Tag: retro

Dev Credits In Arcade Default High Scores

Waxy points us to a post on the blog The History Of How We Play (at thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com, natch) explaining the practice of arcade game developers putting their initials on the default vanity boards of arcade machines, as some small way of getting their names into a public piece of software they had created, at a time when many companies tried to keep that knowledge secret. As the article says, this process slowly receded, as both arcade games relied less on high score chasing for their appeal, and as arcade games began to get actual credit sequences for players to see.

A few of their many screenshots:

Missile Command. Dave Theurer’s star shined so brightly for awhile.
Missile Command was a framebuffer game, which explains how the initials could be out of alignment with the letters of “HIGH SCORES” above them.
The two main people responsible for creating Centipede aren’t even at the top of the list, DCB is Dona Bailey (one of the very few woman’s names on the list) and ED is Ed Logg.
Atari’s Quantum was created at GCC by Betty Tylko, one of the other woman’s names. The fancy cursive “Betty” is because Quantum, being a vector trackball game, let you use it to draw your name into the first place score, something that would never happen today because some people would not be able to resist drawing a dong.

Arcade Authorship – High Score Table Credits

SGDQ 2023 Upcoming (and Past) Highlights

As noted yesterday, I forgot about SGDQ this year and we’re already underway. But there’s still five-and-a-half days of it left, so here’s some projected highlights and notes. Nearly every day of the weeklong charity speedrunning marathon this year has a Legend of Zelda game. I’ve boldfaced them below to point them out! All times US Eastern. For the full rundown, check the schedule page. And you can watch the marathon in progress here!

I’m pushing the next @Play to tomorrow since this one’s pretty time sensitive. See you with that tomorrow!

Past, Sunday

These should be on Youtube soon, if they aren’t already by the time this is published.

Sonic Frontiers, Any%

Bugsnax, All Bosses Co-Op

Mega Man Maker, Any% – hey, we recently linked to that! I have no idea what “Any %” means for a level construction program.

F-Zero X Expansion Kit, All Tracks (should be interesting, this didn’t get a release outside of Japan!)

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Any%

Luigi’s Mansion 100% Race, on Wii

Past, Monday

Banjo-Kazooie, 110% no FFM (FFM stands for “Furnace Fun Moves,” it’s a way to get the moves from a different save file unlocked on a current save, they’re saying they won’t do that, even though it’s possible)

Loom, Any% (always nice to see a Lucasarts classic here)

Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Any%, on the Sega Genesis (not the even-more-bizarre arcade game)

Metal Slug XX, Normal Difficulty, Any %

Present, Monday

Here begin the runs that you might still have a chance to catch-

9:58 AM: PHOGS!, Solo Any% (this is an indie release with a bizarre premise, the character is a stretchy dog with a head on both ends, huh)

12:55 PM: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII – Reunion, Any% Race

2:24 PM: Peggle Deluxe, Any% (yes, Peggle)

5:18 PM: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, All Keys

6:42 PM: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Any% (given the success of BotW and TotK, probably the last “traditional” Zelda game we’ll see for awhile)

8:29 PM: Igavania sequence! Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, its sequel, and as a possible bonus game Symphony of the Night

11:33 PM: StepMania DX, Game Showcase, Arcade

Tuesday

1:39 AM: Hearthstone: Knights of the Frozen Throne, Solo Adventures

5:50 AM: SNOLF, Any% No Coordinate Warp (it’s a hack of Sonic 2 where you play golf with Sonic)

6:40 AM: Marathon Infinity, All Main Levels on Kindergarten Difficulty (sadly it’s a PC port, not on a classic Macintosh)

8:00 AM: Maniac Mansion, Any%, NES (only eight minutes is blocked for this, so don’t blink!)

