Summary of "MAME Work-In-Progress: Panic! at the Park (Namco System 23, Panic Park)"

Context and overall message

In the late 1990s arcades were declining as development shifted to console-based chipsets. Manufacturers responded with large “Super Deluxe” cabinets intended to offer ride-like, out-of-home experiences.
Super Deluxe titles are historically important but rarely ported to home systems and are difficult to emulate because very few dumps/test cases exist across the various Namco System 23 board variants.
The referenced video is a work-in-progress (WIP) report showing progress getting Panic Park to boot and be mostly playable in MAME, narrated by the MOG Miner.

Arcade / Super Deluxe examples

Final Furlong
Rapid River
Downhill Bikers
Time Crisis 2
Panic Park

Namco System 23 family (concise breakdown)

System 22.5 (a.k.a. Gorgon): adds a 133 MHz MIPS CPU and upgraded 3D hardware; only two games known.
System 23: removes sprites, ups CPU to 166 MHz; about four games.
Super System 23: unknown upgrades; six games released, only one currently runs in MAME.
System 23 Evolution 2: ups CPU to ~200 MHz; one known game (Crisis Zone).
Primary emulation problem: very few games/dumps serve as test cases, making educated guesses unreliable — likened to a “Mount Everest” problem for driver development.

About Panic Park

Released in 1997. Considered an early predecessor to microgame compilations (WarioWare-style rapid minigames).
Two-player competitive cabinet: players stand side-by-side and each control a pair of levers with identical ranges; the goal is to physically push your control motion into the opponent’s space.
Gameplay is physical and intense — reports of elbowing and shoulder-checking; the rumor of a US ban due to injuries is likely apocryphal but understandable.
Notable for its cabinet-driven social and physical interaction rather than conventional head-to-head video combat.

MAME progress and technical state (WIP)

After a couple of days’ work, Panic Park boots and is “mostly playable” in MAME.
Major graphical and rendering issues remain:
- No lighting implementation.
- No alpha blending (transparency) working.
- Multiple triangle depth-sorting issues, causing invisible obstacles and blocking gameplay (the most significant blocker).
The developer is building a graphical debugger for System 23 to help diagnose and fix rendering problems.
Having Panic Park running provides a valuable additional test case for the System 23 driver.

Strategies and tips

For players (arcade context)

Expect very physical play; be mindful of safety and machine durability.
Aggressive positioning and timing matter because the game rewards invading the opponent’s space.

For emulation developers

Acquire more test cases — small game libraries per board variant make debugging fragile and slow.
Prioritize fixes to the rendering pipeline (lighting, alpha blending, and especially correct triangle depth sorting) since depth errors can produce game-blocking invisible geometry.
Use or develop graphical debugging tools specific to System 23 to inspect geometry, blending and sort order.

Other notes and commentary

The presenter (MOG Miner) had previously posted a WIP video about System 23, paused development for years due to work, and has returned to progress the driver.
The arcade scene has shifted toward redemption/gambling-focused setups (ticket/cheap-prize machines), changing the nature of modern arcades.
Reference to a film quote from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (“Dog”) appears in the presentation.

Gamers, sources and people mentioned

The MOG Miner (presenter)
Zophar of Zophar’s Domain (upcoming interview mentioned)
Mike (subtitle reads “Mike Tedar”) — described as the original author of Project Unreality (an early N64 emulator); name uncertain in auto-generated subtitles
“One of the original two authors” of a short-lived Nintendo 64 emulator (unnamed in the subtitles)
Other references/sources: arcade event California Extreme

Panic Park is now booting in MAME and is nearly playable, but critical rendering problems (especially triangle depth-sorting) remain. The additional test case and an upcoming graphical debugger should accelerate System 23 emulation progress.