Taiwanese PC games

[codeman38]

So I've been watching some YouTube videos of Taiwanese PC games, because hey, we already know there's some connection between them and the unlicensed console game scene. C&E made quite a few PC games, and PC game developer Lonaisoft is one degree of separation from Gamtec, for instance.

Setting up this thread to share interesting observations on the connections between the Taiwan/China PC game scene and unlicensed cartridge games.

Here's a starter, "Legend of Sword and Fairy" (仙劍奇俠傳 Xiān Jiàn Qí Xiá Zhuàn), developed by Softstar (大宇資訊 Dàyǔ Zīxùn):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex76hqIBXow
You might recognize this one as having been ported to Game Boy by Hitek under the name "Heroic Sword". (And surprisingly well for an 8-bit port, from what I can gather!)

Edit: This guy's got a whole walkthrough of Sword & Fairy up. Yep, Heroic Sword is definitely a port of it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Howardz1004
Also, the music is surprisingly awesome for Sound Blaster FM synth.The various "Richman" (Dafuweng) games are also based on a rather popular Softstar DOS series; here's a clip of the 2nd one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohryKLDZhNM
Even the background music was an obvious inspiration for VFame's GBC version.

[taizou]

I've always felt like Taiwanese PC games are something I should look into more - i always tend to consider the console developers in isolation, when obviously they wouldnt have been, probably most of the people working on console games would have had at least some experience in the much larger PC side of things. and when you consider that Sintax apparently made educational PC games while they were still in Taiwan, and Gamtec released a few before they started that whole Bingo King thing, who knows what other stuff might be out there that i'm completely unaware of.

and yeah, popular PC games clearly influenced console games even when the same people weren't involved - Legend of Sword & Fairy seems to be a pretty popular target, Nanjing ported it to the NES too, and Sintax registered a copyright for a version (maybe a re-release of Heroic Sword?). and for some reason I get the feeling Waixing made something related, but maybe not.

[Barver]

I've meant to get more into Taiwan PC gaming, but it's not easy finding some games. I remember spending hours looking for a download of the original version of African Safari which was ported to A'can.

As far as unlicensed companies go, there's that one PC game Waixing made called 俠義豪情傳－禁煙風云. I didn't even notice until now there's links all over the net for it. Here's one site with screenshots if no one's seen it before.

http://blog.yam.com/kudgame/article/29434525

I have no idea about other Taiwanese PC games that show influences in the pirate gaming scene though. Can't be too many I'm guessing. I'd like to see what Gamtec had, especially if any of it is like all the MD pirates they made.

I was actually making a website last year that was going to review tons of PC games from Taiwan, show ones by the same companies that made A'can games, plus some games that I think were getting sequels on the A'can going by the list of unreleased games I have. It was gonna cover lots of JP pc games too, plus have a whole section dedicated to pirates. Once the Bootleg Wiki started though I sorta lost motivation =p Plus I suck at writing.

[codeman38]

taizou

Feb 20 2011, 03:36:35 AM

and yeah, popular PC games clearly influenced console games even when the same people weren't involved - Legend of Sword & Fairy seems to be a pretty popular target, Nanjing ported it to the NES too, and Sintax registered a copyright for a version (maybe a re-release of Heroic Sword?). and for some reason I get the feeling Waixing made something related, but maybe not.[/quote]Hah, wow, somehow I hadn't even stumbled across Nanjing's port till now. (It's NJ017, for those looking on maxzhou's file share.)

Funny thing is, Nanjing later released NJ073, which is a completely unrelated game... and it also uses the music from Sword & Fairy. A completely different arrangement, even.

Barver

Feb 20 2011, 03:52:03 AM

As far as unlicensed companies go, there's that one PC game Waixing made called 俠義豪情傳－禁煙風云. I didn't even notice until now there's links all over the net for it. Here's one site with screenshots if no one's seen it before.

http://blog.yam.com/kudgame/article/29434525[/quote]Hah. That looks...erm...very heavily inspired by the aforementioned Sword & Fairy.

[Barver]

I dunno, from what I gather there were quite a lot of these isometric RPGs for DOS back in the day. They probably all look the same really =p

[codeman38]

Barver

Feb 20 2011, 04:10:50 AM

I dunno, from what I gather there were quite a lot of these isometric RPGs for DOS back in the day. They probably all look the same really =p[/quote]Point taken. :lol: Just surprises me that so many games would use that perspective and a fairly similar style of graphics on top of that, I guess.

[codeman38]

More YouTube vids of Chinese PC games:
http://www.youtube.com/user/hemanjulian

The art style in 諸神的狙殺 (Zhū shén de jū shā / Strike of the Gods) looks incredibly familiar-- looks very much like something I've seen in a Gamtec Mega Drive game. The company that developed this is Jack Bean Ltd. (傑克豆工作室 Jiékè dòu gōngzuò shì), who are apparently most famous for a game called "Little Monk" (小沙彌 Xiǎo shāmí) that's actually listed on Home of the Underdogs.

Edit: Oops-- the Chinese name I originally gave for "Little Monk" was for an unrelated comic book. Fixed it now.For those interested in further researching this stuff, the GameBase WeKey may prove invaluable. It's all in Chinese, of course, but there are pages on various games and developers dating back to the DOS era.

They even have a page for Gamtec, but alas, no pages for any games associated with them. Never mind, they do have several Gamtec games! They're not linked from the company profile page, but they do show up in a search for the company name. Apparently the "search for inbound links" feature doesn't work so well in their wiki software... -_-;;I've also discovered that several games by Yingyang Information (鷹揚資訊) have a very similar art style to some Gamtec stuff. Like 恐龍世紀 Dinosaurs Century (which is nothing like Gowin's Dino Century, incidentally).

[taizou]

Gamtec's old site had some info on their PC games, if you havent seen that already. here and here.

Not sure if the two games mentioned as being in development on the preview page were ever released (no newer version of their site is archived as far as I can work out) but I'd imagine the online mahjong game was, since they seem to have gone in very much that kind of direction with BingoKing. The other was a presumably licensed Taichi Kid game, which Sintax also made a licensed GBC game of (as Little Taichi)

[Barver]

They probably never released anything like a platformer I guess. Probably all the same kinda crap they're making now under that Bingo King name.

[taizou]

nah, they do actually look like proper games - not really in the same style as their older stuff though.
heres the pages on the wayback machine beta, the versions i linked to dont seem to be working at the moment..
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20020824113847/http://www.gamtec.com.tw/hotsale/hotsale.htm
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20020713132430/http://www.gamtec.com.tw/preview/preview.htm
theres a Bomberman clone, some kind of mech strategy game, a card battle RPG & a Qix clone that i can see, that top one on the first page doesnt work but its listed as an action game.