Defender Chipset (9 Viewers)

[fishandchips]

From looking at all the custom designs I like the ones with a theme, and when I think about possible themes only 1 springs to mind: Defender, the classic arcade game that has been a big part of my life for the last 10years.

This has only made the chip design process more complicated, because eg if I'm using the game sprites I would want to use all 8.

The cabinet colours are Red,Yellow,Black with a little bit of blue on the marquee, and then add white and green on the control panel.

I think I will be wanting a 4 chip cash set. Tina hybrids or fully printed.

I posted in my Defender group with the hope of finding customers for a group buy, but no interest so far.

 

[fishandchips]

I've been struggling to keep to Red Yellow Black, partly because I like the brightness of White and not sure about the black chip.

I've also been thinking to go more with traditional formula: Some words + an image + denomination
This is my first attempt at that formula, colors are matched to the sprite.

 

[Phoe9x]

It seems like a fun idea, looks like you’re using the Paulson chip creator. I’m assuming these would be made as ceramics? Maybe you can go the Tina blanks and do a full face design?

 

[fishandchips]

It seems like a fun idea, looks like you’re using the Paulson chip creator. I’m assuming these would be made as ceramics? Maybe you can go the Tina blanks and do a full face design?

Paulson chip creator is the first tool I found. And it is very easy to swap colours around.

The chips will be Tina Hybrids either Greek or Web mold, and I will be sticking with edge spot style design (at least that's the current idea).

I've just got hold of an Illustrator example file, so will be starting to use that for the design now, labels have been done in MSpaint so far

It would be handy if I could get hold of fake mold graphics for Greek to add to my illustrator file so I could visualise the chips better.

 

[fishandchips]

bigger sprites, brighter blue.

 

[fishandchips]

I just recently started thinking about what if my game moves up from 10p/10p. 10p/20p is OK with those denoms, but what next. I suppose 20p/50p, but if I add a 25p to my chipset then I could do 25p/25p. Now, we don't have a 25p piece and it's a bit American, but my players are all used to tourneys starting with 25 & 100 chips so not a problem, and I do like the simplicity of just 3 chips for a cash game.

So I designed for 2 spreads of chips 10p/50p/£1.00/£5.00 and 25p/£1.00/£5.00

And then because everyone here agrees that more chips are better, I might as well add the last 3 game sprites for completeness they will be either higher denoms or other chip types.

To be fair, I'm not 100% sold on the theme because there is no link to poker. But I like the look of them and I don't have a better idea and I've got an urge to get some custom hybrids.

 

[AlbinoDragon]

To be fair, I'm not 100% sold on the theme because there is no link to poker. But I like the look of them and I don't have a better idea and I've got an urge to get some custom hybrids.

I've made (and mocked-up) sets that have nothing to do with poker at all. They're your custom chips, do whatever makes you happy!

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/a-d-s-devils-nest-cpc-customs.78031/





** Defender was one of my three "go-to" games whenever I had scraped up enough allowance and chores quarters to visit the arcade. (Q*Bert and Dig-Dug were the other two). I very distinctly remember when my barely 8-year old self and my barely teenage uncle "rolled over" the score on Defender on my Atari 2600 in the basement living room of our house when he had come to visit. He did most of the work, but I was able to spell him off whenever he needed a break. I remember we were both getting quite cautious as the score was well over 990,000 points so neither of us would be the one to lose the last lives before the score went over"all nines"!.

I don't think we knew what would happen after that number, but we were equal parts impressed and underwhelmed when 999,999 became 0 and started all over again.

I should ask him if he remembers this at all or if it only stuck with me as a big event.


Still, Defender is one of my all-time favorite arcade games.)





In for a sample set if you make this set, please!

 

[fishandchips]

@AlbinoDragon , Did you ever roll it at the arcade? That is a bit more special due to the goldilocks bug.

I will continue with mockups for a bit. I'm not sure about the DEFENDER text, so I will mock up just sprite and denomination (with decent sprite graphics). I should have started out with a decent png of each but I didn't have that to hand.

 

[Taghkanic]

I must have logged 100 hours at the arcade on Defender (and Stargate) at the arcade in the early ’80s.

 

[AlbinoDragon]

@AlbinoDragon , Did you ever roll it at the arcade? That is a bit more special due to the goldilocks bug.

