Author Topic: 88-in-1 + unused hacks  (Read 972 times)

forgotusername

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88-in-1 + unused hacks
« on: November 03, 2023, 04:20:55 PM »
Among numerous other consoles, an "88-in-1 Joystick" Famiclone was recently added to MAME. This system is effectively a variant of the common "Arcade Action II" 101-in-1 that has been circulating online for years, with the removal of a few games in exchange for a bunch of Cube Technology VT02 hacks (which are quite uncommon compared to the Inventor hack library).

For whatever reason, there are two unused - and as far as I know, undocumented - games in its code: Bon Bon and Air-Launch, hacks of Devil World and Raid on Bungeling Bay, respectively. There may be some other unused games in it as well, though these two stuck out to me given I had never seen them before. Downloads of the two games (alongside an iNES-headered copy of the 88-in-1) are attached below. There is also a 5-in-1 cartridge for this console, though I do not have a copy of the ROM for it currently.

forgotusername

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Re: 88-in-1 + unused hacks
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2023, 01:10:38 PM »
I did a code analysis of the aforementioned 5-in-1 cartridge; there are some unused code bits (a copy of "Bicycle Race" and a 6-in-1 menu), but nothing that noteworthy.

Somewhat interesting, though, is that the game "Brave Boy" is a crappy title hack of Nice Code's Twin Cards; specifically the original release with Pikachu intact. As far as I know, the Pikachu version was undumped, outside of another title hack called "Ilk Cards". As the CHR is basically untouched, I was able to recreate a proper Twin Cards ROM using the PRG of the Power Joy version (which replaced Pikachu with a plane).