• ▲ Funcube 3

When it rains it pours ... more Japanese gambling games in the form of the third installment of Namco's Funcube, i.e. Funcube 3:

This chapter is comprised of 3 mini-games to be played with a touch screen: a baseball-themed memory game, a puzzle game with numbers (stack them from low to high in five columns), and good old Mastermind. All of them feature a double-up screen as well.

Chapters 2 and 4, on the same seta2.cpp hardware, are already emulated, while chapters 1 and 5 are not dumped yet.

Thanks to Yasuhiro Ogawa

• ▲ Space Trains

More Japanese gambling, another kids medal game by Sigma named Uchuu Tokkyuu Medalian:

There must surely be some merchandise associated with the game, as Banpresto and other Japanese firms are mentioned in the ROMs (but not on screen?).

Thanks to Yasuhiro Ogawa

• ▲ Subliminal Message

Some welcome influx from Japan, an hilarious rock-paper-scissors gambling with a rather overt theme:

Sigma's PEPSI Man runs on sigmab98.cpp hardware, like the Sammy medal games and the GeGeGe no Kitarou slot.

Thirsty?

Thanks to Yasuhiro Ogawa

• ▲ Recap

I've been slacking about updating the site, so here's a recap of the last additions or WIPS...

First up is a WIP about a platform game by Korean Danbi, named Donggul Donggul Haerong. This is far from working but can be gotten to show the intro sequence by manually fixing the stack corruption that is caused by missing protection simulation. Like for the other games in crystal.c, on the real hardware a PIC is involved in making it work:

Another WIP is about Jaleco's Stepping Stage Special getting to the title screen by manually poking the right values in memory during boot. This is a 3-screen dancing game with a full blown Windows PC as slave to play music, and tetrisp2.cpp derived hardware for graphics.
Palette RAMs do not make much sense at the moment, so excuse the gaudy colors ...

I've then managed to decrypt and de-protect a Mahjong game on igs017.cpp hardware, Mahjong Tian Jiang Shen Bing:

Next up is a video-slot for kids, Doraemon no Eawase Montage, based on the popular cartoon. The only noteworthy thing about this is that the dump came from a prototype board (based on 1^st-gen Seta chips), as the game never saw an actual release:

Lastly, I've added a clone of a Hanafuda game, Hanafuda Hana Gokou Bangaihen:

As always, this progress would not have been possible without the help of the community, so...

Thanks to Guru, bnathan, Dyq, Smitdogg, The Dumping Union

• ▲ Subsino (Water-Nymph)

Another addition to the subsino2.cpp driver, thanks to Team Europe. It's a "reels & run lamps" game with a marine theme, called Water-Nymph:

As in some of their later games (such as X-Plan), Subsino added a bonus feature for the operator. The gambling game can in fact be swapped out at run-time with what they call a Tetris clone (more like a Columns clone) at the press of a remote button.

The only minor hurdle with getting this one running was figuring out the specific variation of the fairly trivial encryption scheme.

Thanks to Team Europe.

• ▲ Sammy Medal Games (Part 3)

Here are the last two dumped Sammy medal games working in MAME. They are Pye-nage Taikai:

and Taihou de Doboon:

The main hurdle was figuring out the different ROM/RAM banking for each game. It was harder for the last three games as their ROM banks only contain data, not code, they have no clear text, and use a pretty convoluted print routine.

Thanks to Gnoppi, john666, Gerald (COY), Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Sammy Medal Games (Part 2)

Another Sammy cart works now, it's Hae Hae Ka Ka Ka:

as you can see, the game was reflashed over a cartridge for another game (Pye-nage Taikai).

In other news, Andrew Gardner responded to my call to write an Oki MSM9810 core, so the games should have their sound effects emulated pretty soon.

Thanks to Gnoppi, john666, Gerald (COY), Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Sammy Medal Games

The Dumping Union got the chance to acquire an obscure Japanese system by Sammy. It's a cartridge based platform for some cute medal games for kids. The gameplay is very simple: just one big flashing button to push at the right moment to try and catch some funny animals.

The two working games at the moment are Animal Catch:

and Itazura Monkey:

Each cartridge contains two flash roms (code+samples and graphics). The main board has not been found yet, but I figured out that the hardware is a variation of the one running GeGeGe no Kitarou. I wrote a driver for that a few months back, and it's based on a graphics chip by Taxan (256 color sprites with zooming).

There are three more carts dumped, but each one requires its own ROM/RAM banking scheme and memory map (just to prevent the operators from reflashing an old cart with new games), so they do not work yet. Also, the sound chip is unemulated. Anyone fancy writing a sound core for the OKI MSM9810 sample player? It would help Funcube also .

Thanks to Gnoppi, john666, Gerald (COY), Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Subsino (Express Card)

Another game on Subsino hardware. This time it's Express Card / Top Card (1998):

The game title can be changed through the settings menu. Top Card uses standard poker cards, Express Card has them replaced with images of sea animals.

Thanks to Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Subsino (Trains 'n' Reels)

I've been working on some video slots from the nineties, by Subsino. Here are some almost final screenshots from X-Train (1999):

and Magic Train (1996) (which was in MAME as non-working before):

The latter needed the decryption devised by Haze to be properly applied, and to be hooked up in the bishjan.cpp driver.

In fact, both games run on the same hardware as X-Plan (SS9601 tilemaps, 80188 or Z180 CPU), but make use of a "reel" tilemaps feature that wasn't emulated before. Just a few things remain to be ironed out (like how to switch between "reel" and normal tilemap mode). Also, expect more games on this driver soon...

P.S. Rejoice shoot'em up fans, as I also fixed the rogue tiles left on screen in the masterpiece that is X-Plan.

Thanks to Grull Osgo, Roberto Fresca, Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Reel'N Quake

A "Cherry Master" game titled Reel'N Quake, year and manufacturer unknown:

This uses the seta2.cpp hardware (Nec DX-10x chips for video, X1-010 for sound), though in a slightly different way than the other games.

It also needs hardware shadows, which are now emulated (identically to those in ssv.cpp, the successor hardware).

Thanks to Smitdogg and The Dumping Union.

• ▲ Subsino (part 4)

X-Plan is an unusual shoot'em up / poker combo by Subsino that uses airplanes in place of cards. The shooter is little more than a playable mock-up, and can be swapped in at the press of a button by the operator, "for urgent operation" as the manual states. "Please install those buttons at the secret area, where is most safe and operate easily" .

On the left are screen shots from the shooter, on the right from the gambling game:

It runs on bishjan.cpp hardware, i.e. uses the second installment of Subsino's tilemap chips. But I had to add support for dynamic tile sizes, and slightly fix the row scroll handling. There are some issues with the graphics still, as some rogue tiles are left on screen from time to time. The weird mirroring of video RAM, or the hacky IRQ emulation of the AM188-EM CPU may be the cause.

Thanks to Bicycle Repair Man.

• ▲ Year 2010

Read posts from last year