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Yawackhary · (This post was last modified: 12-01-2023, 01:25 PM by Yawackhary.)

Thanks. Often when deciding what to rip I'll try to be varied because variety is a spice of life.

When I was younger, I tried to go for games that I did like (Lucky Dime Caper, Point Blank, Special Criminal Investigation, Pang, Out Run, etc), the well known stuff (Streets of Rage series, Wonder Boy series, SMB2, even Sonic 2 at one point) or a popular media IP but gaming is more than just the stuff you like or what's popular. Probably due to being more of a Sega not-just-Sonic ripper than a Nintendo (or nowadays PC as well) ripper, it was easier to go down the rabbit hole. Starting off the Master System and Genesis going beyond the basics, then when it got tricky moved on to uncharted territory with Amstrad/Spectrum/C64 with some arcade games along the way. Had I been younger, maybe have gone towards the Japanese computers as well e.g. MSX, Sharp X68000. It might have been Superjustinbros and shadowman44 since they tend to rip more obscure games. Saying that did do a fair few GBA, SNES and GB games, even NES... Sometimes to help out on projects, sometimes to get more of the library on tSR.

Probably might have guessed but my NES and Spectrum rips don't tend to have much passion. It might be psychological since they were the most popular in the 1980s. Anyway enough rambling...

A well known classic, sometimes ripped from more than one version. I try to avoid the well known games these days just because there are far better rippers out there that can go into detail, know the game off by heart or smart enough to make tools. Avoid anything Sonic because I do not have the level of Super OCD that some of the fan base has.
A well known classic but the version might be a bit more obscure.
A well known cult game, usually known for one quality e.g. some C64 games were sprite ripped because of the soundtrack even if the game itself is forgotten.
A well known bad game. I was aware of Renegade 3 and Human Killing Machine for years (even though personally Renegade 3 isn't that bad, if it was called The Time Traveller Fighter or something it wouldn't have been as slated. It was more of a typical only have a few weeks to make this game type of thing with 3 people.) I don't tend to do too much of these...
A real obscurity and ripping for the sake of preserving forgotten gaming history. This is where the bulk of the past 5 years have been. Anything from Super Speed Race to the first plug and play mahjong machine to pre-Rayman Ubisoft games.
Relating to that, some times prototypes. They are a part of gaming history.
Sometimes I see a game on tSR and if doable for me to expand the content. This is kinda rare and mainly like title screen stuff.
The game is easy enough for me to rip. Again doesn't happen often.
I don't tend to do modern games, mainly because that's covered by more competent rippers who know what they are doing (and in the case of the latest Nintendo game, I DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE). Did that before with Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber back in the day and personally it should be re-ripped, my latest game in terms of release date still remains the DS Lupin game. Do have a couple of PSP games that have been in the pipeline for a while. So yeah, most of the rips are comfortably in the 8 and 16-bit eras (3rd/4th gen) with a few 32 bit (5th gen/GBA).
Believe it or not there are games that I do like to rip but can't... Many Amstrad Ocean games. F1 Pole Position 64 and especially F1 World Grand Prix 2 on the N64. The PSP Inspector Zenigata pachinko game. Even though I have been ripping for a long time, not smart enough to do any programming. Fixing GB headers with a guide is probably the most that I can do. Like wise there were some games that I had to abandon... While some have been put as WIP on here, others haven't and are rotting away.
In some cases, I actually like the series/games. Hence why some of the games that I rip, I get to rip multiple times or an IP that I REALLY like. e.g. Bugs Bunny, Simpsons, Lupin III, Batman. (also applies to characters too)
Within the past year or two, there has been more focus on racing games so they tend to get ripped. It along with a few platformers are more or less the only genres that I can play, even then only selected games.

Bearing in mind some games that I do decide have been in the backlog for quite a long time e.g. Congo Bongo C64 Disk in May, Double Dribble C64 in April while others are on a whim (but less these days). Some like Motorcross Racer on the C64 was planned but took until early-November before I could find a disk copy.

Just a few rips due to losing interest in gaming... No Amstrad this time.

C64

Motorcross Racer

Rider

Was struggling with the Blades of Steel rip (ripped the players and the referee but... not the fight mode and can't access the player vs goalie mode) so I thought of ripping something easier. As for the game itself, feels very Atari 2600 like just with better graphics.

Dalek Attack

The Doctor

Ace

Unlike the Spectrum version, this wasn't the last commercial C64 game (think that was Lemmings, late 1993/early 1994) and contains a shmup stage. Due to an upcoming series of a doctor who goes on adventures, this rip has been fast tracked. The Doctor looks more like a detective than anything and despite the flyer for the game calling the companion Ace, it doesn't look like her either from what I've gathered.

I looked into the C64 original of Airborne Ranger but it only loads whatever sprites are on screen...

Spectrum

Emilio Butragueño Futbol

Players

Referee

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo(breaths out)oooooooooooool! Another Spanish game, this time a jerky moving clone of Tehkan World Cup that was really popular at the time. Weirdly Ocean were co-credited so I do wonder whether they were going to rebrand this game outside of Spain (maybe as a licensed version of Tehkan World Cup?) but plans fell through or whether they were able to get to the rights of the player. Ocean didn't publish this game since most releases in Spain from them were published and distributed by Erbe. There was also an Italian C64 game that had Ocean's name on them as well...

Speedboat Assassin

Assassin Class Assault Speedboat

This seems to be a rip off/inspired by Off Shore Warrior... That wasn't released on the Spectrum. There's not many chase view games where you play as a speedboat but when they did, they all came out roughly the same time! (Off Shore Warrior, this game, Live and Let Die, even Butcher Hill with one of the levels. Then there's Aqua Jack and Hydra where you're on a hovercraft.)

