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Pilotwings 64
Pilotwings 64 (1996)
subdirectory_arrow_right Pilotwings Resort (Game), Pilotwings (Game), Pilotwings (Collection)
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All three games in the Pilotwings series were launch titles for different Nintendo consoles in various regions, acting as a sort of tech demo for their respective systems. The original Pilotwings was a launch title for the SNES in North America, Pilotwings 64 was a launch title for the Nintendo 64 in both Japan and North America, and Pilotwings Resort was a Nintendo 3DS launch title in Europe and the United States.
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General, Release Date, Technology
person Salnax calendar_month November 21, 2024
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Platform: Nintendo DS
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The Nintendo DS having two screens was suggested by former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi to then-current president Satoru Iwata, and was inspired by the Game & Watch LCD game series' clamshell two-screen design. In a 2016 Retro Gamer interview with former Nintendo designer Satoru Okada, he delves into its origins:

"The project was moving forward at a good pace but during the development, something at unexpected happened. President Iwata then came to see me. He was obviously bothered and he said: 'l talked to Yamauchi-san over the phone and he thinks your console should have two screens... A bit like the multi-screen Game & Watch, you see?' [...] at the time, everybody hated this idea, even Iwata himself. We thought it did not make any sense. Back in the Game & Watch days, it was different because a second screen allowed us to double the playing area and the number of graphic elements on display. But with the modern screens, there was no point. We were free to choose the size of our screen, so why bother splitting it into two? Especially considering that it was impossible to look at both screens at the same time. This is why we did not understand his idea."
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Development, General, Inspiration, Real Life, Technology
person Ya Block calendar_month November 19, 2024
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Vib-Ribbon
Vib-Ribbon (1999)
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According to a Q&A with producer Masaya Matsuura included in the game's European press kit, Vibri's voice was generated with a Speech Synthesizer developed by NTT Communications, and was used because it was capable of not only vocalizing speech, but also singing. He went on to explain the process:

"When a person speaks, the sound waves are transformed continuously. With NTT's system, each sound is picked up from the Database of tiny waves which [are] connected in order to vocalize. Therefore, the part that analyzes a sentence and puts the sounds together and the Database itself are all very complicated in structure. This system is a standard format in terms of sound synthesizing technology, but Vib-Ribbon successfully integrated this system into the game."
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Development, General, Press Release, Technology, Voice Acting
person Ya Block calendar_month November 11, 2024
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Street Fighter II: Champion Edition
Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1992)
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Attachment Champion Edition was the only iteration of Street Fighter II to be released on the PC Engine, known in the USA as the TurboGrafx-16. Despite the original game's relatively large size, this port did not take advantage of the console's CD-ROM attachment. Instead, the game was released on a 20 megabit HuCard. For context, all other games released on HuCard had a capacity of no more than 8 megabits. As the standard PC Engine controller only had two action buttons, a new controller called the Avenue Pad 6 was released specifically for use with the game.
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Controls, General, Peripheral, Storage/Memory, Technology, Version Difference
person Salnax calendar_month November 6, 2024
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Virtua Racing
Virtua Racing (1992)
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The Genesis version of Virtua Racing is the only licensed game for the system to use the Sega Virtua Processor. Similar to the SNES's Super FX chip used in games such as Star Fox, the SVP greatly improved the Genesis's ability to render large numbers of polygons. Due to the extra hardware, Virtua Racing cost $99.95 at launch, making it the most expensive mass-produced domestic Genesis cartridge.
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General, Sales, Technology, Version Difference
person Salnax calendar_month November 5, 2024
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SimCity 2000
SimCity 2000 (1993)
subdirectory_arrow_right Maxis (Company)
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Maxis Studio One began life as a group of college friends working on a fan project called "SimBots", which would have allowed players to turn cities created in SimCity 2000 into arenas for mecha battles. Maxis caught wind of this project and hired the team, but cancelled the SimBots project. The team was instead tasked with developing the Sega Saturn port of SimCity 2000, starting in June 1994, at which point no development hardware was actually available until October. A single "Sophia" development kit was obtained in December, and development lasted until August 1995, with the port releasing in Autumn.

