GamtecGamtec took the selling rights to games to help TV game companies. Simply
put, they're a sales agent. As the local game industries started closing
up, they took some of the best from them and formed their own team. C&E,
Chuan Pu, Vast Fame, Gowin and Sintax were downstream companies(下游公司
, also means suppliers?). They never had one unified logo. [/quote]I'm wondering about the "suppliers" thing-- contract developers, perhaps? That would explain some of the similarities between Gamtec and Chuanpu titles, if Chuanpu actually developed for Gamtec...
Oh, interesting, the part about Mars mentions the reuse of background music (e.g., Final Fantasy 5, Yuefei, and Titanic RPG) and the "less HP = less attack" thing that many of us detest. :) Also mentions the stolen graphics from Link's Awakening, heh.
- Quote:
-
which translates to "eager for quick success and instant benefit'[/quote]
That can be translated easier... Cheap Profit Syndrome.
- Quote:
-
They started developing FC games in 1992. They were established in 1977 and in September of 1988 started investing in game software production. At first they made a few PC games, then moved to TV games in 92.[/quote]
Oooooh, wish to see their PC things, dead or alive.
Ooh, something else interesting:
- Quote:
-
根据可*消息他们BOSS之间是会交流及买卖手上的技术的而新特奇的数码暴龙GBA就是跟广誉交流制作的[/quote]
Which, if I'm interpreting Google's translation correctly, means that Sintax (新特奇) and Vast Fame (广誉) cooperated on a GBA Digimon (数码暴龙) game. (With the "digital tyrannosaur" translation of "Digimon" used in the HK dub, no less.) Possibly that weird platformer that I've seen screenshots of on Sky League?
That'd definitely explain the Crash Bandicoot pirate that uses the same engine, anyway... it looks and plays Sintax-y, but the music is unmistakably Vast Fame.
If they made that, then who made the SNES game based off it? :S
the SNES game probably came first - i guess it was made by some ex Chuanpu people who later formed V.fame?
the whole Sintax/Vast Fame collaboration thing explains a lot though. Maybe thats why that "Zook Hero 3" (or whatever) that Sky League dumped looked more Sintaxish to me, even though its V.Fame's series. and hell maybe that also explains those weird RPGs that run on VFame's engine.
though i wonder what that "FC9 Street Fighter" thing was supposed to refer to? i don't know of any actual ports made by V.Fame really.. in fact the whole graphics-from-screenshot thing and making a cutdown version of Street Fighter reminds me more of Hummer Team. hmm. Unless it really *was* V.Fame that made SNES Digimon, and theyre talking about some other SFC game they made (like that Street Fighter EX port, maybe?)
as for Gowin.. the mono game Fire Dragon is called something like Gua Gua Fire Dragon in Chinese, but the dragon in that game looks nothing like their mascot. but maybe their whole mono catalogue was just bought in from somewhere else when the company was founded - a lot of them have "Syntek" logos/copyrights in them (a semiconductor company) from around 1992-3, so maybe Syntek had abandoned its ambitions to get into the games industry (with games developed by someone related to V.Fame) and Gowin just picked them up several years later?
edit: actually Rainbow Prince (and possibly others) does have a Gowin logo screen featuring Gua Gua Dragon, and thats copyright.. 1994ish? (not 100% on this, im going from memory) so I guess the split must have happened fairly early on.
- taizou
- Sep 8 2010, 06:57:43 AM
the SNES game probably came first - i guess it was made by some ex Chuanpu people who later formed V.fame?
[/quote]Could easily be! Pretty much all the SNES pirate originals are of games with Chuanpu connections on Mega Drive (e.g., the High Seas Havoc sound engine), so yeah...
- Quote:
-
the whole Sintax/Vast Fame collaboration thing explains a lot though. Maybe thats why that "Zook Hero 3" (or whatever) that Sky League dumped looked more Sintaxish to me, even though its V.Fame's series. and hell maybe that also explains those weird RPGs that run on VFame's engine.[/quote]Ooh, yeah, could very well be. Particularly since the music was stolen from another game (Telefang).
Edit: And if I recall, Sky League did indeed confirm in a post somewhere on their forum that Zook 3 was credited to Sintax.
- Quote:
-
though i wonder what that "FC9 Street Fighter" thing was supposed to refer to? i don't know of any actual ports made by V.Fame really.. in fact the whole graphics-from-screenshot thing and making a cutdown version of Street Fighter reminds me more of Hummer Team. hmm. Unless it really *was* V.Fame that made SNES Digimon, and theyre talking about some other SFC game they made (like that Street Fighter EX port, maybe?)[/quote]Ooh, I hadn't even thought of that, that it might've been a typo for SFC. That seems a much better description of the SFC pirates I've seen than the FC ones.
Only other thing I could think of that might have VFame connections was Super Game's Mortal Kombat port... but that had 10 player characters. :P
- Quote:
-
edit: actually Rainbow Prince (and possibly others) does have a Gowin logo screen featuring Gua Gua Dragon, and thats copyright.. 1994ish? (not 100% on this, im going from memory) so I guess the split must have happened fairly early on. [/quote]I wish I knew what the production date was for Meng Huan Zhi Xing, SKOB's only monochrome GB game that I know of. Had to have been after the mono version of Last Bible was released in '92, for obvious reasons...
