10-08-2022, 08:44 PM
The first update in a good while where it's not focused on mostly just one or two machines because the backlog is going down:
Amstrad CPC
Mr. Wong's Loopy Laundry
For some reason there are two versions, it's listed as "color red" and "color yellow" in the tape dumps. Color Red has red text for the title and logical colors. Mr. Wong is yellow but sadly it was the state of the 1980s and its casual racism. Color Yellow however while it has yellow text on the title, changes the yellow to green and only has two colors for the clothes. The palette is also more blue/green focused and the bubbles flash a different palette. The one with the wong... wrong colors is for green screen monitors to make it easier to see, usually that's an option rather than having two print runs of the game though.
More would have been done but at least Space Racer is getting there though.
Nearly got all of the graphics of Athlete but couldn't find the rest of the background in the graphics viewer and tried two different emulators. It's missing some of the track and the HUD. I've highlighted two examples that don't appear in the graphics viewer at all:
![[Image: 8000pVlTCs8y.png]](https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/8000pVlTCs8y.png)
Spectrum
Firstly ripped a certain plumbing duo meaning that most versions of the game are on the site. It's missing the Atari developed Commodore 64 version (would do that but as mentioned the emulator only supports PAL games...) and the PC-88 that judging by screenshots may use some sort of system characters anyway, probably as far as done in BASIC. Actually there is also a port of the Game & Watch game on the C64...
Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future
Joe Blade
F-1
Being in the backlog for quite a bit, it was one of the earlier Spectrum rips since February and only because the plans were to rip the Amstrad version then realised that the game was a "Speccy port". So might as well rip the original and turned out to be better because of less work to do (ripping the Amstrad version would have meant resizing the sprites because they are in Mode 2 where they are vertically stretched on the graphics viewer, recoloring because the viewer shows up in blue and white instead of the correct black and white) and the game was a bit better to play due to the frame rate (Spectrum is playable, CPC is unplayable due to a low frame rate that looks more like frameskipping). Good thing that I kept an older version of the emulator to finish the rip because the game broke in an update where when you start a race nothing shows up at all and pressing Enter finishes it.
Impossible Mission II
Mille Miles
Yes, French Spectrum games do exist and the company who made this fittingly enough is called Sprites. Wonder if it was an Oric or a Thomson port since from what I know those were the main computers in France before the Amstrad CPC...
There's not much in the game... Not even any CPU cars.
Rock'n Roller
Enduro Racer
Mountain Bike Racer (Positive)
As for why it is Positive, there was another game of the same name by Zeppelin that came out at the same time. Tried to look at that but couldn't rip it... It is actually somewhat common for this to happen having games of the same name by different companies at the same time... yet there are different and not re-releases. The region wouldn't work because both were released in English (and Spanish for this game). Also yeah... the sprites are badly defined making it hard to see.
Have compared the sprites of International Match Day to the original Match Day for differences and there isn't any in terms of graphics outside of the loading screen (sound is a different story, IMD plays a catchy version of the Match of the Day theme while in MD it sounds like farts). Since it's almost done, have it ready by a certain event.
Now I'm stuck on both Road Racer and Days of Thunder due to vertical boundaries and no way of figuring them out. While the width is fixed towards 8 pixel steps for the bitplanes, the vertical is unlimited as in that something could just be 1 pixel in height or 192 pixels in height. The graphics might have no gap (Impossible Mission II, Mountain Bike Racer Positive) or they might have a boundary. Then again internally the Spectrum thinks that it's some sort of printer or something, the graphics on the computer is classed as PAPER while the colors is classed as INK and to display them you PRINT them.
Game Boy
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Bubbles that bobble indeed. This is just the first batch out of around 80 rounds and done Rounds 4-20 (1-3 were done a bit ago) just because I wanted to rip something a bit more modern and fairly easy. Still tiring though... ohh...
C64
Death Race 64
Not just the N64 that had games that ended with 64... It's a graphically improved version of the Commodore 16 game and despite the name seems to be inspired by the Sega arcade classic Turbo.
TurboGrafx-16
Strip Fighter II
Super Volleyball
Sonic Spike / World Beach Volley
Power Golf
Was experimenting on what PC Engine games that I can background rip from (started off with Parasol Stars then Batman but stuck on the 3rd stage). While ripping last Sunday, banged my head on the fridge when in a supermarket shopping and afterwards had extreme difficulty opening my eyes for about 5 hours. Using any computer based device or the TV was out of the question, all I could really do was go to bed for a while. Then intensely bathed my eyes and muscles around my face for about 15 minutes just so they could open. It was really scary...
So I've decided due to health reasons:
- Any game that has tiny pixels is out from now on, games that were either decided beforehand or already ripping are whether they get done or not. (This is the same reason why some of my game collection is also gone due to small in game text). No more shmups, run & guns or anything that has bullets I'm afraid... Same goes for older racing games with those distance sprites with the cars and roadside objects. Currently some games have to be zoomed to 1000%+ but usually between 600-900% regarding the Game Boy, Spectrum and Amstrad rips, the latter all sprites are already zoomed in 200% of their size anyway. This is why the Game Boy, C64 and the Spectrum are the highest priority due to their lower resolutions.
- Focus on the more easier to do rips. This is something that has been ongoing for the past couple of years. It is why I've been focusing more on background rips, title screens, and in the past error messages. Not all title screens or background rips are easy mind you...
- Some of the rips sadly would have to be scrapped and from the looks of things include waves that race. My original plan was to keep ripping for at least another few years (was aiming for around 5 years) but it is looking more like months now. Even I can't give an exact date, it could even be sudden...
- Try to finish the Spectrum backlog (Crazy Cars 1 & 2, Dick Tracy, Pole Position, Angel Nieto Pole 500, The Living Daylights, Paris to Dakar, Super Hang-On)
- Sunsetting the Amstrad CPC, finish the backlog but will drop a few games. As a gesture hopefully will be ripping the GX4000/Amstrad Plus Burnin' Rubber as the final game. That would have to be ripped differently due to actually using sprites for the player car!
- Restricting the C64 rips to just a few games; Batman: The Movie, Commando (most likely to be ditched), Dynamite Dux, Out Run (WIP), Pole Position, Pitstop, Pitstop II and Turbo Out Run. Maybe The Untouchables as well... If it wasn't for the standards issue, Pole Position 2 and plumbing duo (Atari) would have also been ripped.
- Have a look at finishing as much as I can regarding the SNES backlog. Yeah, this means that Operation Europe will start in terms of rips after delaying it for like 8-9 months. Someone a while ago requested about the enemies from Romancing Saga 1 & 2 however said website that was used as a reference has now closed down. This is how bad my backlog is with rips...
- Finish off the Game Boy rips and Bubble Bobble Part 2 is just the start. Some are just going to be intro/title screen stuff though. Normally intro/menu rips are simple enough but Three Lions/Golden Goal is a bit of a nightmare. So many versions/variations of a poor football game and this is coming from the publisher of some really acclaimed open world games.
- Finish off the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 background rips and figure out Batman. Also complete the Buster Bros. rip that I was working on. I'll see if there's anything else on the console.
- Figure out how to sort out F1 06 PSP, various parts have been ripped months ago.
- Ripping the GBA Choro Q/Penny Racers/Gadget Racers/Road Trip/whatever backgrounds and putting them onto sheets. Already ripped a couple so far. The weirdest thing, the game runs at full speed until you pause the game. After pausing... for me runs at 13-21 fps for the races and runs like that even if the game has been reset. Full speed for the menus but the unplayable frame rate bug is very off putting.
- Fingers crossed regarding the GBA RoboCop game...
- There are a few arcade games that have been in the backlog for years and wanted them done. e.g. The Destroyer of Jail and Super Dead Heat, I started ripping those when they only just got added into MAME. Also due to the update, ripping Hang-On, maybe even Enduro Racer and Super Hang-On. (Wanted to rip Hang-On for years and could tell by that Hang-On Jr. rip a long time ago, first discovered it via the arcade in Shenmue and actually enjoyed that and Space Harrier far more than the game itself).
- Hoping to finish some Genesis rips including a few prototypes. There are a few including the addons too hence the X clue. It's going to be small scale though so have low expectations.
- Finish off the Monaco GP Saturn rip, something that I wanted to do for YEARS since it is the only official port of the arcade classic (SG-1000 version changed some things). It's not working in MAME to this day since it is one of the last games that used discrete circuitry.
- Finish off the Lupin FM Towns game and if I can... The Castle of Cagliostro and The Legend of the Gold of Babylon games on the MSX. Yes, they made Lupin games based off those films.
It will also mean for the time being that there will be less progress done. Once Bubble Bobble Part 2 and Power Golf are background ripped with some C64/Amstrad/Spectrum on the side, going to be sorting out my games and that will take a while (especially those lengthy installs with the PS4).
Also any unfinished sheets will be posted here, maybe they get finished at some point.
Amstrad CPC
Mr. Wong's Loopy Laundry
Mr. Wong
Enemies
For some reason there are two versions, it's listed as "color red" and "color yellow" in the tape dumps. Color Red has red text for the title and logical colors. Mr. Wong is yellow but sadly it was the state of the 1980s and its casual racism. Color Yellow however while it has yellow text on the title, changes the yellow to green and only has two colors for the clothes. The palette is also more blue/green focused and the bubbles flash a different palette. The one with the wong... wrong colors is for green screen monitors to make it easier to see, usually that's an option rather than having two print runs of the game though.
More would have been done but at least Space Racer is getting there though.
Nearly got all of the graphics of Athlete but couldn't find the rest of the background in the graphics viewer and tried two different emulators. It's missing some of the track and the HUD. I've highlighted two examples that don't appear in the graphics viewer at all:
Spectrum
Firstly ripped a certain plumbing duo meaning that most versions of the game are on the site. It's missing the Atari developed Commodore 64 version (would do that but as mentioned the emulator only supports PAL games...) and the PC-88 that judging by screenshots may use some sort of system characters anyway, probably as far as done in BASIC. Actually there is also a port of the Game & Watch game on the C64...
Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future
Dan Dare
Joe Blade
Joe Blade
Enemies
Objects
F-1
F-1 Car
Being in the backlog for quite a bit, it was one of the earlier Spectrum rips since February and only because the plans were to rip the Amstrad version then realised that the game was a "Speccy port". So might as well rip the original and turned out to be better because of less work to do (ripping the Amstrad version would have meant resizing the sprites because they are in Mode 2 where they are vertically stretched on the graphics viewer, recoloring because the viewer shows up in blue and white instead of the correct black and white) and the game was a bit better to play due to the frame rate (Spectrum is playable, CPC is unplayable due to a low frame rate that looks more like frameskipping). Good thing that I kept an older version of the emulator to finish the rip because the game broke in an update where when you start a race nothing shows up at all and pressing Enter finishes it.
Impossible Mission II
Special Agent 4125
Elvin's Robots
Mille Miles
Car
Yes, French Spectrum games do exist and the company who made this fittingly enough is called Sprites. Wonder if it was an Oric or a Thomson port since from what I know those were the main computers in France before the Amstrad CPC...
There's not much in the game... Not even any CPU cars.
Rock'n Roller
Rocky Driver
Enemies
Enduro Racer
Rider
Mountain Bike Racer (Positive)
Rider
As for why it is Positive, there was another game of the same name by Zeppelin that came out at the same time. Tried to look at that but couldn't rip it... It is actually somewhat common for this to happen having games of the same name by different companies at the same time... yet there are different and not re-releases. The region wouldn't work because both were released in English (and Spanish for this game). Also yeah... the sprites are badly defined making it hard to see.
Have compared the sprites of International Match Day to the original Match Day for differences and there isn't any in terms of graphics outside of the loading screen (sound is a different story, IMD plays a catchy version of the Match of the Day theme while in MD it sounds like farts). Since it's almost done, have it ready by a certain event.
Now I'm stuck on both Road Racer and Days of Thunder due to vertical boundaries and no way of figuring them out. While the width is fixed towards 8 pixel steps for the bitplanes, the vertical is unlimited as in that something could just be 1 pixel in height or 192 pixels in height. The graphics might have no gap (Impossible Mission II, Mountain Bike Racer Positive) or they might have a boundary. Then again internally the Spectrum thinks that it's some sort of printer or something, the graphics on the computer is classed as PAPER while the colors is classed as INK and to display them you PRINT them.
Game Boy
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Round 01
Round 02
Round 03
Round 04
Round 05
Round 06
Round 07
Round 08
Round 09
Round 10
Round 11
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16
Round 17
Round 18
Round 19
Round 20
Bubbles that bobble indeed. This is just the first batch out of around 80 rounds and done Rounds 4-20 (1-3 were done a bit ago) just because I wanted to rip something a bit more modern and fairly easy. Still tiring though... ohh...
C64
Death Race 64
Car
Not just the N64 that had games that ended with 64... It's a graphically improved version of the Commodore 16 game and despite the name seems to be inspired by the Sega arcade classic Turbo.
TurboGrafx-16
Strip Fighter II
Brazil / Amanda's Stage
U.S.A / Bella's Stage
U.K / Martha's Stage
Creece / Medusa's Stage
Italy / Nina's Stage
Japan / Yuki's Stage
Super Volleyball
Court
Sonic Spike / World Beach Volley
Green Court
Brown / Heavy Court
Yellow / Normal Court
Power Golf
Hole #01
Hole #02
Hole #03
Hole #04
Was experimenting on what PC Engine games that I can background rip from (started off with Parasol Stars then Batman but stuck on the 3rd stage). While ripping last Sunday, banged my head on the fridge when in a supermarket shopping and afterwards had extreme difficulty opening my eyes for about 5 hours. Using any computer based device or the TV was out of the question, all I could really do was go to bed for a while. Then intensely bathed my eyes and muscles around my face for about 15 minutes just so they could open. It was really scary...
So I've decided due to health reasons:
- Any game that has tiny pixels is out from now on, games that were either decided beforehand or already ripping are whether they get done or not. (This is the same reason why some of my game collection is also gone due to small in game text). No more shmups, run & guns or anything that has bullets I'm afraid... Same goes for older racing games with those distance sprites with the cars and roadside objects. Currently some games have to be zoomed to 1000%+ but usually between 600-900% regarding the Game Boy, Spectrum and Amstrad rips, the latter all sprites are already zoomed in 200% of their size anyway. This is why the Game Boy, C64 and the Spectrum are the highest priority due to their lower resolutions.
- Focus on the more easier to do rips. This is something that has been ongoing for the past couple of years. It is why I've been focusing more on background rips, title screens, and in the past error messages. Not all title screens or background rips are easy mind you...
- Some of the rips sadly would have to be scrapped and from the looks of things include waves that race. My original plan was to keep ripping for at least another few years (was aiming for around 5 years) but it is looking more like months now. Even I can't give an exact date, it could even be sudden...
- Try to finish the Spectrum backlog (Crazy Cars 1 & 2, Dick Tracy, Pole Position, Angel Nieto Pole 500, The Living Daylights, Paris to Dakar, Super Hang-On)
- Sunsetting the Amstrad CPC, finish the backlog but will drop a few games. As a gesture hopefully will be ripping the GX4000/Amstrad Plus Burnin' Rubber as the final game. That would have to be ripped differently due to actually using sprites for the player car!
- Restricting the C64 rips to just a few games; Batman: The Movie, Commando (most likely to be ditched), Dynamite Dux, Out Run (WIP), Pole Position, Pitstop, Pitstop II and Turbo Out Run. Maybe The Untouchables as well... If it wasn't for the standards issue, Pole Position 2 and plumbing duo (Atari) would have also been ripped.
- Have a look at finishing as much as I can regarding the SNES backlog. Yeah, this means that Operation Europe will start in terms of rips after delaying it for like 8-9 months. Someone a while ago requested about the enemies from Romancing Saga 1 & 2 however said website that was used as a reference has now closed down. This is how bad my backlog is with rips...
- Finish off the Game Boy rips and Bubble Bobble Part 2 is just the start. Some are just going to be intro/title screen stuff though. Normally intro/menu rips are simple enough but Three Lions/Golden Goal is a bit of a nightmare. So many versions/variations of a poor football game and this is coming from the publisher of some really acclaimed open world games.
- Finish off the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 background rips and figure out Batman. Also complete the Buster Bros. rip that I was working on. I'll see if there's anything else on the console.
- Figure out how to sort out F1 06 PSP, various parts have been ripped months ago.
- Ripping the GBA Choro Q/Penny Racers/Gadget Racers/Road Trip/whatever backgrounds and putting them onto sheets. Already ripped a couple so far. The weirdest thing, the game runs at full speed until you pause the game. After pausing... for me runs at 13-21 fps for the races and runs like that even if the game has been reset. Full speed for the menus but the unplayable frame rate bug is very off putting.
- Fingers crossed regarding the GBA RoboCop game...
- There are a few arcade games that have been in the backlog for years and wanted them done. e.g. The Destroyer of Jail and Super Dead Heat, I started ripping those when they only just got added into MAME. Also due to the update, ripping Hang-On, maybe even Enduro Racer and Super Hang-On. (Wanted to rip Hang-On for years and could tell by that Hang-On Jr. rip a long time ago, first discovered it via the arcade in Shenmue and actually enjoyed that and Space Harrier far more than the game itself).
- Hoping to finish some Genesis rips including a few prototypes. There are a few including the addons too hence the X clue. It's going to be small scale though so have low expectations.
- Finish off the Monaco GP Saturn rip, something that I wanted to do for YEARS since it is the only official port of the arcade classic (SG-1000 version changed some things). It's not working in MAME to this day since it is one of the last games that used discrete circuitry.
- Finish off the Lupin FM Towns game and if I can... The Castle of Cagliostro and The Legend of the Gold of Babylon games on the MSX. Yes, they made Lupin games based off those films.
It will also mean for the time being that there will be less progress done. Once Bubble Bobble Part 2 and Power Golf are background ripped with some C64/Amstrad/Spectrum on the side, going to be sorting out my games and that will take a while (especially those lengthy installs with the PS4).
Also any unfinished sheets will be posted here, maybe they get finished at some point.