Emulation Demos
Retro experiences remastered for reliving another era!
Summary
Emulation Demos is a series of demonstrations that showcase various Nintendo GameCube titles being run at high fidelity settings within the Dolphin Emulator. These titles include Call of Duty 1 & 2, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (a rom hack of Super Monkey Ball 2), and Mario Kart Double Dash. Unlike the other two, the demonstration for Mario Kart Double Dash also includes a feature rich custom dashboard that was fitted for time trial matches and other online competitions. The sister project of the Super Monkey Ball Deluxe demonstration can be seen featured in Arcade Ascension which is more in line with the Mario Kart Double Dash project by scope. The goal of this project was to show these titles running on Dolphin Emulator with the most ideal configurations for each one. All of the components of this project can be viewed through the Emulation Demos YouTube Playlist where Arcmaevotix is home to the original versions and Nehrpsyznet is home to the remade versions.
Process
Production for this project largely involved the configuration of emulators and video encoding presets. While there was a degree of video editing required for the showcase of the Call of Duty titles and Super Monkey Ball 2 rom hack, neither of them were as creatively involved as the immersive dashboard for Mario Kart Double Dash was. It was less of a showcase of just the game and more of a showcase of the game in a virtual environment that meticulously emulated its aesthetics and visual language. The building of the layout took weeks of research and development as I studied texture work, pulled visual cues from other titles in the franchise, sequenced animations, and pulled the environment together piece by piece. After experiencing with several drafts, I finally settled on layout that would give the game screen plenty of real estate while also displaying both essential and ambient information. Having a dashboard that could display custom music being used and kart combos that were being raced with was amazing to witness and it felt like it was a part of the game itself.
Reflection
Emulation Demos was one of the more lightweight projects that I have developed with only heavy hitting component of it being the Mario Kart Double Dash digital dashboard. This project allowed me to breathe for a bit before tackling the mountain of web development work that I had before me and the PokeOne marathon that was set to follow soon thereafter. I had a lot of fun being able to assemble a more immersive digital dashboard that, again, lived as its own virtual environment in a similar vein to the Rockman Retro project which was made to capture the atmosphere and landscape that was presented in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. In some ways this brings a new dimension to layout design and broadcast design because no longer are you just trying to make a functional mirror for viewports, but you are building a virtual space with its own animated ecosystem.