Emo Dao, West Story, and Vast Fame

[fcgamer]

I see that Emo Dao and West Story are often credited as being developed by Vast Fame; can anyone offer concrete proof to that?  

I own a copy of West Story, but the first stage is different to the one that can be seen in the video on youtube.  The only sign of a publisher or developer or anything are the words "TAC" on the box, and who knows if that is really what these words mean.  Cart is in a clear case, circuit board reads "VF-001" on the back, could VF stand for Vast Fame?!  

As for Emo Dao, once again the box and manual are devoid of any useful identifier.  Box is GBA style though...

Anyway, just wanting to hear how these games got attributed to VF.  I know they appeared on a multicart together, but I would think that evidence is shaky at best.

[taizou]

Emo Dao is usually credited to Vast Fame basically because it uses their usual sound engine, and it shares music with their other games.

West Story is less clear (especially because it has stolen music) but there are some leftover menu graphics from Zook Hero 2 in the ROM of the Harry Potter version - it appearing on that multicart was just a little bit more confirmation.

Quote:

 

Cart is in a clear case, circuit board reads "VF-001" on the back, could VF stand for Vast Fame?! [/quote]
it's certainly possible - when I get home I'll open some of my Vast Fame carts and see if any of them have a similar identifier on the PCB.

Could you take photos of the boxes and carts? I've never seen a standalone copy of West Story ever, and I've only seen the cart of Emo Dao. Maybe I could see if they use any familiar style of labelling or anything. thanks!

[Pepper-98]

Oh shit, you have a copy of those games?  I've never seen one of either (well, the original Taiwanese releases at least) so I'd be interested in images of those myself.  I have a cart of Soul Falcion (single cart Taiwanese release) that has VF-001 on the back of the board, though a cart of Xin Feng Shen Bang I own has LT-02 REV.0 on the back.  I'll take a peek at my other V.Fame carts and see what they have on their boards.

[timedriver]

Where are they roms ?

[taizou]

They're not dumped yet.

[taizou]

just found a pic of West Story's box on my hard drive, completely at random (I saved it in, like, 2004, descriptively titled "Unknown.jpg", presumably it came from an auction somewhere):

[Robyn]

..that has to be the most messed up boxart I've ever seen. :shock:

[codeman38]

Interesting that it has that 'full color' Chinese text on the side-- I don't think I've ever seen a VFame game with that, but I have seen it on both Sintax carts and bootlegs of licensed games.

Edited to add: How quickly I forget! This thread mentioned several mainland-released VF games that had the same text down the side, including one image of a Digimon cart with a nearly identical layout. (Sintax's games usually have it in a red box rather than along the side; see, for instance, the Lion King box. Possibly some sort of Gamtec-supplied logo?)

[taizou]

oh hey, that reminds me - I have this cart of one of these Shi Mian Mai Fu games based on a hacked-up VFame engine, I think its the original release (it has the Tian Cai Xiao Zi logo intact):



its clearly from the same publisher, even uses their own custom cart case (which I haven't seen on any other release with that "full colour Chinese" text).. I dunno if "SUPER GAME" is supposed to be their name though, or if its just a generic description.

also note "RPG" where it says "TAC" on the West Story box.. so I guess either TAC is short for "tactics" or something (even though it's a shooter) or they just misspelt ACT.oh and it has a Chinese patent number on the back -
http://search.cnpat.com.cn/cprs2010/cn/PatentDetails.html?cic=1371287&id=02364993.3&idk=2CAA9FHF9EFD9BDB6CAAFGHA9DDG9DIF&Qy=%20(200230064993%2FAN)&t=c
gives the inventor as Chen Pei-yun (陈珮筠) with an address in Guangdong, but no company name.

BUT the same guy also applied for design patents on the packaging for West Story:
http://search.cnpat.com.cn/cprs2010/cn/PatentDetails.html?cic=1376750&id=02372069.7&idk=9IDC8BFA7EAA9BFE9CHC6DDA7ABAFFIA&Qy=%20(%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FAB%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FCL%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FTI%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FIN%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FPA)&t=c#fragment-16
and some Digimon game:
http://search.cnpat.com.cn/cprs2010/cn/PatentDetails.html?cic=1376751&id=02372070.0&idk=9BIA9EDA5ACADHGA5ADA9EFADFIA7CFA&Qy=%20(%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FAB%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FCL%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FTI%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FIN%2B%E9%99%88%E7%8F%AE%E7%AD%A0%2FPA)&t=c
which is certainly a thing.oh and this is completely unrelated but hey. Gowin patented their cartridge design too, and the owner of that patent (翁兆林) also patented these cute cart cases, which I don't think they ever used:
http://search.cnpat.com.cn/cprs2010/cn/PatentDetails.html?cic=1131149&id=01320450.5&idk=9IGF9GIGAIGA9HCC9GFC9FCC9DFE7EDA&Qy=%20(%E7%BF%81%E5%85%86%E6%9E%97%2FAB%2B%E7%BF%81%E5%85%86%E6%9E%97%2FCL%2B%E7%BF%81%E5%85%86%E6%9E%97%2FTI%2B%E7%BF%81%E5%85%86%E6%9E%97%2FIN%2B%E7%BF%81%E5%85%86%E6%9E%97%2FPA)&t=c#fragment-16

(btw you have to click on "外观图片" to see the pics on all these patent listings)