Continental Circus

Dalek Attack

Was going to wait until it was my last Spectrum rip (as it was the final commercial game released around 30 years ago!) but with a certain show returning, it has been fast tracked. The Doctor and Ace were ripped on July 24 2022 making them one of my earliest Spectrum rips, only a bit of fixing was needed.

Some bad news, having problems ripping Freddy Hardest in South Manhattan. The enemies from what have been done is okay and almost ready but Freddy himself, I cannot find the sprite boundaries for all the sprites. Tried experimenting but only got to half way. Then again it is VERY common that Spectrum games have their graphics in strips.

Not much left on the Spectrum... Just mainly fighting in the streets and Operation Mansell.

Yawackhary · 12-25-2023, 05:55 PM

Now that my gaming collection is down to the literal bare minimum (literally just a few Mario games, racing games and if you can class them as games VNs), it'll mean that I have more focus to finish the rips. Yet... the rips are taking too long, struggling with whatever rips that I have and even playing the games themselves is like climbing a mountain these days.

Originally considered splitting the racing games to their own project however felt that it would have been a burden considering how many are yet to be ripped and the ways things are going, it probably be best to leave them here until that day comes...

So yeah... Just a small amount...

C64
Out Run

Ferrari Testarossa Spider (PAL)

Ferrari Testarossa Spider (USA)

I've lost count how many times I've ripped this classic game...

Top Cat Starring in Beverly Hills Cats

Top Cat

A bonus purple palette is provided since in game TC wears a grey coat rather than... you know... his purple waistcoat. He doesn't wear that in the Beverly Hills film either what the game is supposed to be based off.

Smiths Super Champs

Rally Cross (Anco)

Rally Cross (Codemasters)

Car

Believe it or not this was Codemasters first rally game, way before the Colin McRae Rally and DiRT series (not to mention the recent WRC game).

Would have done more but there are issues with the rips including a certain doctor...

Amstrad

Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror

The Doctor

Splinx

Enemies

A quick rip, mainly because there aren't many sprites. Also I couldn't rip the items, they are either glitched or not in the graphics viewer...

Very rare that you get a game not too far from where you live or grew up in. Unless you either live in a place known for developers e.g. California, Montreal, Vancouver, Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto, historically Manchester, live near a studio or you live near the developers that you keep contract with (at least with indie/demoscene type). In this case where I grew up, there was a publisher called Micro Power who mainly focused on BBC Micro games and were one of the two main companies for the computer, the other being Superior Software. I recently discovered that the home computer versions of Star Wars was also done not too far away, within a bus ride. There were a few other games that I knew as well e.g. Bill's Tomato Game and ResQ (Genesis, both unreleased), WipEout 3: Special Edition, HardWar. Game companies don't seem to last long...

This looks very close to the BBC Micro version that was considered by the company to be the main version. Said version was also why Micro Power had financial problems and was their downfall due to the needed expansion ROM chip (that the Amstrad and later BBC Master versions don't, also affected the unreleased Spectrum version as it was done before the 128k adoption and the approach was similar to Saboteur on the C16) and the marketing costs, probably licensing costs too. This game was considered AAA and a price to match, like paying $70 for a PS5 game. Especially when most games were generally less than £10 or £15 if you got it on disk (the disk version did price drop though). After this they only released a few more games (including a Chess game) and that was that... By the time I got to see where they were based, it became a windows and doors company.

It's a bit strange, two of the leading companies that published games on the computer were close to each other, you would think that I would grew up using a BBC Micro? Nope. When I was at primary/elementary school, only thing that the school had was an Acorn computer with Badger Trails being the only thing resembling a game and funnily enough, was one of the few people who got to go on it because people weren't as interested in computers back in the late 1990s. It's not like now where nearly everyone has a computer, phone or tablet. By the time that I was leaving school, it had just started to move to Windows (and there was only 1 Windows based computer at the entire school on my final year). There might have been a BBC Micro unused somewhere but this is over 23 years ago. That's enough of that memory...

Yogi Bear & Friends in The Greed Monster

Yogi Bear

Despite the name, you only play as Yogi and was a quick rip. The name is linked to Yogi's Treasure Hunt where the Greed Monster is one of the characters in the show.

Ruff and Reddy in The Space Adventure

Ruff

Enemies

Again, you can only play as Ruff (Reddy only shows up on the Loading Screen & the HUD). Speaking of Space Adventure...

Cobra

Cobra

Dominique

Crystal Bowie / Salamandar

Yep, the French loved Space Adventure Cobra so much that this was the first game of the series before the Japanese did the adventure games on the PC Engine.

Err... Did you rip this game before? Not on here... Besides the original Cobra rip was from January 27, 2018 and felt that it could do with a re-rip plus rip the enemies, Crystal Bowie, Dominique and that Lady is actually a recolour of the android enemies that pop up so she's not on the graphics viewer. As an extra note, the game runs on Mode 1 (4 colour mode) so the sprites are baked into the blue background.

Daley Thompson's Super-Test

Giant Slalom

Finally something from this game.

Leader Board

Golfer

Not having much luck... The Spy Who Loved Me is partially compressed (enemies and when the Lotus spins out on a oil slick) so that can't be done. Iron Trackers is half way done but it seems that the screen size isn't right with half of the screen missing. Still there's a surprise...

DS

Lupin the Third: Shijou Saidai no Zunousen

Zenigata

It's December 25 and people this time of year celebrate an important birthday. Yep, one Inspector Koichi Zenigata.

[Nearly December 26 because I'm too slow ripping... Sad

]

(Oh and in case anyone is confused why Zenigata has so many sprites for what is an enemy. That's because Lupin can also disguise himself as Pops, it's a series trademark usually seen in Part 2 but has popped up in other series, films and TV Specials, even the manga I believe... There's even a moment in Part 2 where Jigen and Goemon were also disguised as Zenigata.)

