1. Jason Carr Avatar Jason Carr
  2. Untitled project
  3. LaunchBox
  4. Issues

Big Box screen saver "Attract Mode"

Issue #342 resolved
Robert Dziedzic created an issue

I love Big Box mode, but there is one MA feature I would love to see. MA has a screensaver mode that would launch a game after inactivity and then switch to another after specified time. You can even pick a filter for it to choose from.

Here is a screenshot of it.

max_screen_save.jpg

Original topic: Big Box Screen Saver

Comments (30)

  2. Jason Carr repo owner

    Thanks Robert, great idea. Do you think it would work well to use the game videos instead of launching the games?

  4. Robert Dziedzic reporter

    The only problem with using the videos is if they want to play the game then they have to end the video, find the game, start it, wait for it to load, then play. If it already launched the game then you just hit the coin button and start.

  5. Eisa AlAwadhi

    In my point of view using the game videos as a screen saver is way better and far more creative.

    Rather than having to close the game just pressing any button would close the screen saver and I'd be able to jump right ahead to the game I really want to play

    And a disadvantage to launching games as a screen saver if it launched a steam game then my gameplay hours would increase without me playing the game and I'm very picky with my gameplay hours :P And also the game might be GPU intensive so feels a waste to use my computer power without actual use.

    I hope that everyone agrees though that video is better, though if there is a mix in opinions and it doesn't take a lot of time to make then a screen saver option would make both sides happy ^ ^

  6. Robert Dziedzic reporter

    The whole idea is to emulate an arcade machines Attract Mode.

    Attract Mode Also known as display mode or show mode, attract mode is a pre-recorded demonstration of a video game that is displayed when the game is not being played.[7] Originally built into arcade games, the main purpose of the attract mode is to entice passers-by to play the game.[7] It usually displays the game's title screen, the game's story (if it has one), its high score list, sweepstakes (on some games) and the message "Game Over" or "Insert Coin" over or in addition to a computer-controlled demonstration of gameplay.

    With a screensaver you see Pac Man come up and you think, Cool i'm going to play that! So you push a button and now you are at a menu of 1400 games. It's just not as elegant.

    I would take a screensaver over nothing, but the other way is more authentic. I'm also not using steam on my cabinets so that is a non issue from my perspective.

  7. CriticalCid

    Maybe a good compromise would be that if you press enter or a similar ‘okay’ button while you watch a video in screensaver mode it would start the game so you wouldn’t see any BigMox menus. I would also suggest to be able to modify the sound of the screensaver, so that the videos would be automatically muted or (what I really would LOVE to see) it plays random music in the background and the videos work as a kind of random music video.

    Another idea would be that you can choose in the attract mode settings which platforms you want to be included in the attract mode. So you could easily exclude PC games and other non-arcade systems and it would only start games from platforms you want.

  8. Jason Carr repo owner

    Yeah, I can see both options being good for different scenarios. If you're playing MAME games, then obviously the attract mode concept is ideal. Otherwise, videos would probably be better. We definitely don't want to automatically load up PC games, of course.

  10. JB

    I too would like this but I favor the HyperSpin way of doing this, where after a certain amount of time, a random game/system is landed on, then after so many seconds, another random game/system is landed on. I don't want it to launch anything.

  11. Nathan DiYorio

    Yeah, I think the best way to handle a thing like this, since LaunchBox covers a whole lot of territory, is to just randomly play videos. Preferably with an option to have them play on mute. Maybe it could keep track of the game associated with the video it's playing, so when a user hops on because something caught their eye, Big Box could be loaded right into that game's menu page.

  13. William Jones

    Another consideration is that attract modes usually have the sound effects of the game, but no music (sometimes vice versa). For authentic attract modes, wouldn't it be best to get videos of the actual attract modes for the arcade games and use those?

  14. Stephen Sayles

    I would like a screen saver similar to hyperspin, randomly pick a game in whatever wheel you are in. This should be simple to implement and move on when devs have more time. More options the better, but having a simple one will work until an upgrade can get written. Love this Frontend, thanks (I think I bought 2 lifetimes by acident, but have not problem supporting a great product with lots of potential.

  15. Cory Jones

    Actually launching each game for this purpose and switching every 30 seconds or so is a terrible idea when you take into consideration that LB isn't just for arcade games. I really really really don't need my computer constantly launching and closing PCSX2, 4DO, CCS64, DosBox, and others every 30 seconds; and this is ignoring the point that nearly everything other than arcade games isn't going to show much, if anything, visually during that period - things like C64 very frequently have intro screens that you have to get through; on PSX you might just make it through the publisher and developer intro videos before it switched to something else... this is the whole reason we have video snaps. The only thing it needs to do is cycle through random video snaps (and include volume/mute settings) and when you press a specific input while it's playing you can either launch it directly or jump to that game entry; you could make those separate functions that could be individually mapped to a key/button or make it come up with a prompt "A: Play Game B: Jump To Game C: Exit" or both.

  18. progets

    This is a good idea. The Attract-Mode frontend does this well. When you interrupt the "screen saver/attract mode" you are sent to the game that it was last showing so you can just launch it. It also shows the "attract mode" of the system you are currently in so it highlights that specific system.

  20. Dale Hitchcock

    I was just thinking of Random Videos being played but this would make a lot more sense. I really would love to see this added. My #1 request... my arcade looks sad just sitting there silent on the main menu

  22. ArjanNL

    I like the Hyperspin type of Attract Mode as well. Although it would be really great to add the game to let's say favorites with the push of a button/key so you can check it out later!

  24. Layby

    Great start on the attract mode Jason, I'd like to suggest some additional options;

    • Scroll Speed; the speed the wheel spins etc
    • Filter platforms; Enable/disable/exclude the platforms that are used in attract mode
  25. DJQuad

    I agree! attract mode is awesome. Some additional options I'd love to see, which basically rely on media we already have -

    • The option for no sound
    • The option to randomly play the mp4 media (in X:\LaunchBox\Videos[System])
    • The option for basically just playing mp4s of our choosing
  26. Jason Carr repo owner

    Thank you all; I'm going to mark this ticket as resolved for now. Please put in new tickets for any additional features that you'd like to see.

  28. Layby

    Hi Jason,

    Is it possible to adjust the attract mode functionality so that it doesn't demo the same game twice for a period of time? For example, I have the platform windows which has only one game, when the attract mode kicks in, it just demos the same game over and over until it decides to switch platforms.

    Cheers.

  31. Log in to comment
Assignee
Type
enhancement
Priority
major
Status
resolved
Votes
44
Watchers
45
Jira: the preferred issue tracker for Bitbucket. Join the team!