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Messages - codeman38

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766
Game Boy / Syntek & Gowin trademarks
« on: September 25, 2010, 03:36:23 PM »
One interesting thing about Gowin's older monochrome games, as discussed in this thread, is that they're credited to a semiconductor company named Syntek (which is absolutely not to be confused with Sintax). According to the Taiwanese intellectual property office's trademark entry for Syntek, the trademark is owned by, well, Syntek Semiconductor. Or, in Chinese, 太欣 tai xin. And yes, they still exist.

So what trademarks does Syntek have? Well, Prince YehRude, for one, Magic Ball, for another. I don't see any others related to unlicensed GB games, though this 1992 logo of theirs (which they're still using; see their web site above!) can also be found in the ROMs.

But here's the interesting thing. The agent who filed the Syntek trademark is named He Lianguo (何連國). Apparently this guy does trademark registrations for a lot of folks in Taiwan, judging from a search for the name. But what's particularly interesting is that he also owns some trademarks... things like New GB, New GB Color, and V.Fame.

Coincidence? Could easily be, given that the guy seems to be a big trademark lawyer or something. But it's still worth mentioning.

Speaking of Gowin, incidentally, the name "Gua Gua Dragon" has existed since 1994, though the actual mascot only seems to have been trademarked in 1999 (in a much uglier variation than we're familiar with!). The current Gua Gua Dragon, however, only came about two years after that. (Also, I'd never noticed that his belly is a Game Boy. That's amusing.)

Oh, this is bizarre. Y'know whose logo is buried in the graphics for Gowin's School Fighter? SYNTEK. Same logo as in Prince YehRude, exactly. I don't see anything else that's left over from one of the monochrome games either, which makes it even weirder.

767
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 24, 2010, 06:06:21 PM »
taizou
Sep 24 2010, 04:18:13 PM
i'm not sure, it does look like a very close copy design-wise, but the physics seem off to me. [/quote]Yeah... it doesn't seem to me like a direct hack so much as a shot-for-shot remake. Things aren't quite aligned the same on the DK5 screens as on SMB Deluxe.

And LOL at the Digimon hack version. Sintax's Engrish is brilliant.

768
Game Boy / Gowin doesn't forget their roots
« on: September 24, 2010, 01:58:56 PM »
Cheetahmen
Sep 24 2010, 01:33:25 PM
Looking at the picture, I'd say it'd be funny if the phone number at the bottom still works. :P Also, if the first Binary Monster is a psuedo-RPG or whatever and the second is a platformer, then what's the third one meant to be?[/quote]The third one is School Fighter! No, really-- I'll have to go back and search for the link, but the full title is "Binary Monster 3: School Fighter."

Edit: Here's the proof.

Quote:
 
Oh yeah, if Gowin were based in Taipei and Shenzhen and V.Fame were in Dali City (as well as the later Gowin games looking like V.Fame titles) then would the latter be formed of some of the employees from Gowin?[/quote]Hm, good question. Dali is closer to Taichung than Taipei; maybe their R&D team was originally based in Taichung, but then they hired a new one in Shenzhen? ::shrugs:: I really have no idea.

769
Game Boy / Gowin doesn't forget their roots
« on: September 24, 2010, 12:41:21 PM »
taizou
Sep 24 2010, 12:12:02 PM
Binary Monster 2 does look a bit V.Famey now you mention it, but its hard to tell without seeing (or hearing) more of it. [/quote]Yeah, I'm really curious about that one - I wish there were clearer screenshots, and I really wish there were audio. The HUD looks more VFame than later-Gowin, at the very least.

Quote:
 
I think Binary Monster 1 is a sort of monster-raising thing rather than a proper RPG though.[/quote]Ah. The front of the box calls it an RPG, but yeah, I don't see any screenshots on the back showing any overhead view. I suppose it's still sort of "RPG-lite" even if the game play is just building up experience and battling other monsters-- and the battle and level-up screens look very VFame-ish...
Ooh. Just found out Gowin's site is accessible via the Internet Archive. Of course, half the image links are broken, and they barely use any text whatsoever on their site (no ALT text either, fail!), but yeah...

However, in the bit of text that did render, I found this:

Quote:
 
GOWIN was founded in 1993, and there are 50 employees who are located in Taipei and Shen Zhen. There are ten people working as artwork designers and 20 as engineers. All of our software is in-house-written and we have a very strong R&D team in Shenzhen, Mainland China.[/quote]Perhaps the earlier games were developed in Taiwan, while the later ones were farmed out to the team in Shenzhen, explaining the difference in style?

770
Game Boy / Gowin doesn't forget their roots
« on: September 24, 2010, 08:31:45 AM »
So I was looking at NusuttoSan's latest blog post, in which he provides scans from the manual to Gowin's GBC game Dino Century. And I noticed a couple things:

1. The style of the character art in the manual looks very similar to character designs I've seen in Chuanpu and Vast Fame packaging.

2. Take a look at the last page of the manual, which is a promotion for Gowin's other games. Notice anything? Yep. Although the GBC games seem to have been developed by an entirely different team, they're still advertising their older monochrome games which seem to have connections to VFame (Magic Ball, YehRude, Lasama, Rainbow Prince, and Mi Tu de Lu). I'm especially curious about the two Binary Monster games; this image from taizou shows the first to be a mono RPG, while the sequel is a platformer with VFame-looking graphics.

Edit: OK, I'm really curious about Binary Monsters after squinting at the back of the box even closer. Could this be the first game to use what we now know as VFame's RPG engine?

