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How to Play 4 Player Arcade Games on Pandora's Box

RetroRalph·video·14m 19s·analyzed·Jul 16, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

RetroRalph shows how to enable 4-player arcade games on Pandora's Key 7 using external USB controllers.

Summary

RetroRalph demonstrates how to play four-player arcade games on the Pandora's Key 7 emulation board by connecting two external USB controllers (Hyperkin GN6s) to enable Players 3 and 4 alongside the standard two-player control panel. The video covers setup, configuration via the board's test menu, and showcases four-player compatibility with games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, The Simpsons, and Sunset Riders.

Key Claims

  • Pandora's Key 7 board has four-player arcade game capability previously unknown to the presenter

    high confidence · Presenter states 'this is something unique' and 'I was unaware of' regarding the four-player capability, later expressing surprise: 'I didn't realize that this board did this'

  • Four-player setup requires only a powered USB hub and two external controllers connected to the board

    high confidence · Presenter demonstrates and explains: 'We have just the two controllers...It's pretty much that simple'

  • Configuration is done via USB Gamepad Mapping menu accessed through the test switch

    high confidence · Step-by-step walkthrough showing test switch access, navigation to 'USB Gamepad Port' set to P3/P4, then 'USB Gamepad Mapping' menu

  • Pandora's Key 7 includes pre-loaded four-player games: X-Men, Sunset Riders, Vendetta, TMNT (original and In Time), The Simpsons

    high confidence · Presenter lists and demonstrates multiple titles: 'You have X-Men, you have Sunset Riders, Vendetta is a four-player game...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both the original and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time. The Simpsons as well'

  • Hyperkin GN6s controllers cost approximately $10 and work with PC and Mac emulation

    high confidence · Presenter states: 'it's like $10 controller' and 'They work on PC and Mac so you can kind of move them over there if you use any kind of PC or Mac emulation'

Notable Quotes

  • “I've had this one for a while I've been sitting on called the Pandora's Key 7. And it has a unique capability that I was unaware of. It has the ability to play four-player arcade games.”

    RetroRalph (Jon Hey)@ 0:12 — Opening statement establishing the core discovery and topic of the video

  • “I didn't realize that this board did this, and I actually didn't think it would be this easy to set up.”

    RetroRalph (Jon Hey)@ 4:11 — Presenter's genuine surprise at the simplicity and capability, establishing credibility and excitement

  • “It's pretty much that simple.”

    RetroRalph (Jon Hey)@ 6:51 — Emphasizing the ease of physical setup with USB hub and controllers

  • “I would definitely put it in a two-player system and be able to have an option to have players three and four off to the side. I think it's really neat.”

    RetroRalph (Jon Hey)@ 11:38 — Practical recommendation for real-world arcade cabinet use cases

  • “The only thing I might have a hard time recommending is if you don't like the image being stretched, that's kind of par for the course with all these Pandora's boxes.”

    RetroRalph (Jon Hey)@ 12:11 — Identifying a limitation of the platform (16:9 aspect ratio stretching)

Entities

RetroRalphpersonJon HeypersonPandora's Key 7productHyperkin GN6sproductGame Room Solutions Level UpproductPandora's Games 3DproductTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesgameX-MengameThe SimpsonsgameSunset Ridersgame

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pandora's Key 7 board enables four-player arcade game support through simple USB controller expansion, presenting practical upgrade pathway for existing two-player arcade cabinets

    high · Full demonstration of setup, configuration, and gameplay across multiple four-player titles with working controllers on all player positions

  • ?

    technology_signal: Introduction of Pandora's Games 3D as next-generation emulation board with improved processor/memory and N64 support, representing hardware evolution in arcade emulation market

    medium · Presenter teases upcoming Pandora's Games 3D coverage, describes it as 'new kid on the block' with 'a lot more powerful processor, more memory' and N64 capability