The Saturn port has a few technical oddities as a result of its short development time. For example, saving a single city required 461 blocks of memory (about 32 kilobytes), equivalent to virtually all of the Saturn's internal storage. Although the Saturn featured dual-CPU architecture, only a single CPU was used, causing the game to run very slowly with more complex cities.
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Cancelled Release, Console Difference, Development, Fan Works, Optimization, Storage/Memory, Technology, Version Difference
person Salnax calendar_month November 3, 2024
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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
subdirectory_arrow_right Banjo-Kazooie (Game)
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According to two interviews with Famitsu in 1998, Shigeru Miyamoto cited Rare's exceptional graphical and technical work on Banjo-Kazooie as a factor for why The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was delayed, as Miyamoto and his team felt they needed to compete with it. He thought a 3D action platformer of its kind running that well on Nintendo 64 hardware was "so amazing that we don't want to be outdone", and "if Mario's a makunouchi bento, Banjo's a deluxe makunouchi bento." Some reviews of Ocarina of Time at its release compared its graphics, frame rate and textures with Banjo-Kazooie's, and felt Ocarina of Time did not perform as well in that field.
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Development, Inspiration, Real Life, Release Date, Reviews, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Technology
person Dinoman96 calendar_month October 23, 2024
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Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (2024)
subdirectory_arrow_right Metal Gear (Franchise)
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In a 2024 Famitsu interview, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater producer Noriaki Okamura expressed uncertainty about his team developing future remakes or installments in the series. He felt they could not make remakes of the first two Metal Gear games or Metal Gear Solid in the same way they remade Snake Eater, and that they would have to make many new parts, and significant changes and deviations from the original games' playstyle to meet contemporary standards. As for new installments in the series, he felt this depended on the feedback they would get from the Snake Eater remake and a concerted effort with Konami to preserve the longevity of the series:

"The number of staff members who worked with the original staff at the time is dwindling considerably. Before everyone who was involved in the original is gone, we need to create a path to preserve the Metal Gear series for 10 or 50 years into the future. I think this is something we have to do."
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Development, General, Real Life, Remake, Technology
person ProtoSnake calendar_month October 9, 2024
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『メタルギア ソリッド デルタ』国内初インタビュー。原作の感動そのものを新世代へ届ける。『MGS』シリーズの今後も訊いた【TGS2024】:
https://www.famitsu.com/article/202410/19148

Translated tweet by @Genki_JPN:
https://www.twitter.com/Genki_JPN/status/1841640650359656919

Konami Explains Why Snake Eater Was Chosen for Remake Over Metal Gear Solid 1:
https://gameinfinitus.com/game-news/konami-explains-why-snake-eater-was-chosen-for-remake-over-metal-gear-solid-1/
Yars' Revenge
Yars' Revenge (1982)
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The graphics for the Neutral Zone are made up of bits and bytes of the actual program code for Yars' Revenge, laid out vertically, and counter-scrolling over each other. The game's creator Howard Scott Warshaw recalled in an interview with Digital Press that Atari feared showing the game's code on-screen would be a potential copyright violation, but Warshaw explained to them that "besides the scrolling, there was some X-Y and random color processing being done to it" to prevent the raw code from being displayed, stating that "if somebody could get the code from that, then they deserved it!" This same technique was employed by Retro Studios to create static noise textures during the development of the Nintendo GameCube game Metroid Prime.
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Copyright, Corporate Affairs, Development, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Technology
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month September 8, 2024
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Digital Press interview:
https://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_howard_scott_warshaw.html