4:16 PM: The Elder Scrolls Anthology, Main Series

8:00 PM: Halo 3, Legendary Difficulty, as a bonus game

Wednesday

5:25 AM: Dead Rising 2, Time Skip NG

9:19 AM: Gauntlet, Any% Co-Op, NES (only 20 minutes for this)

11:55 AM: Touhou 14.3: Impossible Spell Card, All Scenes No Items (I’d make a joke about this being for the kids out there, but Touhou’s been around for quite a while now, I’m just old)

1:32 PM: Shatterhand, Any% on NES (24 minutes, it’d be nice to have another NES game in a GDQ that’s not over in half an hour or less)

3:06 PM: Trine Enchanted Edition, Any% NG+

3:41 PM: N++, Co-op Legacy X-row (remember when this was just a Flash game? remember when there were Flash games?)

5:08 PM: Shadow the Hedgehog, Glitchless Bidwar (oooh edgy)

5:58 PM: Sonic Adventure DX, All Stories Relay

8:00 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask, Blitz Randomizer (randomizer runs are always fun!)

10:42 PM: Super Mario Odyssey, Any% as a bonus game

Thursday

12:16 AM: Paper Mario, Any% no ACE (“ace” stands for Arbitrary Code Execution, it’s one of those sneaky ways to glitch a game out to get to the end immediately, they’re saying they aren’t doing that)

3:46 AM: Golf It!, Classic First 5 Maps 100% Race (Golf It, which according to nearly the entire first page of Google hits for it is “a multiplayer Minigolf game with focus on a dynamic, fun and creative multiplayer experience,” blergh, is one of those silly golf games along the lines of What The Golf)

4:26 PM: Hobo Cat Adventures, Any%

5:51 AM: Give Me Toilet Paper!, Hand% (maybe we’re in Awful Block, because the next game is….)

6:14 AM: Pepsiman, Any% (yep)

8:54 AM: Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, Any% with Uzumi

9:39 AM: The Curse of Monkey Island, Any% Mega-Monkey (increases the number of puzzles!)

10:13 AM: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Any%

2:45 PM: Darkest Dungeon

4:45 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Any% (nice to see a Zelda game that hasn’t been compressed into nothing, three hours is blocked off for this which is a lot longer than for Breath of the Wild)

7:57 PM: Pizza Tower, Any% (yay!)

Friday

12:13 AM: Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy, Full Trilogy Any%

4:17 AM: Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, All Dark Magic, Pirate Mode, No OOB

5:47 AM: Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series, Klonoa 1 Any% Easy Support Mode

6:52 AM: VVVVVV, Any% Glitchless

7:24 AM: SaGa Frontier, Story Bidwar

8:39 AM: Final Fight 3, Co-Op Any% (Easy), on SNES

There’s a lot of short games around here….

11:24 AM: X-Men Arcade, 2-player 1CC attempt (there should be more arcade games at GDQ)

12:45 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords, Any% Co-op, on GBA (one of the least Zelda-like Zeldas)

1:25 PM: Metroid Prime Remastered, Any%

3:42 PM: Pokémon Colosseum, Any% Race (four hours for this one, it’s the traditional very long Pokemon playthrough, although this time it’s for one of the side-series battlers, a sequel to Pokemon Stadium)

8:09 PM: Kaizo Monkey Ball, Story Mode (this is a hack of a Super Monkey Ball game to make it even harder)

Saturday

12:16 AM: Celeste, TAS True Ending

1:02 AM: Super Mario 64, Randomizer- 70 Star Non-Stop

1:59 AM: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Any% Proud Race

6:09 AM: Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, Any% (Neopets!)

7:14 AM: Tony Hawk’s Underground, Beginner Any%

8:04 AM: Spelunky 2, Spelunker Trials Any%

9:19 AM: Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Any% (while it has its flaws, this is an underrated game)

10:41 AM: Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster, Any%

2:56 PM: Super Mario Bros., Any% Warpless (20 minutes blocked for this, which is surprising to me)

5:01 PM: Pokemon Violet/Scarlet, Victory Road (a relatively traditional style of Pokemon play in this open world game)

7:46 PM: Elden Ring, Any% Glitchless

11:26 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Any% Blindfolded as a bonus game

Sunday

3:14 AM: Super Metroid, Co-Op Any% (Super Metroid is a traditional GDQ marathon ender. save the animals!)

