08162: skydest: Up and Down joystick inputs are reversed

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
08162	DIP/Input	Trivial	Always	Dec 22, 2021, 10:42	Dec 22, 2021, 20:49

Tester	jkburks	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To	Steve Coomber	Resolution	Fixed	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Resolved			Driver	taito/cyclemb.cpp
Version	0.238	Fixed in Version	0.239	Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit	b25d44b	Github Pull Request #	#9028

Summary	08162: skydest: Up and Down joystick inputs are reversed
Description	The control lever diagram on a surviving instruction card confirms that the up & down inputs in MAME are reversed.
Steps To Reproduce
Additional Information	It was brought up in the recent MameHaze live stream that the vertical joystick controls in Sky Destroyer might be reversed. I will upload a photo of the instruction card that confirms this to be true. The joystick diagram reads: 上昇 (ascending) 下降 (descending) This is the same control layout shown in the Famicom manual: https://archive.org/details/sky-destroyer-famicom-manual-only/page/n3/mode/2up The instruction card photo is partial and obscured by the collector. This person claims (in the twitter source) that the instruction card is from a location test. Several sources, including Moby Games, and the English + Japanese Wikipedia articles list May 1985 as the release date for Sky Destroyer. Unfortunately none of these pages cite a source for this information. The Famicom release is confirmed as November 14, 1985. It is notable that Taito's arcade advertisements for 1985 do not contain Sky Destroyer. No sales flyer appears to be available, and it did not get a formal submission to Game Machine as a new title. The game does not appear on the list of titles shown in the Taito booth at the October 1985 Amusement Machine Show in Tokyo. It is possible that Sky Destroyer received a limited release in Taito owned game centers during 1985, but confirmation is lacking. We do know that Sky Destroyer got a wide arcade release in late 1985 because the title appears in Game Machine’s Best Hit Games 25 list. This is an earnings and popularity survey of about a dozen or more participating arcades. These range from small independent shops to large corporate owned locations (Sega, Taito etc.) The data set is very small, but still useful. Sky Destroyer Dec. 15, 1985. 3rd place debut Jan. 01, 1986 7th place Jan. 15, 1986 23rd place Feb. 01, 1986 16th place Feb. 15, 1986 22nd place Mar. 01, 1986 11th place Mar. 15, 1986 17th place Apr. 01, 1986 14th place Sky Destroyer fell off the chart by mid April. These numbers would suggest that the game had a four month run with decent earnings, and that the timeframe coincides with the home release on the Famicom. The confirmed dates suggest that the arcade version may not have been released until a month after the Famicom cartridge...
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	skydest

Attached Files	sky_destroyer_card.jpg (337,229 bytes) Dec 22, 2021, 10:42 Uploaded by jkburks Sky Destroyer Instruction Card

No.19585 Steve Coomber Tester Dec 22, 2021, 18:02 edited on: Dec 22, 2021, 18:31	Thanks for the information. I just spotted another issue. If the cabinet is selected to 'upright' instead of 'cocktail', the display is shown upside down. Note that the 'flip screen' DIP switch does not correct this.