Also to add on top of that... The game must have been rushed out because internally it doesn't seem to be cleaned up for release. Duplicate tiles, nearly entire sprites being duplicated (Zenigata and Zenigata_2 share sprites, only the animation positions have changed) and as mentioned before, early sprites of Lupin are still in the game. Doesn't help that viewing the animations causes Tinke to crash or doesn't display the poses. Probably why it also explains why this never came out of Japan and surprisingly didn't get an Italian release like a couple of the PS2 games (Lupin was not popular at the time to justify an US release, a different story now... this just happens to be the LAST Lupin game on a console).

Going to do something a little different in a couple of days time...

Yawackhary · 04-07-2024, 12:16 PM

December 30 has passed and now have been ripping for 17 years. Some of my rips here are getting closer to legal drinking age and many of them are older than some people who go on tSR!

For some stats and facts:

My first game on tSR is The Lucky Dime Caper and this sheet is the oldest surviving on the site done around December 30, 2006. There was this version of Donald Duck in the archive but the one on tSR is newer. In the future, the oldest sheet will highly likely be Bugs Bunny from Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (NES) around February 8, 2007.
The first attempted rip was actually Dr. Robotnik from Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on the Master System. My reasoning was because his character design resembled more like AoSTH compared to the Genesis version. AoSTH also happens to be one of my favourite cartoons.
Nearly 3000 rips on the site (technically close or more if we count removed ones like the old Sonic rips) at the time. Now way over 3000.
As a guess over 500 rips had to be abandoned at some point due to various issues
At least 4 sheets are completed but have yet to upload on tSR (Super Monaco GP arcade rival, Fujiko from The Castle of Cagliostro, Ferrari 300 from Bburago Rally and the Referee from Blades of Steel C64). There are a few more but have to rummage through the hard drive.
At least 120+ sheets are WIP
There are enough rips in the backlog to cover 2024, maybe even 2025.
According to tSR; the most games come from Amstrad CPC (259) while the most sheets come from the Genesis (715). The most genre ripped is Racing (231 games, 602 sheets) and will increase. When the retirement comes, there will be roughly 300 Amstrad games and the Mega Drive will still be somehow No.1.
Least amount of rips are Visual Novels (just the one and it's an error message) while there are many systems with just the one rip (Virtual Boy, WonderSwan, PS1, Neo Geo, Micom Mah-jong, PS2 doesn't count as it was technically ripped by Dazz). PSP at the time of writing is 1 but is likely to increase.
1 sprite rip got lost when it nearly finished due to a computer crash. Speed Duel on the Spectrum. The game is cursed...
The oldest game I ripped is Sprint 2 (November 2, 1976) and the latest game is Lupin the Third: Shijou Saidai no Zunousen (February 11, 2010).
The earliest sheet that's still WIP is Simulador Profesional de Tenis on the Amstrad CPC. Any earlier sheets are lost.
My earliest appearance on a tSR update was done by Toadkarter on January 4, 2007. My first name drop was later. While I cannot recall it happened on the older sites as it was usually Dazz and co posting lyrics or what happened in their life, the earliest known one is when the current site updated for the first time. You know, the one where Shade goes back in time every year... That one. For the younger members, believe it or not name drops were really rare. You had to do something really outstanding to achieve a name drop.
In the old tSR pre-current design site, Yawackhary had never made it to the Top Spriter section. Personally I'm not bothered, I'm not that good Even now, there are way better rippers.
The first critique came from Dolphman regarding the Title Screen from SegaSonic the Hedgehog. (IMO it should really be re-ripped now...)
There were a few co-rips. RTB and I helped out on The Simpsons arcade rips (he did most of the characters while I focused on Homer and Homer + Bart/Lisa/Marge). Misselaneous10 and I ripped Lucia from Psychic World on the Master System however... I may have actually ripped the entire sheet or re-ripped it and she just got credit. The memories are fuzzy but I believe that she started to rip Lucia, then there was some sort of issue. It was an attempt to teach someone to sprite rip but it didn't pan out... The others that are on tSR people just added on any missing sprites and are not co-rips or at least intentionally.
Many of the anime/manga rips I was embarrassed ripping them, enough to use an alias. Also applies to the SD Valis rips as well.
Most of the rips I used GraphicsGale in some form. The exceptions are any that got converted and the Zenigata PSP title screen using GIMP for the first time. Mainly because GraphicsGale seems to have some transparency issues. A majority of sheets are also compressed via PNG Gauntlet.
My longest gap between starting the rip and finishing the rip is Bin from Dynamite Dux (arcade). Originally the sheet started when you had to take screen captures from MAME (as no ripping tools existed), then it got abandoned then completely redone when System 16 Graphics Viewer got made. Since the original WIP is lost, it is around 11-12 years. It's one of those sheets that was glad to rip from.
My most stressful rips from what I can remember was during a period when I was ripping RBI Baseball 94 on the Genesis and Sailor Moon R on the SNES. Those were gaming development crunch levels of sprite ripping all down to something that was going to happen politically but it later didn't. Had Metallic Madness 1 from Sonic Mania on a loop... If anyone wondered why the comments were a bit strange on those sheets. Had to abandon a WIP sheet of Sailor Mercury and portraits from RBI.
Multiple health issues affected various periods of ripping. At one point struggled to even rip 5 sprites from Fire & Forget on the Amstrad CPC.
The very first rips you can tell because they have Yawackhary in them except the first ironically.

(Yes, I know we're getting into April now... My backlog is THAT behind...)

I can't remember why The Lucky Dime Caper was my first rip on here or why I chose it but there is a bit of background info. I used to play the game on my Game Gear and it was one of the earliest that I could get far on. For a platformer developed in the early 1990s it was unusually accessible; no time limit, health upgrades not too far away, slower paced, two forms of attack (sometimes games back then, if you had a weapon attack you couldn't jump to attack enemies), some stages even have alt routes. I did try to do a few sprite rips, the odd sprite or two for SMS Power and even tried contacted The Shy Guy Kingdom to upload a complete sheet. Since there was no reply and this was when the website was still active, posted on... gulp... Pixeltendo. For a vast majority of people who go on tSR now, Pixeltendo was the OG forum and tSR was a section on that forum. You pretty much had to have "balls of steel" to be on Pixeltendo but the tSR section was different. The rest was history. There were very few Master System/Game Gear rips in 2006, even less if you remove the Sonic games. Even then I was surprised that there were barely any Sega in general rips, many iconic series didn't have a single rip. No Alex Kidd, No Wonder Boy/Monster World, No Fantasy Zone, No Shinobi, not even Out Run and Space Harrier, I don't think there were many Streets of Rage rips either...

Then you're reading and thinking "what do you mean about the first rips having Yawackhary in them?". Aren't you Yawackhary? This is where it gets complicated. Before I was on tSR, I used to be on Sonic Vegemite and SV was one of the first communities that I was on. The name as it is, is based off yak, wacky, and the obscure game Zwackery because it was different than favouritething/character+numbers or name+the+animal as a typical username might be. You also had to have some persona when it came to the hoaxes, most people there had Sonic OCs as it was the case of the fan base back then. It started off as a recolour of Bin & Pin from Dynamite Dux and evolved from there. The Yawackhary sprites that you can see were edits from Sonic Advance (I can't remember which Sonic character it got edited from). There were a few more of them that are lost to time... Can recall one of them was an edit of Woody Woodpecker but not a sprite and sprite edits based off Land of Illusion. In my early years on tSR, I called myself Mr Yawackhary to differentiate between myself and Yawackhary Duck (the character). It was planned to be more than just something that appeared on SV and old rips; wrote ideas, characters and scenarios. Due to complete lack of talent, it never got anywhere and now the character is a relic from a different time. Saying that... Other people did have an interest in the character, he did appear in fan fiction (a prototype form before it evolved with Yawackhary having his own pals and rivals, saying that one thing did kinda happen a case of fiction becoming reality...) and fan art was drawn. It also when someone stole the character and tried to pass it as something else for people to draw fan art of him (look at the commissioner). That was when the Yawackhary dream died and became the man who sold the world...

This isn't just about stats, facts or old memories, it's about the rips.

Firstly The Lucky Dime Caper had an anniversary clean up, the title screen, Stage Select, Sega Logo and font have been added. The cutscene sheet is re-ripped as it was missing much of the ending and the game uses a programming trick! The misc sheet has been split up (Dialogue/Stage Icons, Items, Huey, Dewey & Louie, Scrooge is now in the cutscenes sheet) and will be retired, technically these have been re-ripped too.

C64

Warm Up

Car

I think that's why top down racers (with a few exceptions such as the Micro Machines series) have gone out of fashion. Mainly because of control issues, handling and if they are too fast, it becomes more like having fast reaction times and memorization since the view is pretty restricted on what you can see. They are more like a dodge 'em up really. Even later Micro Machines games and games within that type (Mashed) could at least zoom in and out, they weren't top down either...

Kellogg's Tour 1988

Cyclist

More or less Milk Race 2 with joystick waggling... Now I just need a bowl and a spoon...

Arcade

Lucky & Wild

Portraits

Was ripped nearly 5 years ago but forgot to upload it until now.

CPC

Classiques Volume 1

Invaders

Did you know that Titus in their early days did clones of classic arcade games putting them in compilations before it became a thing? Strangely enough, they are actually fairly decent versions of the game even if Pac-Man runs too fast. I'm actually surprised but I think they might have got into some legal bother since the Amstrad only got 2 of these Classique collections while 4 was advertised overall. On the flyer, Centipede, Berzerk and Dig Dug were shown coming on Volume 3 that wasn't released on the computer. A later flyer showed off Q-bert and Frogger too. By the end, think only the Thomson computers got all 4...

Fruity Frank

Frank

Enemies

Items

Since the CPC didn't get Mr Do! (not even a modern homebrew port), this clone became famous especially for an early title. As per classic arcade graphic design, the graphics are designed around the black background. No... hacking the palette won't fix this...

Game Boy

Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge

Car

Roadside Objects

Racing Damashii

Rider

Just a bit from the unofficial racing game project. Unofficial as in no thread but generally rip from racing games these days... GB wise see if I can do Lamborghini American Challenge and Roadsters (the sequel to Lamborghini). Maybe even some more from International Rally, Suzuki Alstare, Le Mans 24 Hours, V-Rally, the Top Gear Rally games and the F1 games. Possibly even Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible and that blooming Three Lions game for non-racing, fingers, toes and arms crossed. Bearing in mind that Suzuki Alstare, the Top Gear Rally games and Mission: Impossible have the sprites done in layers as a colour enhancing trick, similar to the MSX/MSX2. (This also means that I would have to re-rip the existing cars too in Top Gear Pocket to reflect this)

Game Gear

Last Action Hero

Jack Slater

F1 World Championship Edition

Scratch Golf

Yet another golf game. Not keen on this one even though the name is interesting and the graphic style is quite nice for miniature size...

(As a footnote, the game can only count up to 9 as after the first 9 holes in a course, it resets back to 1 rather than 10. The manual says that there are only two courses in the game so...)

Currently working on Cliffhanger, Kawasaki Superbike Challenge, Clutch Hitter and Power Drive. Emulicious has problems with some of the games in particular the World Series Baseball games due to the unsupported RAM chip. I'll see if there's any more but from the sounds of things, that might be it for me for the Game Gear.

"King" GBA

Sega Rally Championship

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII

Toyota Celica GT-Four

Backgrounds

A surprise! I expected this game to use models like some 3D GBA racing games but this uses pre-rendered sprites. Pre-rendered sprites that are only 16 colours! Even though some of them end up being broken and it's like this in all three versions of the game.

(It took longer than it should as by the time that I discovered a shortcut in YY-CHR to display the cars in their correct alignment to assemble it faster, the rips were nearly over with just the two bonus cars from the OG Sega Rally left. The shortcut involved making a layout that's 8x8, one that I'm not surprised offered as a default setting...)

Yes, I did also rip GAME OVER YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smuggler's Run

Backgrounds

UFO

Top Gear GT Championship

BP Kraft Trueno

Cusco Subaru Impreza

Daishin Advan Silvia

RE Amemiya MatsuKiyo RX-7

WedsSport Celica

Another one with pre-rendered sprites but uses a single 256 colour palette. Originally started ripping this in the same layout as Sega Rally above but then decided to re-rip it via the shortcut. Sadly can only go so far because I don't know the names of the other cars in the ROM... Can guess the Castrol one is a Toyota.

I did look into some other GBA racing games that are not on the site and in terms of vehicles to rip from the ROM. Inspector Gadget Racing seem doable but will take a while. The rest are either compressed and don't seem to be the LZ77 one, is the LZ77 one but in pieces, use a completely different way of viewing the sprites like V Rally 3 or really do seem to be textures and models. Personally I can't see many more GBA rips coming from me. There's one from a certain actor known for appearing in movies that had Blu-ray releases from 88 Films, Eureka and Warner Bros that got himself a cartoon, said actor also had games that I previously sprite ripped a long time ago.

Oh and as for King GBA... In the past, GBA used to have the most rips and views on tSR. Also some of the earliest rips on the site come from the handheld, some that are nearly 20 years old!

As it stands right now:
- Have been documenting some stuff on the wiki. Anyone ripping might find these useful.
- Trying to get the Master System project as far down as possible. Already have Woody Woodpecker, California Games 2, Gangster Town (possibly dropped), Shadow of the Beast (possibly dropped) and Sensible Soccer as WIP. Not doing the SG-1000 mode games outside of the WIP Flashpoint, the title screen of Sherlock Holmes due to language barrier and maybe FA Tetris (also the only SG-1000 game that is still WIP is Monaco GP).
- Trying to get the CPC games down due to the recent news.
- The ripping list is going to get frozen soon just because of both lack of time and retirement from gaming all together. Yes I have mentioned some new games to rip but really getting to the point of having enough...
- There might be some DS getting ripped but have very low expectations... I have been checking the ROMs to a few games out of curiosity (Corvette Evolution GT, Ferrari Challenge, Touch Golf, PES 6, Race Driver: Create & Race). Also declared Ducati Moto, Burnout Legends, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith to be undoable for me, especially having its own custom formats. Only a small amount of Point Blank DS can be done (the doors). Tinkle claims Tiger Woods to be 94% recognisable but that's a lie...
- Expect to see some Genesis and 32X stuff within the next 6 months. Again have low expectations...
- My progress is behind by at least a year due to health issues and struggles. Too many games, not enough time... It's making me stressed...
- The backlog on the C64 games is rather high so expect to see some in the future including some from a few acclaimed games (Grand Prix Circuit, Out Run Europa, Turbo Charge with the first two already extracted some sprites).
- Ripping tutorials of Commodore 16 and 64 are WIP.

Magma MK-II · 04-07-2024, 09:18 PM

Some of the cars in Top Gear GT are listed in the manual: http://www.atensionspan.com/KML/GBA/Top%...0(USA).pdf

Yawackhary · 11-02-2024, 09:34 PM

In all honesty, have been losing interest on top of health issues.

So much so that WIPs of Lotus Turbo Challenge (Genesis) and the Woody Woodpecker Master System game ended up being ripped by others who have done a great job. Plus it can take me over 12 hours to do a title screen rip. Just more recently as in the past few weeks had a push to finish some rips especially from the CPC, a case of getting it over and done with.

Lupin III: The Legend of the Gold of Babylon (MSX2)

Lupin III

Yay! Wrong colour jacket though...

TZR Grandprix Rider (MSX)

Rival

Yeah, The Zpriters Resource...

Master System

Global Gladiators

Mick & Mack

Ronald McDonald

Lemmings

No good at the game at all. Had to be done...

Super Kick Off

Players

Ball

Now it can be kicked off.

Game de Check! Kōtsū Anzen (JPN)

Rare educational game that teaches road traffic safety. Some places class this as a prototype however more realistically it is a non-commercial game that can be rented, apparently 200-300 copies were produced and only a few still survive today. A Japanese insurance company is credited for publishing and probably one of the only cases on the Master System that this happened (this is more common with the Atari 2600 or the Spectrum with non gaming companies releasing games).

From this point, these rips were done/finished with a non-working Down key...

Back to the Future Part II

Jennifer

Mission 2 Enemies

Mission 4 (Sliding Puzzle)

Even a simple rip like this is taking ages now...

Castle of Illusion

Rolling Demo Graphics

In the olden days before the likes of trailers (unless you was lucky to see an advert on TV or on a promo tape), companies had done non-interactive demos known as rolling demos. Sometimes like this one, it had different graphics than the final. On home computers like the Spectrum, you might get these on magazine tapes and they considered second class compared to actual playable demos while others like consoles up to the PS1, they weren't for the public but you might if you're lucky see it in a store. This probably would have appeared on the likes of CES or a trade show.

