Arcadia 2001 Controller Overlays (complete?)

[+pboland]

I had a customer ask if I made overlays for this console. At the time he asked I did not. However he really wanted them so I decide to go for it. I went down a deep hole trying to find all the USA release titles for the console and which titles had overlays and which didn't. That took a heck of a lot more time than I thought it would. While doing this I realized there was no complete (at least that I could find) pictures of all the different USA release title overlays. From what I could find there where 22 officially released titles for the Arcadia 2001 console:

 

- 3D Bowling
- Alien Invaders (no overlays)
- American Football
- Baseball
- Brain Quiz
- Breakaway
- Capture
- Cat Trax
- Escape
- Grand Slam Tennis
- Jungler
- Missile War
- Ocean Battle
- Red Clash
- Soccer
- Space Attack
- Space Mission
- Space Vultures
- Space Raiders
- Spiders
- Star Chess
- Tanks A Lot

 

Of these 22 titles the only game not to come with controller overlays was "Alien Invaders" (at least as far as I can tell). Of all of these titles I could not find a complete picture of two of the controller overlays; "3D Bowling" & "Breakaway". I did find info on the keypad functions of these two games and from that I decide to make overlays for them. I know "3D Bowling" came with overlays (as I have a partial picture of them. The top half), but I don't know for sure if "Breakaway" came with overlays. I assumed it did because of the keypad functions within the game. With this information I made overlays for these two titles but I'm not 100% sure how close they are to the originals (or if "Breakaway" even had them). If this is not the complete list of USA releases please let me know.

 

Of the 22 different titles for the console there are actually 33 different overlays for these titles. This is because there was two different overlays for many titles (left & right controller overlays). Also, the original controller overlays were embossed over each keypad button. I'm unable to emboss my overlays so, I decide to print fake embossing marks on the overlays themselves. On a side note: If you are interested in purchasing these overlays just PM me.

 

My main reason for posting this here is to make sure I got all the USA released titles and proof of overlays for those titles. I was hoping you guys could let me know if I'm missing any and maybe a pic of the overlays that I'm lacking or made incorrectly. Thanks!

[CrashTestMonkey]

I'm the guy who asked for these and I want to say he did a great job. The set is awesome, and I truly appreciate the work @pboland put into them. If you're looking to get Arcadia 2001 overlays I can't recommend these enough. Thanks again!!

[Minuous]

There are overlays for 3D Bowling in the Overlays Pack at EA2001 Central.

[+pboland]

11 hours ago, Minuous said:

There are overlays for 3D Bowling in the Overlays Pack at EA2001 Central.

I took me a while but I found the file on your (I assume its yours) site. Thanks for the information.

In the future it might be best to include a link. I had to do a search for "Overlays Pack at EA2001 Central".

For those interested here is the link to the site: http://amigan.yatho.com/ that Minuous suggested.

 

I think I'll keep my bowling the way it is. The original looks very bland (of course most of the Arcadia overlays are bland).

 

Is 3D Attack a USA released title? I had a hard time confirming this.

 

@MinuousOn a side note: Your site is pretty cool but, you might want to consider a site redesign. The site is quite hard to use and understand.

It's not very obvious to people (at least to me) what all the icons mean and what exactly I'm looking at. Just a suggestion. Again, thanks.

 

 

[Tempest]

Are you selling these overlay sets?

[Minuous]

4 hours ago, pboland said:

Is 3D Attack a USA released title? I had a hard time confirming this.

 

@MinuousOn a side note: Your site is pretty cool but, you might want to consider a site redesign. The site is quite hard to use and understand.

It's not very obvious to people (at least to me) what all the icons mean and what exactly I'm looking at. Just a suggestion. Again, thanks.

I have no evidence that 3D Attack was ever released for the Arcadia, so no.

 

As for the site design, there's about a dozen different major Signetics 2650-based platforms covered there (not counting variants within each platform) and several gigabytes. The icons are explained at the bottom of the page. If you have any concrete suggestions about how it could be organized differently I'm happy to consider them.

 

That Grand Slam Tennis overlay is interesting, I had not seen one for that game before. The "player colour" button doesn't seem to do anything, the other buttons appear to be rather subtle in their effects too. I will have to have another try at finding a manual for this game.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Minuous

[+pboland]

15 hours ago, Tempest said:

Are you selling these overlay sets?

This topic isn't really a "for sale" thread, but if you are interested just PM me.

 

In this topic I was trying to make sure I have the complete USA collection correct. That's why I have no pricing listed. So far it looks as if what I have is correct.

 

I'm hopping to put up an official "for sale" thread this week in the Buy, Sell, and Trade section of the forum. I'll link to it from here once it's posted.

[Tempest]

Have you looked into the non-US releases?

 

No 3D Attack was not released in the US.  Actually it was barely released at all.  I think it came out for only one of the clone systems which is why it hadn't bee archived until recently.

[+pboland]

3 hours ago, Tempest said:

Have you looked into the non-US releases?

Yes. I went down a deep hole trying to find all the USA release titles for the console and one inevitably finds all the releases doing this. It became hard to tell which ones came out where. When deciding to make overlays for a system I have to start somewhere and I tend to start with USA releases since that's where I'm located. I would consider adding the other titles if there is a demand for those overlays. For now this is it.

 

3 hours ago, Tempest said:

No 3D Attack was not released in the US.  Actually it was barely released at all.  I think it came out for only one of the clone systems which is why it hadn't bee archived until recently.

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I was not aware that it had only been know recently.

[+pboland]

On 11/5/2023 at 12:12 AM, Minuous said:

As for the site design, there's about a dozen different major Signetics 2650-based platforms covered there (not counting variants within each platform) and several gigabytes. The icons are explained at the bottom of the page. If you have any concrete suggestions about how it could be organized differently I'm happy to consider them.

I understand why you have it set up the way you do, because of the amount of info you have. Without doing a major site redesign I would suggest having the icon key, not only at the bottom of the page, but possibly at the top as well. It's a very long page (and that's coming from someone looking at it via a desktop computer) and most are not going to open a second window/tab to reference the icon key (which is a must because of the way your site is set-up). One other thing you might consider is maybe when someone clicks on an icon key to have that pop up as a small separate window so it can be referenced while scrolling down your page (of course this is only helpful for those on desktop computers). Those would be the simplest suggestions that I think would have the biggest impact.

[+pboland]

These overlays are officially for sale and here's the link: