Nice Code Software - the real developers of those Trump Grand/Qi Sheng Long games?

[taizou]

well I think my days of having absolutely no idea who really made these things may be over.
I was actually just about to post this topic saying theyre probably by Shenzhen Nanjing, based on these:
http://en.sznanjing.com.cn/Default.aspx?PN=ruanjian_page&ps=&pID=33088
http://en.sznanjing.com.cn/Default.aspx?PN=ruanjian_page&ps=&pID=34300
http://en.sznanjing.com.cn/Default.aspx?PN=ruanjian_page&ps=&pID=34299
& these:
http://www.sznanjing.com.cn/Default.aspx?PN=products&TypeID=8164&ItemIndex=3&Tip=1
http://www.sznanjing.com.cn/Default.aspx?PN=products&TypeID=8165&ItemIndex=3&Tip=1
(incidentally Nanjing's site lists some 16bit sport games that I've never seen *anywhere*, but thats possibly something for another topic)
but that still seemed a bit odd since many of them are copyright 2002, and Nanjing was, according to their site, only founded in 2003. one of those is the 2002 World Cup PK game on Nanjing's site, which maxzhou88 mentioned working on .. so I checked out his blog post on the subject (the original plans were pretty impressive, proper accelerometer based motion control four years before the Wii) which names the software developer as 西安东信软件开发公司, Xi'an Dong Xin Software Development Co. or.. Nice Code Software! (and Nanjing's site actually mentions a development partner in Xi'an)

their website doesnt have a comprehensive list of games but there are a few for each console type, and many of the ones under 8-bit and "VT03" (the enhanced colour famiclone system) are unsurprisingly (what I previously thought to be) Trump/QSL games. the VT03 version of Twin Fish even has a Power Joy copyright. so I think we may have found the developer! they do also list some of those hacked Dragon Co games, Dragon was based in Xi'an too so Nice Code could be some kind successor I suppose..

not only that, one of the 8 bit games listed is Nanjing's Tomb Raider, so it seems like Nanjing has been outsourcing to this company even for its RPGs. AND one of their VT168 games, "Abey's Dream", has a Jungle Soft copyright visible in the screenshot, while another, Dingle Hunt appears on some obscure vertical Jungletac console (one has been on eBay for what seems like far too much money for a while now), so it seems like this company worked for Jungletac too .. which would presumably explain both the Cyber Arcade Centre and those Jungletac games with Nanjing music (or vice versa). And some of their 8-bit games appearing in slightly modified form under Waixing makes a lot more sense knowing theres an external developer behind them.

[codeman38]

Oh, wow, good catch. I remember seeing that Penalty Kick post on maxzhou's blog, but didn't think to actually look for a developer name in that.

I swear the game with the monkey on this page is one of the ones on that 41-in-1 Family Sport.

Edit: Nope, can't find any matching screenshots. However, there are some very close similarities (e.g., similar fonts) between the games on NiceCode's site and some of the ones on the Family Sport.Oh yes, I forgot! 2002 Bomberman has the necessary letters in its font to spell DONGXIN. This explains a lot.Apparently Nanjing also sold Invent's Street Dance. Wonder if NiceCode had a hand in that one too? It'd definitely explain the Sunsoft sound driver in that one ping pong game.NiceCode probably also developed the Intellivision plug-n-play too-- Ice Hockey is one of the games listed on their VT03 page, and it's definitely a hack of the Intellivision game.

[taizou]

with the existing Jungletac connections I wouldnt be at all surprised if the Family Sport games were Nice Code's too.. if Jungletac did, for some reason, have to make a bunch of games for a different architecture (although i'm by no means au fait with all the various types of 16 bit hardware these companies use) they might have subcontracted the work to NC, maybe gave them a bunch of basic game concepts to work with and let them have at it.

as for Street Dance, heres something google translated from maxzhou88's blog:

Quote:

 

The Street Dance dance mat program, I have also sent a Melody version of the ROM, see my Notes: Development of two popular FC 2000 ROM Dance Dance Revolution , Dance Dance Revolution is one of the Invent, there Invent 2000's Logo, Cah4e3 dump the Invent 2008. Invent is a teacher at the early years in fact, opened a software company - hundreds of millions of German Software Co., Ltd. of Shenzhen City, the show's music is a student teacher at Columbia produced Yuan, Yuan Colombian, but a powerful figure in hand-made cottage FC game - simulator-based non- actual situation is that he helped design and technology into Taiwan, Wang's CPU. The Invent 2008 PCM version of the dance mat, I guess it is a game software company in Xi'an to do, to borrow the Invent 2000 Melody to PCM material will be singing live. [/quote]
from what I can work out from that he seems to think a company in Xi'an (presumably referring to Nice Code) made the 2008 version based on Invent's 2000 version.. and from that I have Invent(or)'s Chinese name I guess, 深圳市亿万德软件有限公司 (though i kinda like Google's translation of "hundreds of millions of German Software Co., Ltd. of Shenzhen City") .. and something about Invent having helped design "Wang's CPU" from Taiwan - wonder if that has anything to do with the VT OneBus stuff, since Invent(or) games were some of the earliest to use it.

this post on Sky League mentions Inventor closed: http://www.efgcw.com/?dp-bbsthread-347.html
so I guess, somehow, Street Dance ended up with Nice Code and F22 with Waixing?

[codeman38]

taizou

 

so I guess, somehow, Street Dance ended up with Nice Code and F22 with Waixing?[/quote]Or F22 ended up with Nice Code, and Waixing licensed it from them like they did other Nice Code games!

[taizou]

Yeah! Or that.

[codeman38]

And yeah, I'm getting the same gist from the Street Dance post as what you mentioned-- that the developer for Invent also played some part in designing the VT03. "Wang Tai Cheng" appears to have something to do with VRTech in the previous paragraph.

Edit: Yep, definitely referencing VRTech. 虚实科技 (which Google translates as "actual situation technology") is VRTech's Chinese name, according to the company's own site-- and it's mentioned in both paragraphs in maxzhou88's post.Just found this Chinese forum post with a job posting from NiceCode. Note the e-mail address: invent_2000. Hmmm.And another reference on a Chinese site, this time a business listing. Note the name they had before NiceCode: Nature Color Game! And it's definitely the same company; same logo, same Chinese name, and even the same initials. This explains all the Nature Clan stuff, not to mention the credits to "Nature Color Game" in the DreamGear ROM.Also, 亿万德 (Hundreds of Millions of Germans) is definitely Inventor. maxzhou88 flat-out says so here.

[taizou]

codeman38

Dec 20 2010, 11:26:48 PM

Just found this Chinese forum post with a job posting from NiceCode. Note the e-mail address: invent_2000.[/quote]wow, I wasnt expecting to see such a direct link to Invent(or), with one being in Shenzhen and one being in Xi'an and all. but this seems to suggest NC were basically a successor to Invent. or at least whoever controlled that email address used to work there.

codeman38

 

And another reference on a Chinese site, this time a business listing. Note the name they had before NiceCode: Nature Color Game! And it's definitely the same company; same logo, same Chinese name, and even the same initials. This explains all the Nature Clan stuff, not to mention the credits to "Nature Color Game" in the DreamGear ROM.[/quote]
ah, it does - I always thought it was a bit weird that they had a series of games called "Nature Clan" that werent particularly nature-themed or anything, with the main characters just being those..red things. but I guess maybe they were called the Nature Clan because they were supposed to be Nature Color Game's mascots or something.actually i've found a couple of signs of a Xi'an based company with the same Chinese name as (Shenzhen) Inventor. maxzhou mentioned it in a comment on this post:
http://hi.baidu.com/maxzhou88/blog/item/d4d0a0871f65df2cc65cc305.html

only other mention I can find is this, some kind of company listing (cached, original seems to be down). just has their name and address anyway:
西安亿万德软件有限责任公司
陕西省西安市徐家湾渭滨街９３号

[codeman38]

Incidentally, maxzhou88 is right: after stripping the UNIF header (the first 104 bytes), the 2008 Street Dance ROM works wonderfully in the VT03 emulator. Whee.Incidentally, the post that mentions the company with the same name as Inventor that's in Xi'an? That ROM is still around, despite the apparent demise of ys168; here's the link. Seems to have much in common with the menu on the Famikon Yarou and Advance Bright clones, further suggesting an Inventor connection with those blasted things. (Also makes wonderful use of the fact that many folk songs share the same tune...)And this other karaoke ROM includes the same exact version of "Long Long Ago" that's used in the Penalty Kick ROM. Alas, "Battle Hymn" doesn't seem to work, but I wouldn't doubt that it's the same version from the Famikon Yarou menu.