Amstrad CPC

G-LOC

The last of the Sega arcade ports but not the last US Gold game. Just the last commonly released game and most copies seem to bundle the Spectrum version too on the same tape/disk. Like with Grand Prix 500 2 (still WIP), the game is 128k only just because the graphics are stored in that extra RAM.

(Had to do a bit of hacking capturing regarding the Intro. The graphics for the ZEEK blueprint are not in the graphics viewer so I captured the two blueprints via screenshots then to make sure that it is the correct size, went into the Gate Array Registers. This is what I usually do to make capturing Loading Screens easier by changing the border colour to a different colour but... This game is stubborn when it comes to changing palette for that scene, it is hard locked for those five colours that already breaks Mode 1 restrictions. Mode 1 is 4 colours but many games do break this with rasters. e.g. The Living Daylights is Mode 1 but has 8 colours in game and 12 on the menu. So had to change it to Mode 0, took a screenshot as it shows the correct size yet not the right mode then using THAT cropped the other two screenshots so the graphics are the right size. Sometimes ripping what appears to be easy such as title screens and stuff aren't always easy. Done palette hacking and ripping layers when it comes to Genesis title screens.)

Westphaser / Steve McQueen Westphaser

One of the only two games that supported the Lorciels Phaser and was originally bundled with the gun but later got a re-release with the Steve McQueen name (who isn't really well known for being a cowboy as much compared to say Clint Eastwood or John Wayne) and added joystick support. Shouldn't really be ripping games like this or any game with flashing... Luckily it's just finishing off Operation Wolf and Thunderbolt in terms of the sub-genre.

Wacky Races

Despite being similar to the NES game, it's not a port... The Gruesome Twosome and Prof Pat Pending aren't in this game.

Out Run Europa

Completely forgotten about this one... At first glance, this looks like the Master System/Game Gear version but not quite (won't be surprised that the Spectrum/Amstrad/MS/GG versions share something due to the Z80, I know C64 is its own thing). This game uses a "blocky" engine as in all of the graphics are made up of tilesets and feels like it. Still working on the C64 version.

Livingstone I Presume

Henry Morton Stanley

Yeah, this does have some right outdated stereotypes as the enemies even for its time. According to the release dates, this is the original version alongside the MSX version (MSX 1 version, not sure when the MSX2 version was released but notable for being one of the very few non-Japanese, non-homebrew MSX2 games) while Opera Soft later did the Spectrum, Atari ST and the C64 versions, the latter was bugged and can't be completed until 2023 when a YouTuber of all things fixed the bug. Unusually for the UK release, Alligata actually put an infinite lives cheat in the manual. No joke.

Livingstone 2

Henry Morton Stanley

Can't even get past the first part of first level and the icon shows... Ripped last year but forgot to upload until now.

Grell & Falla

Grell / Bjorn Grellenstone

Falla / Falanthriel Peaseblossom

One of the last Codemasters games released on the computer and ironically as it turns out one of the oldest WIP games that was in my backlog! ‎Started way back in February ‎2018 and a case of coming full circle, started what was my new laptop is now my soon to be retired laptop with a non-working down key. (Did have a Windows hybrid tablet during this time so probably would have been ripped from that) Started ripping this when I used WinAPE but then changed to CapriceForever about two years ago, both times were about half the sprites. After the first attempt of Return of the Jedi shortly after this, there were no more CPC rips until World Series Baseball and that would have been when the graphics viewer was added in CapriceForever (if you look carefully, some were ripped from WinAPE and some were ripped from Caprice just by the different palettes) plus WinAPE is increasingly difficult to run on modern computers. As it turned out, the tape was not backed up on my laptop and got lost in the shuffle hence why it took so long. Anyway... Grell & Falla themselves got completely re-ripped on October 1 2024. Then the enemies/objects progress got lost due to a mistake...

Yes, Grell reminds me a bit of Wario...

Highway Patrol / Highway Patrol II

Criminal Car

Basically if Microids did Test Drive (before they released Gear.Club Unlimited) and ironically actually plays better than the Amstrad port of Test Drive 2. Sadly Highway Patrol II is almost the same as the first game just removed the cutscene with the officer, even the loading screen is the same! The only change was the criminal car (and some internal changes making it harder to rip)... Looking around it might be a re-release rather than the sequel just so it can use the same box as the Amiga and Atari ST versions otherwise it is literally the laziest sequel ever made. Yep, beating the likes of roster update sports games, Crazy Cars 2 C64, Olympic Hockey 98 and even bootlegs. At least those change the title screen...

Les Aventures de Pepito au Mexique

Pépito

Back to ripping from brands, this time a character who appears on French biscuits.

Game Over

Arkos

Planet Carcel / Hypsis Enemies

Giant Orko

Giant Robot

Imperial Palace / Planet Sckunn Enemies

Effects

Was going to save this to last for obvious reasons but it was fairly easy to rip from.

The Games: Winter Edition

Luge

Slalom

Ceremonies

Some of these graphics are just ugly... Cross Country Skiing sprites (one of the two best looking events along with Luge) even had shadow masks for Mode 0. Why?! You only need shadow masks if it was in Spectrum format... It's like either pushed for time or just gave up half way through development.

Going to do something that I have never done before... Giving Olympic Gold and Winter Olympics some praise because those two games are US Gold's only "good" athletic games overall, with the ports of Summer and Winter Games being the best on the Amstrad (done by Choice, who usually are with Ocean) even if the C64 versions are best if you count the Epyx ones and not US Gold... Thinking about it, it gave me the idea to rip from Olympic Gold (Genesis version) and the current WIP sheet of the Athlete had to be re-ripped costing precious time...

