A very big thanks to humblepig for helping me acquire this one. Without his help, this project would not have been possible.
I'll be honest, I've always had a soft spot for War of the Bugs, and I don't know why. They rarely show up, and the most you can usually find is just a marquee. War of the Bugs is simply a conversion of Galaxian-based video games. This means 95% of conversions are Galaxian machines, and this one is no exception. The kit operators recieved were the ROMs, a marquee, and instructions on how to install the ROMs (I would hope).
This machine was listed near Akron OH, which is a good day's trip for me both ways. At the time it was listed, there was no real way I could have gotten it myself, and I assumed that I wasn't going to be it's owner. However, a friend I know who does live close by was nearby where it was listed and he agreed to help me secure it for awhile, which is totally awesome. Unbelieveable stroke of luck if I've ever heard of it.
This is how it was found when it was picked up.
This has got to be one of the nicest Galaxian cabinets I've ever seen, if I'm being honest. There are some scratches on the sides, the black paint used by the operator is bible paper thin (just like the original Galaxian artwork), and it surrounds the whole cabinet. I'm not really a fan of the whole "paint your conversion black" kinda thing I always see, but.. I feel like I could work with this. The Willis Galaga control panel overlay is an interesting addition, I'm not sure why that was done.
I made the trek up to my friend's and picked up the game and brought it home. First things first are to check the fuseclips and edge connector. Check everything really. Midway games are pretty well known for having cheap parts. The fuseclips were actually pretty tight... and clean. The power switch was bypassed with a wirenut, which was whatever. I gave the edge connector a cleaning. The monitor was surprisingly a G07, which I did not expect. I figured the blue t-molding cabinets were the early ones. I unplugged the game board and tested everything else, and the monitor fired up along with the incandescents in the marquee area. That's rare, they're usually replaced with LED bulbs or blown out. The fuses were all good to go, and the power supply on the board was also working. I plugged the board in, and to my surprise- it just worked. No issues whatsoever. I don't know if by reseating the fuses I fixed the issue, but everything fired up no problem. I know I'll have to look into putting new capacitors on the G07, but it's crisp, bright, and honestly unexpectedly nice for being all original.
There were some loose ends I needed to tie up. One- the ground lug is severed. That's no fun. Two- the 8-way joystick (this game uses the Service and Test switches for Up and Down, along with an 8-way WICO joystick) cannot move in certain diagonal directions as the stick itself does not have enough clearance between the circular hole the operator cut for it. Also, I kind of want to modify the ROM data. I don't like the stock graphics at all. They kind of suck, except for the "caterpillar" graphics. Speaking of graphics, the original Galaxian bezel is here. I have a bare Galaxian control panel, and a piece of glass that was a Pac-Man bezel, until the paint flaked off. I think I'm going to give this whole machine a new set of artwork entirely.
I typically either stencil or print to paper, as I don't have any real connections to get professional printing done. I wanted to give the bezel the same vibes to that of the original Galaxian. My forte is space backgrounds, so doing whatever this theme is, is totally outside of my wheelhouse, but I can sure try. After spending two days working on it, I outdid my expectations.
You may notice my "painting probe" in the first image. It's literally an oscilloscope probe. It's hilarious, isn't it. Well anyway, I did put a little bit of spacey space art in there, but uh you know how it is. I'm surprised the spider turned out as well as it did. Totally improvised, and the first time I ever tried that. The mushrooms kinda suck, but whenever I start to think that, I just go look at the marquee for Free Kick and wow hey- they don't look so bad after all.
Alright, it's control panel time. So, I have a random spare Galaxian control panel. Bare metal. I sanded it down with fine sandpaper and punched a hole out for the 8-way joystick. I used the inner diameter of electrical tape for the sizing. Turned out to be perfect. Who would have thought. I punched the hole out, and rattlecanned on some black semi-gloss. Turned out great. I'm keeping to the theme of simple colors for this whole cabinet. That means black base color, white graphics. Again. Everywhere. Yay, simplicity. I made a quick font using semi circles (kind of) to get a similar font to Bauhaus, but it's kinda my own thing. I used it for the text of the controls. I also added a graphic for the fire button, and a real wacky one with a similar approach with the semi-circles thing for the "manuver" graphic. Yes, I did misspell that. It was only after I applied the stencil, sprayed on the graphics layer, dried it, used Goo Gone to dampen the utmost top layer to add a worn effect, that I realized I had spelled it wrong. I got roasted hard over that one. The game also misspells that word in-game, so who knows. Maybe it's prophetic or something. Personally, I'm willing to put money down on the fact that "maneuver" was misspelled over a million times in 1981, so this looks and feels more authentic.
After I finished the control panel, I reattached the joystick, adjusted the switches, and set it all back up to test it. I had to readjust the switches a couple more times to get the controls just right. The joystick doesn't even feel like it's broken in yet, so I wonder if this machine really got much use at all. Again, this machine is super clean, which is kinda crazy. Crazy for any all-original machine at all anymore.
Other than the game code itself, there's one more thing I need to do to the cosmetics of this cabinet to make it complete. It's side art time. Same way as the control panel- stenciling. That's my favorite. Honestly, this one was pretty easy with one color. I scanned the marquee and vectorized the logo, and resized it to make it work. Simple as that. Took maybe an hour to do that and get a stencil cut out for it. By this point, the temperture had dropped to approx. 10 degrees, which means it's maybe 35-40 degrees in the garage.. not the most optimal for spraypainting. But, I don't care, so we're doing it anyway. The results? I think we have a winner.
There are scratches in the side art, but as far as patina goes, I think it makes the grade. A few of the deeper scratches (which I tried to cover up by strategically placing where I wanted the stencil) actually show up through the stenciled graphics in a way, making them look even more legitimate. I really couldn't be happier with the result.
The original version of War of the Bugs, the one that's in MAME is... it's unfinished. It sucks. Collision detection is half baked (literally), there are egregious scoring errors. They try to make up for the scoring errors by setting the bonus ship to 500,000/750,000 points. On top of other things. It feels like Catacomb Centipede Edition. Now, you could argue I'm somewhat skilled in a few things. Coding is not one of them. Assembly is not one of them. I've done a couple of things here and there, but nothing insane.
Luckily, and I had no idea this existed- the game code I dumped is vastly different from what is within the MAME dumps. The scoring errors are fixed, there's music, the mushroom tally bug is fixed, among other patches. It turns a half-baked demo into a finished product. But.. these graphics still suck. Look, I gotta change these.
Yes, Compost is the actual "licensee" of this game. Armenia Ltd actually produced it in Europe, but somehow it found it's way to the States somehow. Whoever found it fixed it, and I fixed it moreso. I had a little fun with the "Compost Logo", I mean who names your company "Compost" with a straight face? That's some dumb shit I would pull, and there's the logo for it. Dahoyey. I will be posting my version of the graphics ROMs here shortly. Super cool project I didn't expect to get that turned out better than I had ever anticipated. It quickly became one of my favorite machines. Now if only I could find a Glob to put next to it..