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.043

0:00
Hey guys, welcome back. We're going to cover something a little unique and different on the channel today. So, I play with these Pandora's Boxes all the time. As a matter of fact, this is just a small bin of some of the Pandora's Box boards I've tested. But, I've had this one for a while I've been sitting on called the Pandora's Key 7. And it has a unique capability that I was unaware of. It has the ability to play four-player games. So, what does that mean? Like, what could I do with this thing? Well, I was kind of thinking you could put it in a two-player cab and have two other players with, you know, controllers on the side or potentially use this board in a four-player cab. Maybe. So let's kind of take a look at it and see what things you might be able to do. So hang out with me for a little while and let's go check this thing out.
0:55
Alright guys, we're going to waste no time, we're going to dive right into it. So the controllers I am using for this are the Hyperkin GN6s. I'll have a link in the description of this. So this is how I'm playing players 3 and 4. So let's kind of go into it and see how exactly is this working. To start, we've got a two player control panel. You can see if I lift this up real quick. No trickery, two player control panel. what I've got is these two Hyperkin controllers plugged into a USB hub on the back that I'll show you in a little bit. So if I were to press start on player one, it enters a coin. Player two enters a coin. Player three, player four. Now at this point, this game, you press any action button to start the game. So as you can see, the game starts up okay. We're only going to have that one player on screen at that moment, because how you started this game is you pressed an action button. So there's players three, player two, and player four. I'm going to show you that these guys all work. Jump, shoot, jump, shoot.
2:02
Vendetta
game
Hyperkincompany
Player three, jump, shoot, jump, shoot. Player one, jump, shoot. Player two, jump, shoot. So all of these work. You can see up, down, all the movements are working, moving the characters.
2:16
So this is just one game, right? This is a popular four-player game. What if I wanted to play other games? Like what other options does the Pandora's Key 7 have to me? So if I exit this out, we've also got a couple of other four-player games, and I kind of organized them to make it easy in this little section right here. So let's say we want to do TNG Ninja Turtles.
2:39
Player three, player four, same thing. Now, you only have to configure this one time, and then I would just leave it alone. I've been power cycling the machine a bunch just to make sure that the controls stay. But you can see, watch, I'll show you in a minute, these will all be on the screen no problem. So like I said, this is a game just like the other one where you need action buttons to enable your character.
3:12
So you guys can see that, all the players function. So, there's a couple more four player games on here. I'll show you that in a second. I'm gonna take the camera and put it a little bit closer real quick. Okay, so we're back on the main menu of the Pandora's Key 7. So I wanna show you some of the other games you can also play four player And these are all games that are already preloaded on the Pandora Key 7 I didn add any of these games So let do X We wait for X to boot up I want you guys to see This game boots really quick
3:40
Start, start, start, start. You got all four players. Obviously, you can pick the players that you want. But we'll just go with the ones that are here. And you'll see all four of them are here.
3:55
And you'll see all these joysticks can all function in the same way. and then I've got my other players as well.
4:07
All our special moves, everything. So this is really cool, guys. I didn't realize that this board did this, and I actually didn't think it would be this easy to set up. So I'm going to show you guys how you do this, but I was like, wow, this is really neat, because I'm kind of thinking about doing other, like maybe getting an arcade with a four-player control panel, and this may be an option for some. So I'm going to go back real quick. There's also a couple other four-player games, just so you know what you're going to get if you decided to do the Pandora's Key 7. You've got X-Men, you've got Sunset Riders, Vendetta is a four-player game. That one does work, too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both the original and Turtles in Time. The Simpsons as well, that's a popular one. I'll give this one a shot really quick, but I don't see why this one wouldn't work either. I don't think I tested this one beforehand.
4:53
Let's get it all started. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work since the rest of them do but let's just try it okay so we got Marge there let me press start on the controller this should be player three yep there that one's Bart okay so I should be able to press start on oh there we go on Homer all good I see all four players. So again, all four players working. Now you may question the emulation of this board. Some of the games are not the best, but I just want to let you know it's possible. So now the question is going to be, well, how do I do it? So let's go to the back of the cabinet and I'll show you, you know, how you would first hook up the controllers and then what you'd need to do to configure them. All right. So we're in the back of the unit now. Please excuse this mess. I actually use this system to test JAMMA boards. So I'm constantly just putting things in and out so it looks like you know it looks like a big rat's nest so this is actually the game room solutions level up cab it's really convenient because it's got this back door on it so i'm always kind of opening this thing up and changing out boards and stuff so and i love the control panel on it which i've said like 7 000 times in the review video of that but uh yeah it ends up being a really good system just to mess around with and uh you know put boards in and out so So this is, I know it's just draped over, but this is the Pandora's Key 7 board. And then what you'll see is connected to it, there's a little USB hub that I have on power. And I understand this is like really hard to see, but I'm going to zoom in on it. So this is a little USB hub that's got a powered USB hub. I have a wireless, actually that's not even the keyboard, that's the memory stick, sorry. This is the memory stick that the games are on. I put it in the hub because I'm using one of those USB slots that normally the memory stick would be in. and then we have just the two controllers. So this is actually two of the external controllers as Hyperkins and that's it.
6:51
