt and Gordon and all others that supported us at Replay. Nice one.
 

One Press Games

At this years REPLAY stand, I wanted to show off a fun one-press game. I've played such games before, like the one-press version of Frogger, which to be honest is not huge fun. The mini-game of duck racing in Shenmue, although pure luck, is fun.

A single press of a single switch rolls an adapted electronic die. The number that appears is the duck that is selected by an assistant taking charge of the extra controls and the race started (with a second press if desired). People had a lot of fun with it. There aren't enough bow-tie racing ducks in the world I decided.

Tekken 6

Just time for a last little bit of info on the SpecialEffect stand at REPLAY will be that Tekken 6 will be on show for one-switch or two-switch play. Brilliant thing about Tekken 6 is the practice areas, difficulty adjustment and the fact that two-player games can be set-up with just one or two buttons.

One-Switch Pinball

Won't deny it, I'm really looking forward to playing on some of the 50+ pinball machines up for play at REPLAY this weekend. I wasn't planning on running a pinball rig on the SpecialEffect stand, but I can for anyone who asks if they really want to, thanks to our new 4 into 1 box. 

It works with a switch used to activate both flippers and the plunger all in one, and should work on the vast majority of console pinball games. For much more on accessible pinball click on one of the pictures above.

Destruction Derby (1995) and Simple Joystick

I've been singing the praises of Destruction Derby for many years for its accessible design. It's huge fun, and is one of the easiest driving games to get around a track. If you jam the accellerator on the oval tracks, you can get around with a single switch for steering left or right. It's a PSone/PS2 compatible game, but can be found on PSN for the PS3 and a few other platforms.

Partially related to this, I recently built a simple joystick interface for modern games consoles for SpecialEffect. Pictured above is an Atari compatible Competition Pro joystick velcroed to a Maxess board, patched into a C-SID interface. This allows you to map up to five controls of your choice to the joystick. Ideal for many driving games. The plan is to have all of this available to play at REPLAY.

Alternative Dance Dance Revolution

On the back of my daughter's love of Dance Dance Revolution machines, Hand Dance Pro and with SpecialEffect's support, I recently built a one-switch interface for DDR games.

Konami dance games allow you to use a standard joypad controller, which enables all sorts of accessibility hacks. The little interface box pictured below (front middle) allows you to patch one-switch to up to four dance moves. Just for fun, I attached a single floor-mat switch. With that you can just jump up and down on the spot to play the game. I did look daft doing this to Cameo's Word Up. Probably better suited to the Skinhead Moonstomp and the Pogo.

More great things about Konami's Playstation DDR games (aka DancingStage) include a range of high-contrast options, easier play options and the facility to play a song through in its entirety so you simply play for a high-score. You can also edit your own dance routines so you can slow things down significantly.

Of interest, Codemasters produced a PS2 game called Dance Factory has the facility to build dance routines from your own music CDs and will work in game-play with a single switch too.

Space Invaders (1978)

The oldest game on the Replay SpecialEffect stand is planned to be the legendary Taito Space Invaders. This version will be made one-switch accessible, including putting in the money, selecting a one-player game and playing.


The game will only work in this way by using an old version of MAME (v0.92), the 4Noah utility and MAME cheats (v0.81). You need to own the Space Invaders PCB too to play this legally. I did contemplate bringing my cocktail Space Invaders, but I don't think my Car's suspension could cope. Here's an idea of how it will play.
 

1982 Vectrex Minestorm One-switch Style

The second oldest game making its way to the SpecialEffect stand at REPLAY will be Minestorm for the MB Vectrex, dating from 1982. This mighty-fine vector-scan game has been adapted to be played with a single switch: Hyperspace.

The game sees your small space-ship dropped into a mine-field that you must clear. Your ship spins and fires constantly. If you feel that you are about to be hit by a floating mine, press your switch to quickly hyperspace to another random point. Later levels see you having to contend with magnetic and fireball loaded mines.


For tech-heads, this set-up uses an adapted arcade stick, a rapid-fire module hacked from an old Atari VCS joystick patched into the stick, two shorting connectors to latch on rotate right and fire, an Able-Net "Big-Red" accessibility switch and a Trabasack. Fingers crossed my near 30 year old machine survives two days of use.
 

Atari Sesame Street Revolution (1983)

Thought I'd post this up in the light of the new excellent looking Kinect Sesame Street game. Back in 1983 Atari launched a small range of educational games for use with their specialised "Kids Controller" aimed at three to seven year olds.

How mixing two of the best things from North America (Atari and Sesame Street) wasn't more of a success, I'll never know.

As far as I know, the Kids Controller was the first commercially available games controller designed with extra accessibility in mind. Can't decide on Cookie Monster or Big Bird at the moment, but one if not both will be available to play at the Replay Expo 2011. 

REPLAY 2011 accessible gaming

"Play accessible retro games at the Blackpool REPLAY EXPO 2011 SpecialEffect stand this November the 5th and 6th.

From Atari to Xbox 360, there will be all manner of weird and wonderful games to play, including: Duck racing, banger racing, dream-like running games, boxing kangaroos, an un-game, one-switch dance mat games and more. Play just for fun, or take on our mini-challenges to win retro sweets.

Find out more at SpecialEffect.org.uk, GameBase.info or e-mail barrie@specialeffect.org.uk. Tickets are available to buy on-line from replayexpo.com.

With thanks to OneSwitch.org.uk, Trabasack and Retro-GameShop.nl for loaned or donated equipment [to] SpecialEffect - Registered Charity No. 1121004".

Download: Black Flyer or the White Flyer.