Chrontendo 62!

Dr. Sparkle’s epic, Sisyphean journey through the entire library of the Nintendo Famicom/NES, Chrontendo is back! This episode has the subtitle, “The games will get worse until morale improves,” and is it ever fitting. Here it is, more about it beneath:

This episode presents ten games from June of 1990, well into the glut of NES games when many companies with no business being in the games business dipped in their toes, much as they did at the end of the Atari 2600’s reign. Even though Nintendo was supposedly guiding the library with their benevolent white-gloved hand, those of us who were alive then and lived through it know better.

The games:

  • Bandit Kings of Ancient China (a.k.a.. Suikoden): Dr. S has some fun with the opening of this one, where he confuses it with a different, much later, much prettier game called Suikoden. This one is another of Koei’s many historical sim strategy games, ports of computer games. These games aren’t actually bad, but they are definitely an acquired taste, and they’ll destroy you if you aren’t prepared. I wonder how these games look internally? There doesn’t exactly seem to be a huge Koei historical strategy sim romhacking scene. Internally I imagine them being a giant maze of 8-bit math routines and text tables. If NES-era JRPGs are anything to go by, lots of menu-based games like this are riddled with subtle bugs. Someone should look into that. Someone other than me.
  • Kickle Cubicle: Also not that bad a game, a fairly charming port of an arcade puzzle game. Someone should have told Irem that no one was making good NES games around this time, because this is a highlight of the episode. Sadly it’s not to Dr. Sparkle’s tastes, but he admits it’s not really that bad. (Apparently he got beat up by Koke the Eyepatch-Wearing Chicken.)
  • Moero!! Judo Warriors: A judo sim from Jaleco’s “Moero” series (which doesn’t contain Moero Twinbee as one might think or hope). Many of the Moero sports games got localized to the US under different names (the baseball one became Bases Loaded). It’s largely a redo of an earlier Jaleco judo simulation.
  • Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition: Agh, another of the avalanche of Rare-developed game show adaptions from the NES era. At least Jeopardy still exists today so you roughly know what’s going on, as opposed to the hates of Double Dare or Remote Control. No great shakes, no, but at least look at the spinning words “Anniversary Edition” on the title screen. Rare would often put that bit of unnecessary polish into their work. Despite their efforts though, this is not a game that plays well with a gamepad.
  • Heavy Shreddin’: A snowboarding game from Imagineering, it’s pretty basic.
  • Cabal: an adaption of an arcade game, programmed by Rare. (But remember, there is no cabal!) You might call it an Operation Wolf-like, but with destructible terrain. On the NES it’s not a lightgun game, even though it looks like it wishes it were one.
  • Silk Worm: Another arcade port, on the NES is lacklustre side-scrolling shooter where you can play as a helicopter or a jeep. Keep in mind, as you watch the footage of this, that Super Mario Bros. 3 came out the year before in Japan.
  • Arkista’s Ring: the cover seems to promise at last the Zelda where you play as Zelda, but no, it’s not an exploration game at all. Not really bad, but not a system highlight. As Dr. Sparkle says, the game pulls a Ghosts ‘n Goblins on you, making you compete all the levels four times at higher difficulties. Hm.
  • Rad Racer II: Pretty much a track update of the original Nasir-developed Rad Racer, and Square’s last non-RPG game for a long time, as well as their last Famicom game. Rad Racer was a modest hit when Nintendo published it for the NES, so Square probably sought to capitalize on that with this US-only release.
  • Rocket Ranger: A port of the Cinemaware computer game. Cinemaware’s gimmick was making games that mimicked the experience of movies, and this one’s no different. In actual play it’s just a minigame collection within a simple strategy framework.