[taizou]

interestingly I'm having no problem accessing ys168 for once. even in Chrome. looks like they finally fixed it! maybe.

& yeah that karaoke game does seem quite.. menu-ish. Weird sound engine though. and the usual fantastic backgrounds you get in this sort of thing

[codeman38]

Oh, the second of the karaoke ROMs that I linked to? Here's maxzhou's post (Google translation). Guess where it was developed? Xi'an, of course! So yeah, probably an Inventor and/or NiceCode connection there, too.

Edit: And wow, you're right: ys168 now works in Firefox. Apparently they've finally decided to join the 21st century. So nice to not have to load up IE6 in Wine anymore to browse the ROM dumping grounds there.

[taizou]

Well ive just been editing Nice Code related stuff on the wiki, I started an article and moved the whole list of games from Trump Grand's page. but i'm pretty sure at least *some* of the games in that list were actually developed by Waixing, especially the ones that they remade in 16-bit for the Zone 40 and whatnot. on 8-bit consoles like the Sudoku 49 in 1 they seem to have mixed their own games with Nice Code stuff with new graphics so its kinda hard to tell, but I definitely think these few are Waixing's own creation:
* Over Speed Racing
* Highway Racing
* Edacity Snakes (its lumped in with Greedy in the list but its definitely a different Snake clone)
* Hitting Mices
* Shooting Ballons
* Guard Farm
* Hua Rong Dao
* Police Skill
* Desert Gunman
* Diamond - the version on the Sudoku Games anyway, its different from the usual one
* Table Tennis (the pong clone)
* .. and more?
any thoughts?

[Awesome Panda]

I thought Waixing only made Super Fight I, Desert Storm and Hua Rong Dao on those things, judging by the copyright dates. Why do you assume that those other games are made by them?

[taizou]

well they always seem to show up together, and only on famiclones/carts with Waixing copyrighted versions of the Nice Code games.. I've never seen alternate versions of any of them on Trump Grand/Qi Sheng long/etc famiclones. they mostly have similar music and/or sound effects and HUDs and stuff too.

[taizou]

codeman38

Dec 21 2010, 12:50:52 AM

And this other karaoke ROM includes the same exact version of "Long Long Ago" that's used in the Penalty Kick ROM. Alas, "Battle Hymn" doesn't seem to work, but I wouldn't doubt that it's the same version from the Famikon Yarou menu.[/quote]just noticed something in that karaoke game -

no doubt about who made that one, i guess.
makes me wonder exactly what the connection is between Invent(or) and Nice Code though.. Nice Code was founded in Xi'an in 1999 according to their website, but Invent were still making games under their own name in 2002.

edit: actually it says in the RAR comments (probably in the associated blogpost too, if I could be arsed looking for it) that the two karaoke games in that archive were demos from a Xi'an based developer .. so it doesnt necessarily mean Invent was still around in 2002, maybe Nice Code just updated the copyright year on an older Invent production.

[Awesome Panda]

taizou

Jan 2 2011, 03:54:39 PM

makes me wonder exactly what the connection is between Invent(or) and Nice Code though.. Nice Code was founded in Xi'an in 1999 according to their website, but Invent were still making games under their own name in 2002.[/quote]Maybe Nice Code were originally called Inventor and then they renamed themselves sometime after 2002. That's just a wild guess though. I also forget where Inventor were/are based, although it might have changed like Waixing's.

One thing I've noticed is that one plug and play Famiclone (which I can't find the video of ATM) has the same tune as the one the DreamGEAR 75-in-1 has, except it's a note lower in pitch and seems to use a different sound engine. That particular Famiclone has some of those awful Inventor hacks on it, and the DreamGEAR has those awful Nice Code games which means I might be right on that guess.