- codeman38
- Sep 8 2010, 08:55:47 AM
Edit: And if I recall, Sky League did indeed confirm in a post somewhere on their forum that Zook 3 was credited to Sintax.
- Quote:
-
though i wonder what that "FC9 Street Fighter" thing was supposed to refer to? i don't know of any actual ports made by V.Fame really.. in fact the whole graphics-from-screenshot thing and making a cutdown version of Street Fighter reminds me more of Hummer Team. hmm. Unless it really *was* V.Fame that made SNES Digimon, and theyre talking about some other SFC game they made (like that Street Fighter EX port, maybe?)[/quote]Ooh, I hadn't even thought of that, that it might've been a typo for SFC. That seems a much better description of the SFC pirates I've seen than the FC ones.
Only other thing I could think of that might have VFame connections was Super Game's Mortal Kombat port... but that had 10 player characters. :P[/quote]So in other words, V.Fame might have done some Super Famicom titles as well? I'm assuming FC9 Street Fighter isn't that port of X-Men VS Street Fighter, but I could be wrong on that. Could use the same engine though, seeing as it's the same console.
its probably worth noting that there seem to be some inaccuracies in the original article though - eg it says that Sachen started developing famicom games in '92, which can't be right, their earliest releases are © 1989.. plus it describes Xi Tian Qu Jing (Journey to the West) as an RPG when its a platform game. Im sure that most of it is true though.
oh yeah, and that whole Gamtec thing explains a lot, all those companies around Taichung that seemed to share staff and resources and stuff... i guess Gamtec was the centre of that whole operation. they probably supported development and supplied tools and stuff (except with C&E, i suppose they were pretty self sufficient) right up to the last few Sintax games in the mid(?) 2000s, as well as making a few games in-house themselves. which is kinda interesting because way back when I first noticed a bunch of Taiwanese games using the same fonts, before I knew they were from PC Paint or anything, my first assumption was that they were all made by Gamtec. i've found out a hell of a lot more since then but in a way I was right :D
and one thing i read in one of maxzhou88's blog posts recently, he mentioned Super Game's music was outsourced to a taiwanese company which ported the original MD games' music to their own (stolen) sound engine.. so i suppose that was almost certainly Gamtec.
- taizou
- Sep 14 2010, 05:56:16 AM
oh yeah, and that whole Gamtec thing explains a lot, all those companies around Taichung that seemed to share staff and resources and stuff... i guess Gamtec was the centre of that whole operation. they probably supported development and supplied tools and stuff (except with C&E, i suppose they were pretty self sufficient) right up to the last few Sintax games in the mid(?) 2000s, as well as making a few games in-house themselves. which is kinda interesting because way back when I first noticed a bunch of Taiwanese games using the same fonts, before I knew they were from PC Paint or anything, my first assumption was that they were all made by Gamtec. i've found out a hell of a lot more since then but in a way I was right :D[/quote]Hee, yeah. Before I knew of PC Paint, I also thought they were some sort of Gamtec originals. But now that I know their origin, it still seems like the Gamtec 'cluster' is the only group that uses those fonts!
(Incidentally, a while back I realized that there's actually a legitimate PC game that uses the fonts from PC Paint-- "Hocus Pocus" by Apogee. I really should've noticed the fact that the fonts weren't Gamtec originals well before then. :) )
- Quote:
-
and one thing i read in one of maxzhou88's blog posts recently, he mentioned Super Game's music was outsourced to a taiwanese company which ported the original MD games' music to their own (stolen) sound engine.. so i suppose that was almost certainly Gamtec.[/quote]Ah, that would definitely make sense! To be honest, I hadn't even thought of the fact that the sound engine might be outsourced. And the graphics needn't be outsourced; Gamtec could have just given them a copy of PC Paint and let them loose...
- codeman38
- Sep 14 2010, 11:14:41 AM
(Incidentally, a while back I realized that there's actually a legitimate PC game that uses the fonts from PC Paint-- "Hocus Pocus" by Apogee. I really should've noticed the fact that the fonts weren't Gamtec originals well before then. :) )[/quote]I first realised they weren't when I noticed one of them in one of about three super obscure MSX games that I picked completely at random with the intention of reviewing them on my site (which i inevitably never got around to doing), "Kempelen Chess", by... some company I can't remember. and if *that* game was in any way connected to Gamtec i'd have to rethink a hell of a lot of stuff I thought I knew about pretty much the entire games industry :D
edit: and yeah, I don't think Super Game's graphics were outsourced - iirc maxzhou88 specifically mentions porting them from the Mega Drive. Gamtec probably supplied a bunch of tools and stuff to all the developers they worked with, including a copy of PC Paint or GRASP or something, but just nothing music related.
If Super Game were linked with Gamtec then couldn't we ask Maxzhou88 for more info about then? Not to mention, if the music was outsourced then I think that means that they might not have developed Pocket Monster and its affiliates. (I know there's those graphics for the Super Game keyboard in the ROM but I believe those are leftover graphics from the multicart the game is from)
Yong Yong?