WEC Le Mans

Car

Finally! One of the best Amstrad racing games and still somewhat playable today despite the lower frame rate. It's been in the backlog since January ‎2022 and the loading screen was ripped back then. This game stores the car the same way that some Spectrum games do with its 8 pixel sprite column then 8 pixel mask yet ironically completely different graphics compared to the actual Spectrum version and is native Mode 1 (rather than storing at Mode 2/Spectrum format). Despite taking two years, just could not find the dust sprites in the graphics viewer at all... Squinted though looking for pixels, blanked out the other sprites and that for some reason has the in game screen 15 times mixed in with roadside objects! Nope... so sadly had to take the old route...

Titus the Fox

The Hit Squad

Not the infamous Ocean budget range (even if some releases are far from budget these days if you're collecting) but rather a Codemasters release that kind of is like a 1 player version of Quartet. Then again something tells me that another publisher possibly Pirate Software considered, they went bankrupt and Codies got the game last minute, enough for an Amstrad version but not C64 as this was originally a Spectrum game. I'm lucky to get past the first level and even then it's luck since it's very easy to drain energy in this game, the icon is as far as I can go... This was actually part of the backlog years ago but forgot about it until fairly recently.

Just couldn't find those weapon effects anywhere...

4x4 Off-Road Racing

Truck

A case of started to rip the Spectrum version but ended up doing this version instead. Funnily enough all four trucks have the same sprite.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Indiana Jones

Sophia Hapgood

Intro

US Gold had no confidence releasing this despite having adverts and only got a release in France, this was US Gold's last ever Amstrad game and one of the last games from the commercial era (yeah, you can tell its getting closer to the end of Amstrad ripping...). It was so obscure that the only English review back in the day was 1 paragraph in a French magazine. I don't think it's finished and feels like a beta version...

Also found a secret in the intro!

Dick Tracy (GX4000/Plus)

Dick Tracy

Enemies

The world works in mysterious ways since Titus put a lot of effort into this version, more than finishing off the C64 version. Completely new graphics, music in game and scrolling! Had it been any other console, the game would have been average at best but because the GX4000 flopped (the Plus range just a bit less) and many of the games were just literally the same as the Amstrad CPC version maybe with a palette change and changing the loading screen to a title screen, it meant that it was one of the better ones that took advantage of the hardware. Not on the scale of Burnin' Rubber, RoboCop 2, Navy SEALs, Pang, recent homebrew such as UFO Robo Grendizer or the upcoming SonicGX though.

(Also can only get to the start of Stage 3 even with a trainer version with infinite health and bullets once the weapons are collected. Meaning the bosses aren't ripped.)

Also some bad news... This is the last GX4000 game that I'm ripping and others had to be dropped due to various sprite viewer issues with CapriceForever from when they first got included (sprites are the incorrect 128x64 but shows up as 127x63 as the window border bleeds into the frame with the sprite leaking into the frame with lots of blank space, Burnin' Rubber relies on layering too) and they even happen in the latest version but in a different way (fixed the empty space but 4th sprite in a row is cropped, size is too big and combining any character into 3 sprites meaning Dick Tracy cannot be arranged). I can't rip with broken sprite viewers...

Obsidian

Player

Had to use a map and cheats for infinite lives and nitro if I can to explore the game to get all the palette variations. First thought of two different palettes but it seems that the map at CPCPower might have palette glitches. Tried the original Artic, the Americana (US Gold) re-release and even the French version, the palettes were the same.

Archon: The Light & The Dark

Dark Side

Light Side

Was going to do Street Sports Basketball as it was on the list except... In game the players are surrounded with an outline, the problem is that the shadow mask (the graphics themselves are in Spectrum format aka Mode 2) is not displayed at all in the Graphics Viewer except for the ball itself. This means that without it, the sprites are broken and don't want to rip knowing that... Tried to see if there was an alternative way but nope... Another one was Cycit, a lost motorbike game from 1986 only just been rediscovered. The disk was preserved on September 21 2024 and looked at the 28th so literally would have been quick except... Could only do the traffic lights and some but not all the signs because the graphics viewer shows a mess on the bikes, don't know whether its compressed, just only showing some parts or both. Then checked Jack Nicklaus Golf and that seems to be garbage in the graphics viewer no matter the setting, looks like runs off a framebuffer.

So that leaves Xyphoes Fantasy, Grand Prix 500 2, Operation Wolf/Thunderbolt (half way!), the Nigel Mansell games (nearly there!), a couple of stranglers in terms of Spanish games, a few that weren't ready in time and Game Over 2 left before sunsetting the Amstrad CPC. Just felt like I've done enough...

Spectrum
Street Fighter

Retsu

Another one ripped ages ago but forgot to upload. From the looks of things the rest of the Spectrum rips have been dropped...

C64
Kung-Fu Master

Nearly it for beat'em ups... At least this is a classic...

(Also glad that trained versions exist otherwise I would struggle getting past the first enemy!)

1000 Miglia

Car

An Italian developed racing game where the only versions that I can find are old scene releases that are a bit broken. It's one of those games where yes, it could be better especially when it comes to selecting options and what appears to be random breakdowns during a race but not as bad as it is made out to be as there are far worse racing games and disappointing ports on the computer. Just an average game really...

Slicks

Car

Ohh dear... Despite the praise from C64 fans, it reminds me of those Japanese developed top down F1 games (e.g. F1 Grand Prix, F1 Spirit, F1 Circus, F1 Dream, etc) where they are so fast that they are hard to see what's ahead and have to be quick to react. Not my kind of game but can see why it is praised by its speed and presentation. Also happens to be one of the last Codemasters published games on the C64 before they moved onto consoles and PC.

