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Post by spenoza on Sept 17, 2022 17:24:15 GMT
I’ve been getting really into the Video Game History Foundation’s podcast and it occurs to me there is very little documentation and interviews concerning TG16 and PCE development by western developers. It would be awesome to do some interviews and document what it was like for US and EU developers to work on the PCE and TG16 developing titles for the US and JPN market. I think I may start capturing credits information from every western-developed title I can find and generate a list of people. Anyone have a good head for interviews or developer connections and have an interest in seeing something like this come together?
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 17, 2022 17:48:40 GMT
I think this would be good, though I don't have the connections or the ability to pull it together. The people involved in translation of Japanese titles would also be good.
At the moment, the only non-Japanese names who come to mind are: Mike Dailly (of DMA Design - Lemmings) who is active on Twitter Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia)
...but these people are all Europe-based, and the ports to PC Engine may have been done by Japanese developers
Matt Householder did the port of Slime World to PC Engine (according to Wikipedia) There is also Robert Woodhead (Sir-Tech, Wizardry), who is likely contactable...
But again, all of these are games which were multi-system first and PC Engine second... probably not what you were actually aiming for. I'm kind of curious how many games developed in the West were specific to (or initially written on) PC Engine or TurboGrafx, and had any moderate form of success. Personally, I'm not interested in "Impossimole", but might be more open to "It Came from the Desert"...
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Post by spenoza on Sept 17, 2022 19:06:26 GMT
No, I’m interested in any development work by western developers for the system. I’m actually a bit less interested in localization, truth told. I’m more interested in how they dealt with the tools available to them and what development barriers or tricks they had to resort to, as well as what it might have been like to deal with a system so ill-positioned for the western market. Ports are still development.
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Post by dshadoff on Sept 17, 2022 19:30:57 GMT
Localization was, I'm sure, every bit as much about the tools as full-scale development. But with language as well and tighter deadlines.
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Post by spenoza on Sept 18, 2022 0:45:12 GMT
I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of someone pursuing the localization side. That’s just not as interesting to me personally. So I’m going to put my focus where I’m more motivated by my personal interests.
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Gaijin D
Punkic Cyborg
Yare yare da ze.
Posts: 136
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Post by Gaijin D on Sept 18, 2022 2:10:31 GMT
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Post by paranoiadragon on Sept 18, 2022 4:58:47 GMT
I seem to recall there's also the guy who did the port of Paradroid 90, who apparently is vocal on the net, but I don't recall his name. I do recall that he was going to finish it up and release it, or that's my memory from back in the PCEngineFX boards from years ago.
I am personally interested in Impossamole, as I'm one of the few who learned to enjoy that game. I used to hate that game back when I first bought it on release day! My buddy and I rode our bikes all the way to TRU just to buy that game. Rode our bikes back in excitement, just to get to his place and at first enjoying the intro, but then getting pissed off! Stopped playing, cooled off in the pool, and decided to give the game a second chance, and ended up enjoying it.
Honestly, the music helps me, as I consider it a fantastic soundtrack. That goes for any mediocre game. Music can really motivate me to enjoy a game more than the normal populace. Obviously there are problems with that game. But the graphics I consider to generally be nice, including the animation. I do think, but could be wrong, that they easily could've been able to pull off some simple Sprite based parallax on, let's say, the mountains in the Iceland level. Though I would've preferred more than that.
Kinda the same situation with It Came From the Desert. Got it at TRU, was all excited, got home, and was disappointed. Never fully could get into that game though. I wish they'd included all the mini games from the Amiga game. And the graphics in the caves are atrocious. Maybe the ants themselves look ok, but certainly that game could've looked better. The FMV also, I do wonder if that could've been handled better. I feel like it could, but then again, it's slightly different than Sherlock Holmes or Gulliver Boy, in that it has static bg's, with FMV people. I don't know how much better that could've worked out, but I want to believe it could've been better. All in all, I probably would've enjoyed that game more if the music was more impressive. I do enjoy the soundtrack, but not like I do with games like Impossamole or Shockman. Still, development of that game would be interesting to hear about.
I did read that the guy who did music for Order of the Griffon ripped on the Turbos sound chip, calling it garbage or whatever. That dude probably worked on lesser systems like the NES or ZX Spectrum but considered the TG to have terrible sound? My guess is he didn't see any games where there were phenomenal soundtracks, and maybe in general didn't give it his best, or maybe he stinks at the programming side of sound design?
Anyways, I'd love to hear more not only about Western games in general but translation as well. Would love more compiled info on Eastern development as well in general.
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Post by Black_Tiger on Sept 18, 2022 17:55:03 GMT
The Brothers Duomazov had some great interviews with Western TG-16 developers.
Hopefully someone copied them before the site went down.
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Post by elmer on Sept 18, 2022 23:22:54 GMT
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