The Daphne system covers LaserDisc arcade games: Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Cobra Command… as well as games built with the Singe and Singe 2 extensions, including the famous American Laser Games light-gun titles.
Three emulators are available: Hypseus (standalone, the default), Libretro Hypseus_Singe (new in Recalbox 10.1) and Libretro DirkSimple. See the Daphne system sheet for details.
Games go in /recalbox/share/roms/daphne. No BIOS is required.
The file structure differs by game type; each has its own page:
The hypseus_singe_data repository gathers every non-copyrighted file needed by Singe and Singe 2 games: scripts, fonts, overlays, shared framework. Only the video and audio files (.m2v, .ogg) are up to you.
On this system, the HOTKEY button alone quits the game.
But Daphne is an arcade system, so SELECT is used to insert credits… and on many controllers, HOTKEY is the SELECT button. In that case, use R1 to quit and keep SELECT for credits.
Only one player is supported on this system.
Use the left stick to move and the standard buttons for actions. Most games only use the B button (the bottom button, A on an Xbox pad, X on a PlayStation pad).
The light gun is optionally supported, which makes a lot of sense for the American Laser Games style Singe titles.
.commands fileThis optional file goes inside the game's .daphne folder, named after the game with the .commands extension. It passes extra parameters to the emulator.
Most of the time it holds the -bank option, which reproduces the original cabinet's DIP switches: credits per game, lives per credit, difficulty, attract-mode sound…
Example for Dragon's Lair (rom dle21.zip):
-bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000
This gives: sound always on with the narrator's voice, 1 coin = 1 credit, 1 credit = 5 lives, no test mode, standard game mode.
DIP switches differ from one rom version to another for the same game. The LaserDisc Game Tech Center documents each version's settings, and the Daphne wiki lists every available parameter.
The table below gives, for each Daphne game, the compatibility level, the recommended rom and a .commands content producing normal difficulty, five lives and minimum credits.
| Game | Compatibility | Recommended rom | .commands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Astron Belt | ⭐⭐ | astron.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 01000000 |
| Badlands | ⭐ | badlands.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 10000010 |
| Bega's Battle | ⭐ | bega.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 00000001 |
| Cliff Hanger | cliff.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 01000000 -bank 2 00000000 -bank 3 01111000 |
|
| Cobra Command | ⭐⭐ | cobraconv.zip |
-bank 0 11010000 -bank 1 00010001 |
| Dragon's Lair | ⭐ | dle21.zip |
-bank 1 00110111 -bank 0 10011000 |
| Dragon's Lair II | ⭐⭐ | lair2.zip |
|
| Esh's Aurunmilla | ⭐⭐ | esh.zip |
|
| Galaxy Ranger | ⭐ | galaxy.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 00000000 |
| GP World | ⭐ | gpworld.zip |
|
| Interstellar Laser Fantasy | ⭐ | interstellar.zip |
-bank 0 00100001 -bank 1 00000000 |
| M.A.C.H. 3 | ⭐ | mach3.zip |
-bank 0 01000100 |
| Road Blaster | ⭐ | roadblaster.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 -bank 1 00000000 |
| Space Ace | ⭐⭐ | sae.zip |
-bank 1 01100111 -bank 0 10011000 |
| Super Don Quix-Ote | ⭐ | sdq.zip |
-bank 0 00100001 -bank 1 00000000 |
| Thayer's Quest | tq.zip |
-bank 0 00010000 |
|
| Us Vs Them | ⭐ | uvt.zip |
-bank 0 00000000 |
You can dress your Daphne games with a cabinet artwork. Create a bezels folder next to your games, and drop a .png image named after the game in it:
┣ 📁 recalbox
┃ ┣ 📁 share
┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 roms
┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 daphne
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 lair.daphne
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 bezels
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.png
When an overlay is found, the game picture is automatically forced back to 4:3 so it fits inside the artwork.