Tweets in response to similar method in Metroid Prime, including reconfirmation of Neutral Zone backstory from Howard Scott Warshaw:
https://x.com/WaWaYanickP/status/1594563685996953600
https://x.com/HSWarshaw/status/1594590132639653889
Nicktoons Racing
Nicktoons Racing (2000)
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The arcade release of Nicktoons Racing is a modified version of the PC release running on a Windows XP computer bolted into the cabinet. Some modifications are made for the arcade setting, such as a selectable time limit, but the biggest changes are the omissions of the game's opening cutscene, Stimpy from The Ren & Stimpy Show as a racer, and the Gritty Kitty item from that series. While the Race Madness track also based on the series remains in the arcade version of the game, Stimpy and the Gritty Kitty item were most likely removed due to it releasing in 2003, the same year as the adult-oriented Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon reboot. The opening cutscene appears to have been removed due to it requiring Windows Media Player, but may have also been removed due to difficulty in editing Ren & Stimpy elements out of the opening cutscene. The removed content is still within the files, and simply disabled.
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Censorship, Console Difference, Suggested, Technology, Version Difference
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month August 5, 2024
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Mario Party: Fushigi no Challenge World
Mario Party: Fushigi no Challenge World (2016)
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Although it was only released in Japan, there were plans for an international version of Mario Party: Challenge World slated for release in Spring 2018. A demo for an English-translated version was shown off at the 2017 Attractions Expo for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) using the Japanese version's six-player roulette design. However, this release date came and went with no further announcements. On May 30, 2018, the game's manufacturer Raw Thrills accidentally uploaded and quickly delisted a video on their YouTube channel showing the international version's boot-up process (using a Windows OS) with the game's title screen fully translated into English, before crashing. In October, photos were leaked to the arcade news blog Arcade Heroes revealing that the international version was still being tested, but sported a heavily revamped cabinet design that ditched the roulette and redesigned the game for only three players. This was most likely due to its original design as a roulette gambling game keeping it from being sold to most American arcades. After more radio silence and it missing IAAPA's 2018 Expo, Raw Thrills confirmed to Arcade Heroes in April 2019 that the game was cancelled, and its few prototype cabinets were sold off to select luxury entertainment centers. One confirmed location housing it as of April 2019 was the Tulsa, Oklahoma branch of Cinergy Entertainment.
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Cancelled Release, Demo, Development, Early Idea, Leak, Prototype, Release Date, Technology, Trade Show
person GamerBen144 calendar_month July 4, 2024
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Disney's Toy Story
Disney's Toy Story (1995)
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Attachment The title and ending themes of Toy Story on the Sega Genesis (which are covers of Randy Newman's "Strange Things" and "You've Got a Friend in Me" from the movie respectively) use the Commodore Amiga's MOD sound chip, the only Genesis game to use it. Due to the intensive CPU usage caused by the sound chip player, MOD files are only able to be played on static screens, and the rest of the game uses the GEMS sound driver, the standard practice for Western-developed Genesis games. Because of this, any MOD file can be imported into the title or ending of Toy Story, though the sound player is specialized to the Toy Story music and does not play any other MOD file perfectly.
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Modding, Music, Technology
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month June 24, 2024
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The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Notes:Toy_Story_(Genesis)

