GameEx Theme - Valhalla
By LaughingMan
(fka Firebrand, aka M. D. Colyer)
Download Valhalla Theme for GameEx
Theme Previews
Ryu - Street Fighter II - MAME Arcade Emulator
Valhalla - Where Legends Live Forever
Yeah, it's a little too dramatic... but the name did come from Viking mythology where heroes and warriors lived on and battled forever, so it has a charm to it.
I'm still not sure what possessed me to make an entire theme for the GameEx Emulator front-end, but I am still shocked by the incredibly positive feedback and praise this theme has generated throughout the video game Emulation and ROM community. The entire project was very fun to do. I kept this one very simple; a 'universe' background I found on the web, some colored boxes, high-res images of game characters and game systems, and finally the font from Legend of Zelda to give it a little style. I also created the media bar from scratch, which I'm especially proud of.
I honestly just wanted to see a really cool, very colorful theme that entailed every emulated game system, and have an iconic game character or game to represent each system. Now, to be fair, that was not a new concept. GameEx has a long standing history of themes that do exactly that, and I like a lot of them; however, I wanted to do something that was entirely based on my tastes. So, I started out with the easy stuff: Mario for Nintendo; Link for Super Nintendo; Samus for GameBoy Advance; Pikachu for GameBoy; Sonic for Genesis; Ryu for Arcade/MAME; Sepheroth (Final Fantasy VII) for Sony Playstation; etc. Everything was fine and dandy, until I got into the older, more obscure systems (in the US anyways) that really never had a system-defining 'mascot', then I started pulling out my hair. Try finding the 'iconic' game for the Commodore 64, it's a nightmare.
Anyways, Valhalla was met with a great deal of applause and high praise, and GameEx users have made it one of the most popular GameEx themes.
Theme supports the following resolutions:
- 1024x768
- 800x600
- 640x480 not currently supported. Will add if I get enough requests to do so.
The systems currently supported:
- 3DO
- Amstrad CPC
- Arcade (MAME)
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Atari Jaguar
- Atari Lynx
- Commodore 64
- Daphne
- DOS
- Intellivision
- Microsoft XBox
- NeoGeo
- NeoGeo Pocket
- Nintendo 64
- Nintendo DS
- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
- Nintendo Gameboy
- Nintendo Gameboy Advance
- Nintendo GameCube
- Nintendo, Super Nintendo
- Nintendo Virtua Boy
- Sega 32x
- Sega CD
- Sega Dreamcast
- Sega Game Gear
- Sega Genesis
- Sega Master System
- Sega Saturn
- Sony Playstation
- Sony Playstation 2
- Sony Playstation Portable (PSP)
- TurboGrafx
I will add more video game systems if I get good ideas from others, and your participation will be credited.
Anyways, I hope you give GameEx a try if you’re into Roms and emulation, and that you also download Valhalla.
Special Thanks to:
- Night and Katuuuz for their ideas and for the materials for the DaphneBAK.png
- Thanks to Night for both hosting Valhalla on his GameEx themes site (http://themes.gameex.net), and for offering a great deal of creative suggestions and helpful comments.
- Amos_82 for the original 'M' LOGO icons + the horizontal and vertical icons: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1054
- Another thanks to Amos_82 for fixing the media bar and for the Valhalla 800x600 .ini file. Big kudos.
- Adultery for a great deal of the 'M' Logos: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1052 and also a special thanks for being inspired enough by my 'Adult Games' icons to create an AMAZING collection of icons, and also for giving me a few ideas of my own to tinker with. =)
- A big thanks to the GameEx forum crew for their constructive criticism, and more importantly, their overwhelming support for my themes.
- Lastly, a big thanks for Tom Spiers for his continuing work on GameEx
About GameEx:
"GameEx is a graphical DirectX based front-end for MAME, Zinc, Daphne, PC Games, and all command line based game emulators, along with being a good Home Theatre PC solution. It also makes a good CarPC and touchscreen frontend. The original goal was for it to be used on Windows XP Media Center and Arcade Cabinets although it will run on any version of Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista.
With a huge constantly growing userbase, many are pleasantly surprised on the stability and completeness of the 1000's of features, many unique, that make GameEx what it is."
Official Website
Leave a Comment
Ryan Couzens
12 Apr 2009, 13:33
Love love Valhalla, in fact, I\'m building two cabs around it. Tried to
make more custom pages, but I got no talent. If I tell u the text, would u
consider sending me addt\'l game pages (e.g., Amiga); I can add in
character. Thx RJC
CheshireCat
12 Apr 2009, 13:51
I'm always game for expanding Valhalla with systems it does not currently
have in it. If you have ideas, contact me through this website's CONTACT
link and I'll jump on it. Thanks!
Aston_Martin_Lover
19 Jun 2009, 03:19
best game ex theme hands down. how about a few backgrounds for pc and the
atari st? for the pc use an Alienware pc and Gordon Freeman from Halflife
and for the atari st use Jim Power
Benzaie posted a review of it and the game kicks ass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTMBhIdLx1c
katuuuz
13 Sep 2009, 21:32
What's up Firebrand? Long time no see. Valhalla has grown quite a bit
since you started. Looks great -- and thanks for the shout.
Ninja Rygar
01 Oct 2009, 10:07
Hi! Big fan of the Valhalla theme and was hoping to work on my own sometime
soon.
Before I do that though, I have a few ideas for a few of the backgrounds
you missed, and made a few (Colecovision, Game & Watch, MSX... etc) only
one problem...
They come out looking like crap because I only have the flattened images
that come with the theme. What I'm saying is, I can't really make any
nice backgrounds, because the background and title are already flattened
onto the image. This means mostly that I can't make anything that looks
nice, or even decent... and I don't even have photoshop let alone
experience with it (It's Paint.net for lazy shmucks like me)
So could you make the original images available somewhere? Maybe on your
site? Maybe offer the font as well?
Lawrence
25 Dec 2009, 17:08
I'd like to help with some more systems for Valhalla. I have "iconic"
images for several systems (Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, MSX, etc.) that are not
included. I'd love to see these other systems supported.
LaughingMan
01 Feb 2010, 16:45
Hi Lawrence,
If you join the forum on this website, we can easily exchange information.
Any work you help with will be greatly appreciated and also fully
credited!!
http://www.cheshirecatstudios.com/forum/ucp.php?mode=register
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