Super Cycle

Rider

Flagman

GBA

TOCA World Touring Cars

Just wanted an easy rip due to a problem ripping Pocket Rockets (thought that it was done, pixel differences with the bikes that I didn't detect due to my vision and only when palette comparison that it was picked up, only half a bike got ripped and there are four bikes). Just like Top Gear GT Championship, all cars share the same 256 color palette. There are a couple of pink focused cars such as the Ford Taurus and there are a few pinks in the palette similar in value. To prevent the risk, changed the background to a more familiar green that is not in that palette. The other cars aren't affected and keep its original palette.

Crazy Taxi: Catch a Ride

Ya ya ya ya ya! I'm surprised... The taxis are just 16 colour pre-rendered sprites. Nearly everything else (outside of HUD stuff) is 3D rendered including the shadows and when looking at the background or tile viewer, it's stored as a framebuffer...

Top Gear GT Championship

Castrol Nismo GT-R

Unisia Xanavi Skyline

Esso Ultron Tiger Supra

MatsuKiyo TOM'S Supra

Takata Dome NSX

Castrol MUGEN NSX

Denso SARD Supra GT

FKMassimo Cerumo Supra

Loctite Zexel GT-R

Mobil 1 NSX

Super Autobacs A'PEX MR-S

Sadly the manual didn't help much for Top Gear, it just says play the Championship mode to unlock the cars. That I ended up doing just to know which car is which... Also had to create save states because of how the game actually handles the cars compared to the manual. The first class is the same as Quick Race but Classes 2, 3 and 4 are different. In Class 2, you choose your car, a different selection than 1 but after completing that Class, you get a different selection plus the car that you previously raced in. Even when you complete a game, you only unlock any cars that you chose during Championship so you're in trouble if you choose the same car throughout for the later classes...

Not much for me now on the GBA...

PC Engine / TurboGrafx CD

Road Spirits

V8 DOHC (Ferrari F40)

V12 DOHC (Lamborghini Diablo)

V6 SOHC (Porsche 911 Carrera Speedster)

Citroën 2CV

Renault 5 Turbo

V6 DOHC (Honda NSX)

Believe it or not there was a time when Arc System Works worked on racing games and not just fighting or beat 'em ups, usually uncredited for Sega and usually on the Master System/Game Gear though. Yet another get out of the way rip despite being in the backlog for over six years and was going to do this about two years ago.

As for why the car names in brackets, in a prototype version the cars do have their proper names but in the final or REV2 build, it got changed due to not getting the licenses for the cars. Also the Renault and Citroën 2CV were made unlockable with codes and no longer appear on the car select, they still in game as traffic though.

Can't see me doing much more on the console though... Half of the racing games are what I mentioned are just like Slicks, others are compressed in the ROM, only load 1 sprite in the viewer, that black background issue with the tiles (with no fix) or all. Did manage to do portraits from a F1 manager game though, not that there's much graphics due to the genre in question yet slightly more than expected and of course... the language barrier being a bit of an issue.

Game Boy
Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing

One of those games that uses layering and managed to get the racing game backlog down a bit.

Now Something Completely Different

The Catch Lupin the 3rd Game

Targets

Background Elements

A Lupin flash game, done when Pioneer/Geneon had the rights to Part 2 (the Red Jacket series that was on Adult Swim in the US, famous for its dub and memes). This is my first and most likely my last Flash game that I will be ripping... JPEXS has way too small text and I have extreme difficulty reading tiny text. Also had to use different exporting tools as GraphicsGale is no good for transparency (doing the usual icons yes, importing stuff that is ALREADY transparent nope so used SpriteSheeter to sheet the rips and the icon was done via GIMP).

Still can't say no to more Lupin.

Shockwave Hockey

Players

Rink

Back in high school a loooooooooooong time ago, this was one of the few games that I did play along with Rampage, Spy Hunter, Tamala Loco: Rumble in the Desert 2 and I think a couple of the Nabisco flash games (recall a Newton's bike game) but not as much as those four. Didn't really play many web games. Well considering Internet Explorer was the main browser, mostly stuck to "proper" websites rather than dubious ones that could cause malware...

A strange fact, the players are encoded in Flash format meaning that they are in a higher resolution than the rest of the graphics!

Now it's mainly going to be along with finishing Amstrad:
- Finishing as much of the C64 backlog, mostly racing games (e.g. Out Run Europa, Super Monaco GP, Grand Prix Circuit)
- Hopefully the two remaining Lupin games (Cagliostro and the FM Towns game unless there's any 2D art in The Shooting/The Typing).
- A few Master System and Game Gear games to mop up, more of the latter due to shadowman44's excellent rips on the Master System. Had I been good at RPGs, would have tackled the Phantasy Star and sorting out the big mess that's the Shining Force Gaiden games (the rips on tSR had merged all three games with just one, confusingly only Part 2 got an official English translation) but alas...
- A few MSX games such as City Connection, not much on the computer though as I don't like its layering.
- "Jackie"
- A fair few title screens, fonts, low key rips to beef up some sections
- A few re-rips here and there without any fanfare
- A couple of low key Genesis rips so expect LOW expectations and not popular games or indeed a popular genre...
- Might fight evil in moonlight to quote an old song...
- Will have a surprise
- Most importantly will try to get as much of the racing game backlog done (a few Game Boy, Arcade mainly Lethal Crash Race, maybe even finishing the Saturn version of Monaco GP). A few Genesis ones even seem promising (Quad Challenge - port of Four Trax, Mario Andretti Racing, Test Drive 2) but Road Riot 4WD would have to be ripped via TileGGD due to not using the typical Genesis format or as I call it MD racing format as Outlander, Road Rash series does the same.

**Ton** · 11-04-2024, 09:47 AM

Amazing stuff! I'm always happy to see new rips from you!

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