And as an extra, Dr. Sparkle presents his 1990 arcade round-up. Games covered are Sega’s Alien Storm, Moonwalker, GP Rider and Columns, Atari’s Batman, Race Drivin’ and Pit Fighter, Capcom’s Mercs, 1941 Counter Attack and Super Buster Bros., Konami’s Aliens and Parodius Da!, Namco’s Final Lap 2, Irem’s Air Duel, Williams’ Smash T.V., SNK’s Beast Busters, and-oh wow!-Seibu Kaihatsu’s Raiden!

Chrontendo 68 (Youtube, one hour 28 minutes)

Time Extension talks to the programmer of Crusader of Centy

Been looking through the RSS feeds and found another item from Time Extension, a fairly lengthy piece where they talked with lead programmer of overlooked Mega Drive/Genesis classic Crusader of Centy, Yikihiko Tani, a.k.a. Bugtarou.

There’s something about this style of promo art that really appeals to me. Images from the article at timeextension.com.

Crusader of Centy’s generic name caused me to pass on it back then, but it has a lot of interesting elements, including a surprisingly dark story, a system where you can collect up to 16 animal companions and use them two at a time, an animation style for its main character where it was composed of several individual pieces that were animated separately (while avoiding the problems that system had in Ernest Evans) and generally Zelda-like gameplay.

Of particular interest in the article is that the game was at one point pitched to be an entry in the Shining series, with the working title Shining Rogue. That turns out to also have been a WIP title for Landstalker.

Soleil/Crusader of Centy, Sega’s Answer To Zelda (timeextension.com)

Total Replay 5.0

Apple II preservationist and awesome human 4am (Mastodon) has released the latest version of Total Replay, a collection of Apple II games that can be played both in emulators and on real systems (provided you have a way to read the hard drive image from your Apple). It can even be played directly over the web on its Internet Archive page.

An important note if you try to load its torrent from the page: that torrent contains a complete history of the project, weighing in at 22 gigabytes, even though Total Replay itself is just 32 megabytes big. If you choose to download that torrent for offline play and are just interested in playing, make sure to uncheck the history folder so you don’t end up downloading a huge amount of files you don’t need.

Total Replay 5.0 archive page (Apple II hard drive image, ProDOS mountable, 32MB), Mastodon post

|tsr’s NES Archive

It’s been a long time… before Hardcore Gaming 101, before Kotaku or the Angry Video Game Nerd, before 1UP, Joystiq and a bunch of other sites still living and defunct, there was |tsr’s NES Archive. While it only lived for four years, hasn’t updated in 23 years, and all of the images are broken now (a huge shame for some of the features), it’s still online, still ready to give you their humorous take on old video games. Long may it continue beaming out its snarky message. Consider that the time between when the NES was released, 1985, and |tsr’s archive shut down, 2000, was only 15 years. And that time isn’t getting any longer, while the time since it shutdown is. I’ve said it a lot here lately, but: time is cruel.

A few notable features there:

The images, I note, are not broken so much as forbidden access. It’s possible that tsr’s web host, Atari HQ, still has them but has misconfigured the site. Atari HQ is still up, but now seems to only be an aggregator for other sites’ content. I wonder if an email to the right person might restore access to that entire swath of early web and videogaming history, or if they’re completely asleep at the switch?

Info on Unproduced Landstalker Sequel

Time Extension links to a Landstalker artbook found by VGDensetsu that has information on a planned sequel that never got made, laying out the futurer adventures of Link-ish adventurer Nigel and his devil-fairy (sorry, wood nymph) friend Friday.

Despite its visual similarities to Zelda (or rather they both were inspired by J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan) Landstalker had lots of differences, and despite its sometimes infuriating 3D isometric perspective is commonly regarded as one of the leading lights of the Sega Genesis. Despite its popularity though, the game never got a direct sequel, despite several references, cross-overs and inspired-bys ranging from the infortunately-named Ladystalker to Time Stalkers, and a couple other games without “stalker” in the title.