It's pretty much that simple. So that's how you physically plug this stuff in and then we'll go up front so I can show you the configuration. What we're gonna need to do is there's a little test switch on the Pandora's box. You hit that test switch and that gets you into the menu system where you can set up the controllers or whatever other devices you want to hook up to it Alright guys so I pressed the test switch and now you back on the menu here A quick tip is you will not be able to get into this menu if you're in a game. So exit a game first and then hit that button on the back of the Pandora's Box board. And where you're going to want to go is you're going to want to go to USB Gamepad Mapping. Hey guys, I was about to skip a step here. So right below USB gamepad mapping, you see USB gamepad port. You're going to need to change that to P3 and P4. So make sure you do that before you go to the USB gamepad mapping. Sorry, I was getting a little excited and I got ahead of myself.
7:48
So I'm going to hit the A button there. And what you end up with is this screen where it shows you it wants to auto detect which kind of gamepad you have. Those are just visual representations. I don't know why, but anyways. So it'll say press any USB gamepad button to detect. So this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna actually put this back on the tripod and I'll show you how to continue this process. Okay, so we're back on this menu and I'm gonna take one of the Hyperkin controllers. Now keep in mind, I tested the Hyperkin ones. I tested several others and some of them just didn't work. So here you go, we're gonna do this together. So you would press one of the buttons on the Hyperkin and it detects it. says I've detected a USB gamepad press a now you'll see it has it's detected it on the first slot there so this is how I did it it says one two three four five six and then there's start and coin so I just did a B C so one two three four five six so XYZ the start I actually left as the start button here and then the coin is there's a little mode button right here I use that as coin so that so that one's now done. So this one's good to go. So now we're going to press the, we're actually going to hit save and exit. So there's things to save and exit. We're going to hit that. Now we're going to go back in. We're going to get our other Hyperkin controller. We're going to do the same thing, same exact thing. I'm going to hit A. It's going to detect it as a game pad. Hit A again. Now I don't want to put it over the configuration of that one. That's the one I just set up. So typically you can use any one of these. I ended up using, I think I did this one right here.
9:31
So I think I set it up in this, no, I used this one. Okay. So it's A, B, C, X, Y, Z. That's going to be start. So start coin. Now at that point, let's camera refocus. I'm going to go back to save and exit and I should be good to go from here but I have to do one more step in order for these options to be saved you need to scroll all the way down to the menu here it says save and exit so click on that or hit the button all right now you're back to the main menu so I'm gonna put the camera back on the tripod I'm gonna put on TMNT and we should be still working everything should be good to go because technically I rewrote the configuration from before. Okay let's go back into Turtles.
10:27
Let it shell! Let it shell! Let it shell! Let it shell! Alright as you can see we both still good to go Let skip this Let it shell Alright I always that All right so we got player one started here Jump attack Player two jump attack All the movements are working. Now I'm going to go my player three. Let it show! Oops. Jump, attack. Up, down, left, right, all good.
11:02
My player four. Jump, attack. Up, down, left, right, all good. Coins working. Let, let, let, let, let, let, let. Let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let. Alright, you get the point. Alright, it's final thoughts time. What did I think about this? Well, I think it's pretty cool to be able to play four players plug and play from a single board like this. Turn on, turn off, real simple, really easy. And it wasn't that bad to set up. Now, would I put this in a full arcade cabinet with four controller or a four joystick system? I don't know. Maybe not, but I would definitely put it in a two-player system and be able to have an option to have players three and four off to the side. I think it's really neat and these Hyperkin controllers I used which are the GN6s are super compatible with a lot of different things. They work on PC and Mac so you can kind of move them over there if you use do any kind of PC or Mac emulation. The other thing is they just work with pretty much everything. So again, props to Hyperkin for creating a pretty cool and cheap, it's like $10 controller, so pretty neat. Works well with this setup.
12:11
The only thing I might have a hard time recommending is if you don't like the image being stretched, that's kind of par for the course with all these Pandora's boxes. So you're kind of stuck with the 16.9 aspect ratio. So if that's not satisfying to you, then it's a no-go. you might as well like look for other options probably a PC or you know potentially even a retro pie or something like that so anyways I'm really happy with it it's fun I'm probably gonna keep this board in here and again this board was the Pandora's key 7 and another thing that we we covered in another video and I'll put a link up here is this board does play Dreamcast games it's not perfect but it plays them so that's kind of another advantage of that of that board and you can add games to it so that's really cool but there's kind of this new kid on the block and I'm gonna tease this a little bit, but this thing's called the Pandora's Game... Pandora Games 3D. I love that name. Rolls right off the tongue. But this is a new board, new kid on the block, a lot more powerful processor, more memory, and it runs N64 games really well. But you always have that dang analog stick, which sometimes can make games unplayable when you're trying to do it on an arcade platform like this. But this is going to be something I'm going to cover in a future episode, and this supposedly supports four players as well. So I don't know if this is a better option. It might be than this, but we'll, we'll display for that on a future episode. So guys, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this. I had a lot of fun with it. Uh, I know I'm going to play with my kids and Kim and get around and play a bunch of these four player games now that we can kind of comfortably do so. So anyways, that's it for now, guys. If you liked this video, please like it. Please consider subscribing to the channel. If you enjoy the content, put your comments below. Don't forget to turn on notifications so you can be informed of future videos and that's it we'll see you on the next one