Snow Bros Installation guide

I do believe that downloading and installing both the MAME emulator and the Snow Bros ROM is very easy. However, nobody born knowing how to do it. So if it is your first time tinkering with the MAME and ROMs, let me give you this very very detailed installation guide. All you have to do is to download 2 different files, the MAME installer (.exe) and the Snow Bros ROM (.zip).Follow the step-by-step guide and you will be up and running in no time!

Window users

1. Download the MAME emulator. It is a self-installing file that ends in .exe and can be downloaded from the MAME website. You will see that they have tons of things, code and tools. Fear not my friend, what you ned is at the very top, it is a Binary archive. At the time of writing this guide the latest version is MAME 0.111, it's size is 7048k and it's description is Windows command line version of MAME 0.111. You will see three links: .fi,.com and .net, they all link to the same file, so pick up anyone and a Save as... type of window will pop up. Save it in you Desktop. If your browser/firewall/antivirus software complains because you are downloading a .exe don't worry, the guys working to bring you the MAME emulator are all very nice and we trust them.
   
   
2. Download the Snow Bros ROM. For you ease, I do host this file in my server, so just click in the link and a Save as... type of window will pop up. Save it again in you Desktop. As you can see, it is a .zip file, that is, a compressed file. However you need not to worry about it, we will not unpack the file, for the MAME is so great that can work with compresses files!
   
   
3. Install the MAME emulator. Double click on the Mame installer that you just downloaded to your desktop and it will ask you where you want to install it. Type "c:\mame\" in the box and hit enter. That is, with or without the " ", doesn't matter.
   
   
4. Install the Snow Bros ROM file. This is as simple as moving the snowbros.zip file from your desktop to its appropriate place. Simply right click on it and choose copy. Then go to Mi pc" icon in your desktop. Then open your "C:" unit and browse to the "mame" folder, once in there, go to the "roms". If everything went fine, you should be standing in the "c:\mame\roms" and all you see is a dir.txt file. (you may just see it as dir that is ok) Once in this folder, right click on it and choose paste. Congratulations, you have just installed the ROM, you are almost done!
   
   
5. Create a shortcut in your desktop. Instead of having to open up an old MS-DOS style windows and type command in there (which we all know that is scary) I am going to share with you this little trick to make you life easier. Right click somewhere in your desktop and choose "new -> shortcut". A dialog window will pop up asking you for a target, type this into it: "C:\mame\mame.exe snowbros", again, with our without the " ". Then it will prompt you for a name, just type something like Snow Bros.
   
   
6. You are done!Now that was easy, wasn't it? Now simply double click on the icon to launch this great game. To exit press the Esc key at the top left corner of the keyboard. If you want to be really cool, I suggest you change the icon for the shortcut using one from my Snow Bros Icons page. There are 12 original icons for your system that you won't find anywhere else! They also came with detailed instructions on how to use them.

Other systems

If you happen to be a Linux / Unix / *BSD / MAC or anything else user, congratulations for being different! You probably know enough to work this out on your own. ( At least I hope so, because I dont have experience in working with MAME in any of those systems, and thus, I can not make a detailed guide. If you want to contribute with a small install guide, please contact me.

In general termss, the ROM file packed, must be in the /roms/ directory of your MAME installation to able to find it. Then just move to your installation folder and launch the MAME binary using the name of the rom as a parameter.

Example: "mame snowbros"

Finally

Now if everything went well, you should be looking at the game running in full screen. Now you might be wondering how do I play this? What are the keys? Can I change the keys to other more convenient? What all this coin system I see about? How do I leave? etc etc, Please go to the How to play Snow Bros page for more info!