I've split this topic out from the stuff for sale thread because I just found something interesting/related and I didn't want to derail it too much - details forthcoming..
okay so I came across this on Qi Sheng Long's site, maybe you've seen it before (rehosted as their site is slow.. I've also taken the liberty of uploading a PDF version because i don't have MS office & openoffice didn't seem to handle the table in the doc properly):
http://www.mediafire.com/folder/c1lilav5glb3i/qsl_101it's a document containing screenshots of all the games on their 101 in 1, previously-thought-to-be-Nanjing-developed-but-now-maybe-not 16-bit games compilation as used in various plug & play and handheld systems.
few interesting things here:
- Benthal Treasure (the Mr Driller clone) seems to have a similar screen layout to Jungletac's Mr Driller clone "North Salvation", including the "Nor/Adv/Pro" text, & "Strong Builder" here is similar to JT's longstanding "Dangerous Zone"
- Penguin Shot looks identical and i mean IDENTICAL to a game on the MiTouch & BBL-375 (a BaoBaoLong console sharing most of the MiTouch's non-touch games) callled "Penguin Arcade"... those poor penguins. Also Resist Invade is on both, even under the same name. & Ocean Destroyer looks similar-but-not-identical to a game called "Submarine"
- I've pointed out before that Firewar (listed here as Fitewar) is seemingly an update of the Nice Code game "Burbles", but Teleport here is blatantly also an update of the Nice Code game of the same name
- and finally, look closely at the background of no. 62, Blackjack - doesn't that say "Wellminds"?
so maybe Wellminds actually is linked to those "Nanjing" games after all.. but where does that leave Jiuyang Software in all of this? and what of the odd connections to Nice Code, Jungletac & Waixing?
It seems to me like the earliest examples of the not-Nanjing 16bit games - like the ones on the Wow console I have, and the ones listed by Jiuyang - rely *way* more on stolen graphics than anything on the MiTouch etc, and the later ones also seem to have moved away from such blatant theft (or at least they steal from more obscure sources), so maybe only the first batch were made by Jiuyang and Wellminds stepped in to do the rest?
Jungletac & Waixing I guess outsource a lot these days so it's not inconceivable they outsourced to Wellminds too. (in the Waixing case there is one other connection, aside from the Merry Noshery thing - a couple of sports games seen on their consoles have cropped up alongside Nanjing/Wellminds/Jiuyang/whatever stuff on the NJ Pocket handheld)
(oh my god this stuff is confusing sometimes.. and the one thing that still seems odd to me is that there isn't MORE game sharing and reuse if all these things are connected)
oh man i just thought of another couple of possible Waixing links - there's a game on the MiTouch & BBL called "Feeding Fernzy" (sic) which uses a lot of the same graphics as "Fish War" copyrighted to Waixing & found on a few 16 bit (VT168 I think) Subor consoles like the iSports I have. previously i thought they both just ripped them off from the same place and.. well maybe they did, but maybe there's more to it.
Also "Rally" from the not-Nanjing consoles rips its graphics from the same Neo Geo game as a couple of the iSports racing games. Again could be a coincidence, but maybe not..
uhm and one other thing - the Zone 40 and other 16-bit Subor consoles use a different type of hardware to the iSports, but some of the games were ported between the two anyway. Dunno if that implies Wellminds involvement on both or neither or what argh