Friday was a waifu long before there was a term for it. Sorry about the frugly watermark, eesh.

Landstalker managed to become a hit rather despite its isometric perspective, in which characters didn’t cast shadows when jumping or floating in the air, making it very difficult to figure out where things were spatially. Since it was an isometric jumping game with lots of tiny moving platforms, that made it quite difficult. There was even an entire area, the infamous Greenmaze, that leaned into the perspective puzzles and pseudo-optical illusions to give the player a hard time. Yet the fun and light anime-styled story and winning characters won many players hearts.

VGDensetsu’s tweet links to a Google Drive folder with complete scans, although with a hideous translucent watermark plastered over every page.

Here’s A Glimpse Of The Landstalker Sequel We Never Got To Play (timeextension.com)

Pac-Man 99 to Sunset

Because we not only can’t have nice things, but even the nice things we used to have must be taken from us, Polygon reports that Pac-Man 99, Bandai-Namco’s brilliant battle royale take on the classic arcade game, is shutting down online play October 8th, and the paid DLC and modes will stop being sold even earlier than that.

Pac-Man 99 is part of a trilogy of games with similar concepts on the Switch. Of its siblings, Tetris 99 continues to be playable and its online DLC still available, and Super Mario Bros. 35, Nintendo’s free SMB-based version of the concept, shut down years ago now.

All these games are great, and SMB35’s loss is still keenly felt. I particularly rue it because I was freakishly good at it; I have a screenshot somewhere of the records screen showing a streak of 11 1st place wins.

Pac-Man 99 is really good, and its online mode is free to people with a Switch Online subscription, so please enjoy it while you can.

Romhack Thursday: All Mario 64 Levels Combined Into One Huge Map

On Romhack Thursdays, we bring you interesting finds from the world of game modifications.

Another of Mario 64 internals expert Maze Emanuar’s amazing hacks, this puts the geometry of all of the levels of Mario 64 into into huge world! It does offer gameplay in that you can collect some stars that are scattered around the huge area, but few of the original objectives remain. For more information and the download link to the hack, check the description of the video.

Super Mario “All Levels In One” Hack (Youtube, 13 minutes, download link to hack in video description)

3D Zelda II Revisited

With Tears of the Kingdom released soon, some people have been speculating, based on leaks, that it and Breath of the Wild actually take place on the “downfall” timeline of Hyrule, the very first games to follow chronologically from the two NES Zelda games.

It’s a good time to revisit one of the weirder, and unexpectedly well-made, fangames out there, a FPS re-envisioning of Zelda II. This was originally release to the internet in 2010, but it turns out its creator Mike Johnston updated it back in 2019, to include some of the initial overworld areas of the original game. He included a couple of shops too, which are not in the NES Zelda II game, so the player can get a few aids to make the game easier. Have a look at some of these screenshots:

Sadly Johnston is a bit dismayed by Nintendo’s absurdly litigious defense of its oh-so-sacred properties, even if they are pushing 40 years old now, and has no plans to continue working on his project. I can’t blame him, and am glad for what he’s given us. Thanks Mike!

Zelda II FPS (browser playable, $0, requires Unity)

Someone Runs Mac OS 9 on a Nintendo Wii

The narrator has a moderate case of Youtuberitis (symptoms evident: over-gesturing with hands, annoying shtick; absent: ending sentences in an undertone like they were John Cleese playing a TV presenter), but it’s still an interesting and even informative video about making software, and hardware, doing things they really weren’t designed to do.

One piece of the puzzle for getting this insane project working was Linux on Wii; another piece was the fact that the Wii and late versions of Mac OS Classic both use PowerPC processors. It doesn’t work perfectly, but as they say, it’s amazing that the Nintendog talks at all.