Edit further: An already-sold eBay auction for Binary Monsters. And that is definitely a PC Paint font I see on the title screen...

771
Game Boy / New Game Color Advance/(N) company
« on: September 23, 2010, 08:25:30 AM »
Wow, I'm curious about that Digimon Emerald too. I can barely even find any references to it on Google, other than a link to that same auction photo on someone's LiveJournal.

Edit: Said LJer seems to have an interest in unlicensed games. Maybe I should send them over here...

Edit again: Posted a comment on another post.

772
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 11:47:38 PM »
taizou
Sep 22 2010, 10:26:24 PM
thanks! i've seen that one before but the ID was cut off. i wonder if Pokemon Sapphire/Carbuncle is based on the same engine? (especially since it seems to have been the next release sequentially)[/quote]Not to mention that Pokemon Sapphire has a ROM header of "ROBOT WAR v3.0".

773
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 03:35:24 PM »
There are more e-mail addresses on this 2004 version of the site - but they, too, are both invalid. sintaxtrade.com doesn't even have a DNS entry, and the Hotmail one bounces as inactive.

Edit: LOL, they also flat-out nicked the wording of that page off of Nintendo's site, and forgot to change all the references to Nintendo.

774
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 10:29:39 AM »
More proof of Sintax's existence in Taiwan prior to 2002: this page from a Taiwanese educational software exhibition in 1999. The characters in the 4th entry in the list should look familiar.

Interesting that all the hits I'm finding relate to educational PC software...
Another one for the listing: ST-0304027C, a Castlevania game that is apparently not the same one as Castlevania EMO Demo. http://blog.yam.com/fujishima/article/2176634

775
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 10:12:00 AM »
Ooh, I'm finding even more interesting stuff:

Apparently Sintax makes car stereos and video CD players. And, of course, MP4/game players, but we knew that one already. Definitely seems to be the same Sintax, given that they're in Guangdong and that they mention making video game software.

This page for nominations for an educational software award in Bologna mentions "Enjoy With-Me, Sintax Technology Co., Ltd., Taichung, Taiwan. R.O.C." This is from 1997. So finally, something that's surfaced before 2002 with their name.

776
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 09:56:54 AM »
taizou
Sep 22 2010, 09:55:26 AM
094/11/30 is the expiry date I think - i was looking at 083/11/04, the initial filing date. which would be 4th November 1994 afaik.[/quote]Ah, right. Still, this is something that needs to be explained for the other forum members who aren't familiar with Taiwanese dates-- it confused me at first, to be sure!

Edit: Now I want to know what these guys were doing during the 16-bit era. Maybe they published some of the the SNES/MD ripoffs of licensed properties (Mulan, Pokemon, etc.) that we've been crediting to Chuanpu? Would make sense, given their GBC output primarily consists of knockoffs of licensed properties...

777
Game Boy / Sintax and their 93+ games
« on: September 22, 2010, 09:50:51 AM »
Incidentally, a bit of Taiwanese calendar trivia, to make further sense of that trademark registration:

The Taiwanese government uses the Minguo calendar, which is the same as the Gregorian calendar except that the year 0 is 1911, when the Chinese republic was founded.

So "094/11/30" is actually 30 November 2005.

However, the trademark was initially registered on "084/12/01" - which is 1 December 1995. So it's still valid evidence that these guys were around in Taiwan during the 16-bit era!

778
1993-1999 / The Dragon / Chu Da D music reuse
« on: September 20, 2010, 01:28:16 PM »
Cheetahmen
Sep 20 2010, 12:49:41 PM
One thing that I find odd is that Bao Qing Tian was published by NT as "Justice Pao" (gotta love their crazy cartridge arts :P ) so would that mean that some members of Sachen were connected with NT at one point? Also, if Tchackvosky is meant to be named after Tchaickovsky then would that mean he did the programming and music for the games he's credited in?[/quote]Oh, Bao Qing Tian is definitely an official NT release. Their logo is on the title screen. :lol:

But yeah, there definitely seems to be some sort of weird Sachen-NT connection, between this and the fact that Ei-How Yang, formerly of Sachen, is explicitly credited on some games made by NT.

And I'd always assumed that Tchacvosky was both a music and game programmer, but maybe I'm totally off track.

779
1993-1999 / The Dragon / Chu Da D music reuse
« on: September 19, 2010, 09:47:45 PM »
Ooh, I just realized something. One of Sachen's musicians was named Amadeus Wang. Probably the same person as Wang Yueli in Bao Qing Tian's credits.

Edit: To make it even more plausible, the "yue" in Wang Yueli means "music". And it'd make sense that a music programmer with "music" in their actual name might choose Amadeus as an English name!

780
1993-1999 / The Dragon / Chu Da D music reuse
« on: September 19, 2010, 06:53:17 PM »
I just discovered, thanks to a music rip by Gil Galad (see the 03/15/2010 collection on his news page), that the Big 2 card game "Chu Da D" uses music that's also found in Rinco's "The Dragon". Which, in turn, very clearly uses a sound driver from Sachen. Both games are copyrighted 1995.

Interestingly, Chu Da D is by neither Sachen nor Rinco. Rather, it's by a company (companies?) I haven't seen credited anywhere else, "Fortune Power - Jichang". The screen with their logos says... something I can't read, because it's in Chinese, but it involves the characters for both China and Taipei. I guess one's a Chinese distributor and one's a Taiwanese distributor?

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