YouTube playlist featuring Toy Story music mod content:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxU69p73hTabzTOibl2zXFDhWFukJi2pz
Doodle Champion Island Games
Doodle Champion Island Games (2021)
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The game originally began as a smaller interactive Google Doodle game to celebrate the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, but after the events were delayed to 2021, Google were effectively given another year to expand it into a full-fledged video game with at least two and a half hours of content. This made it the largest interactive Google Doodle produced in the company's history. Their engineers were surprised at the large amount of side quests and dialogue they were able to fit into the game, but they struggled to get the game to run on mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers as it needed to be displayed on Google's front page. They managed to get the game to remember save data by saving it to users' local storage, so the game could be continued at any time. It is not fully known what the game's technological specs are, but the level design and sprite animations were created by Google in Adobe Animate, while the animated cutscenes were created by Japanese animation studio Studio 4°C in Toon Boom Harmony and Adobe After Effects.
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Artwork/Illustration, Development, Early Idea, General, Inspiration, Level Design, Real Life, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Storage/Memory, Technology, Website
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month June 20, 2024
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Game & Watch Collection
Game & Watch Collection (2006)
subdirectory_arrow_right Nintendo DSi (Platform), Nintendo 3DS (Platform)
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When run on a Nintendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS, Action Replay DSi's icon and title will be listed as Game & Watch Collection. This is a way of working around the DSi's bootleg game protection, which is done by having a built-in whitelist of every official DS game, which Action Replay circumvents by tricking the device into thinking Game & Watch Collection is being played. Action Replay DSi contains almost every byte of data from Game & Watch Collection, but jumbled into an unplayable format.
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Cheat, Piracy, Technology
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month June 19, 2024
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King & Balloon
King & Balloon (1980)
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King & Balloon was the first game to be produced by Namco using a surplus of Galaxian PCB boards they manufactured. According to co-director Shigeru Yokoyama, he wanted the game to have an autofire feature with "tons of bullets" to reflect the "panicked mindset" of the player seeing the King get taken by balloons. However, the Galaxian PCB boards could not handle either of these ideas since Galaxian did not have an autofire feature to begin with, and the bullets were made faster than those in Galaxian as a compromise.
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Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Technology
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month June 19, 2024
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Galaga
Galaga (1981)
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Galaga was originally conceived as a way to utilize Galaxian's PCB boards after they were overmanufactured, but while creating a partially-complete prototype, R&D engineer (and future Namco president) Shigeichi Ishimura decided that Galaga should use its own unique PCB hardware.
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Asset Reuse, Development, Early Idea, Prototype, Technology
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month June 19, 2024
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Lollipop Chainsaw
Lollipop Chainsaw (2012)
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In a June 13th, 2024 interview with the Dragami Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda published on the Gematsu website, he stated that in 2021, he asked Tomo Ikeda, one of the directors he led in the development team for the original Lollipop Chainsaw, to help with the game's remake Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, but Ikeda turned him down due to conflicts from already leading development on a different project at that time. Yasuda still expressed that he felt very proud of his former developers for advancing in the industry and maintained a good relationship with the original game's writer Masahiro Yuki, having spoken several times with him in 2023 about RePOP and the future of Lollipop Chainsaw. He described Yuki as "something like a repository of wisdom within the team" during development, and gave Yasuda lots of proactive and stimulating opinions that were reflected in RePOP. Yasuda stated that the agenda for RePOP was to "improve on the user-friendliness" and give a more fun experience for players that were left lacking in the original game. In order to do that, he contacted the engineers who worked on the original game to provide detailed development information, like how data was handled and special processing related to Unreal Engine 3, which directors and producers would not be able to provide, and called their support "especially indispensable".
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Development, Early Idea, General, Real Life, Remake, Technology
person ProtoSnake calendar_month June 18, 2024
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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Sometimes when items are scanned at American gas stations, the sound effect when Sonic collects rings will play on the cash register. It is not known why this sound effect is used, but it's theorized that it stems from Sega's parent company, Sega Sammy Holdings, having some kind of involvement with Gilbarco Veeder-Root, an American technology company that produces point of sale/payment systems and fuel dispensers. The software used in cash registers produced by the company, Gilbarco Passport, is widely used at convenience stores across the United States and was developed by an unspecified third party, which could be Sega Sammy Holdings. The reason why the Sonic ring sound effect was specifically used is likely a result of the merger between Sega and Sammy Corporation allowing the latter to own the rights to some Sega IPs like Sonic the Hedgehog and primarily use them for pachinko machines.
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Corporate Affairs, Easter Egg, Real Life, Sound Effect, Technology, Theory
person CuriousUserX90 calendar_month May 29, 2024
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Cuphead
Cuphead (2017)
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Attachment In 2019, Studio MDHR and the multinational automotive company Tesla announced that a special port of Cuphead would be released for the Tesla Arcade digital store and would be playable on the company's Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles. Due to storage limitations with the cars, the Tesla Arcade version only includes the stages in Inkwell Isle I. The game can only be played with a controller plugged into each vehicle's USB port, but can be played cooperatively with two players controlling Cuphead and Mugman. As part of the announcement, Studio MDHR released commemorative artwork of Cuphead and Mugman standing with a Model 3 car.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Artwork/Illustration, General, Real Life, Technology, Version Difference
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month April 20, 2024
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Super Mario All-Stars
Super Mario All-Stars (1993)
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Due to a programming error, the player has a random chance of accessing debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 (specifically the one from the NES version of the game, which is carried over to the Super Mario All-Stars port). The debug mode only activates if a value of 80 is stored at the RAM address 7E0160, which can be manually edited by a devkit.

The NES version initializes the equivalent RAM address to 00 whenever the game is turned on, preventing the player from encountering debug mode during the normal course of play. However, due to an oversight, this does not occur in the SNES version, resulting in Super Mario All-Stars reading whatever value is generated by the console itself. Because this value is randomized during bootup, this means that the game has a small chance of activating debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 on a retail unit. While the theoretical probability of this occurring is 1/256, it can vary depending on the console's build and the power grid that it is connected to.
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Debug, Glitch, Leftover, Mistake, Technology
person VinchVolt calendar_month April 12, 2024
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The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_All-Stars_(SNES)#Old_Debug_Mode
https://tcrf.net/Notes:Super_Mario_All-Stars

Supper Mario Broth video, the description of which includes an explanation for the oversight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiVoXiRo1M
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