I will continue with mockups for a bit. I'm not sure about the DEFENDER text, so I will mock up just sprite and denomination (with decent sprite graphics). I should have started out with a decent png of each but I didn't have that to hand.

Never even got close at the arcade. (go ahead out of context folks... this one's all teed up for ya!)

I still think it was my uncle who did the bulk of the work when we rolled the score over on the 2600. I was good enough to keep up the momentum and not burn up our lives while he took breaks, but I doubt I was ever good enough to achieve that feat on my own.

 

[djmarc]

I think defender is great & the ultimate challenge in 'old school' arcade games with all the controls and action. My neighborhood had several of them with some amazing players. Personal best on one quarter- 3 flips, just over 4 hours and 4 million!

 

[djmarc]

Very interesting, we all knew about the 990,000 to 1 million bonus situation but I never heard the term Goldilocks bug or specifically knew you were 'advanced' the extra ships & smart bombs and had to repay them.

 

[Goldfish]

Great idea for a chip set! Love the Williams classics. My personal favorite was Robotron. I had one refurbished and still play today…….

 

[fishandchips]

I must have logged 100 hours at the arcade on Defender (and Stargate) at the arcade in the early ’80s.

Commendable, but I do know players who used to put in 20hrs a week, on a school week!

 

[fishandchips]

I think defender is great & the ultimate challenge in 'old school' arcade games with all the controls and action. My neighborhood had several of them with some amazing players. Personal best on one quarter- 3 flips, just over 4 hours and 4 million!

That's a good score! If you don't have a Defender arcade machine already, you should look into getting one. The old skills come back quickly, and there's nothing quite like re-gaining old skills.

 

[fishandchips]

Very interesting, we all knew about the 990,000 to 1 million bonus situation but I never heard the term Goldilocks bug or specifically knew you were 'advanced' the extra ships & smart bombs and had to repay them.

I don't know who coined the term and when, but it has stuck in the Defender community.

I forgot to mention the "SCREAM", which is when you smart bomb a group of pods while in goldilocks.

 

[fishandchips]

Great idea for a chip set! Love the Williams classics. My personal favorite was Robotron. I had one refurbished and still play today…….

My 2nd favourite game.

I missed it back in the 80's (limited arcades where I was) and only discovered it when I got back into Defender.

It deserves a chip set!

 

[Taghkanic]

Commendable, but I do know players who used to put in 20hrs a week, on a school week!

Oh, I’m sure… My parents didn’t let me spend that much time at arcades. I’d be lucky to get in 2-3 hours every couple weeks.

And after a year or two I moved on to Robotron

 

[djmarc]

Robotron is awesome too! I still play sometimes on my PC with MAME (using keyboard).

Defender can be primary cash set, Stargate secondary cash set and Robotron tournament set.

 

[Taghkanic]

Robotron is awesome too! I still play sometimes on my PC with MAME (using keyboard).

Defender can be primary cash set, Stargate secondary cash set and Robotron tournament set.

I also misspent a whole summer (living/working on an island) mastering standup Centipede in my free time at an “arcade” with like five games… Tougher than it looks like at first. Not as complex as Defender/Stargate though.

 

[fishandchips]

Nothing has changed much. I've decided 20.00 is the biggest denom I need, which might get used at the end of a tournament if I hold one. For my cash games a few 5.00s might come out later on.

I've got the inlays done in illustrator now, and I'm going to play around with them a bit. I have another 'font' to try for the denoms which is just the numbers used onscreen in the game.

As they are printed chips, the spot patterns can be anything I dream up, but I'm not feeling much need to change them from this. I maybe don't like the black chip, but I don't know why or what might be better.

Haven't decided if my cloth is going to be shades of grey or coloured sprites on black. Sprites on the racetrack or sprites in the middle or both. And they might be sparse and floating in space, or in a diamond speed cloth style pattern, or in a hexagon tiled pattern. Betline will be styled like the game terrain, maybe including mountains and humans walking it. Too many options.

 

[fishandchips]

Made my way into Illustrator now. Nothing is done properly (eg edges may be wrong way round, and not aligned) this is just the gash first put it together.

Black chip doesn't look great (I'm probably going for black suited speedcloth on the table). But I ran out of bright colours.