l00t from Retrospelsfestivalen 2017!

September 16, 2017 by stopXwhispering

Even though I just spent a few hours at the retro game convention Retrospelsfestivalen this year, I still managed to pick up a couple of games for various systems ^_^

First of all, I’m super happy to have such good friends in the retro community that thinks of me when they find an unusual edition of Tetris :D Thanks Andreas for finding it for me ^_^ Retro Bit Bros had this Swedish Yapon rental edition of Tetris for the NES for sale and they put it aside for me :) It’s a beauty! A great addition to my Tetris collection ^_^

Tetris – NES Yapon rental case

Tetris – NES Yapon rental case back

At their table I also found two Sachen games that I’ve never encountered in the wild before. I had to get Little Red Hood and try it for myself. I’ve only seen a brief video of it from AVGN back in the day. It was even worse than I had expected XD Horrible game mechanics and I couldn’t even get past the first stage. I collected cash enough to buy all the things in the store but none of them did anything useful or permanent, and I found a key in one instance but I didn’t find anything to open with it.. so eventually I just gave up!

Little Red Hood – NES Sachen

Little Red Hood NES

Little Red Hood

Lucky Bingo was supposed to have some half-naked ladies in it I was told, but I couldn’t find any.. :( instead it was the most boring gameplay I’ve ever encountered! It’s basically just a digital slot machine, put in money, pull the lever, and push again to stop. Completely boring >_< Unfortunately I couldn’t get it running on my Retron 5 so I couldn’t record any gameplay..

NES Sachen games

Lucky Bingo – NES Sachen

Retro Bit Bros also had a few Atari 2600 games, and I had to get these two! Such amazing artwork on the covers :D Frostbite wasn’t very exciting, you just jumped back and forth over what I think was supposed to be ice-blocks in a river. Plaque Attack however was way better! You’re a toothpaste tube inside a mouth shooting at food and candy that try to attack the teeth! A fun shooter where you fight off hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs, ice cream and lots of other tooth-enemies XD

Frostbite – Atari 2600

Plaque Attack – Atari 2600

I picked up a newly made Game Boy game by a small Swedish developer crew called Team Lamp Oil. It’s a puzzle game with falling blocks containing rope and bombs which you have to get to match so that you can clear the board when the fire block appears :) It was fun!

Rope & Bombs – Game Boy

At the convention I found two Super Famicom games that looked like fun. I thought that Super Chinese World was a platformer because it looked like it on the back, but it had a lot of RPG-elements that I really despise >_< The actual battles though were platforming action, but it was soooo slooooow and the hit detection was really awful, so I do not recommend this title..

Super Chinese World – Super Famicom

Super Chinese World Super Famicom

Super Chinese World

The other Super Famicom game was Astro Go! Go! This was a racing game, kind of like F-Zero. I tried out two different characters and different tracks, but it was a bit difficult, and it probably would have been a lot more fun if it had a 2-player VS mode. Otherwise the graphics were nice, and the controls were sharp :)

Astro Go! Go! – Super Famicom

Astro Go! Go!

Astro Go! Go! – Super Famicom

I found a Sega Mega Drive game as well which has a really badass cover! Bloodshot is a first-person shooter kind of like Wolfenstein 3D but more futuristic. Compared to Wolfenstein on Super Famicom it’s a bit more difficult to steer since you don’t have the L and R buttons to sidestep on the Sega controller. But it works, and it’s ok in single player. It has a 2-player VS mode though that I’m eager to try out with a friend :)

Bloodshot – Sega Mega Drive

Bloodshot Sega Mega Drive

I got a boxing game called Heavyweight Champ for the Sega Master System. It was cheap and it was lame XD I’m probably gonna use it for the finals sometime on Retro Rumble though! It’s probably more fun in 2-player mode than versus the AI…

Heavyweight Champ – Sega Master System

Darius Plus for PC Engine was another purchase, I love the PC Engine and shmups ^_^ This wasn’t the best one in the series though.. but it was decent :) The thing I didn’t like was the power up system and that it was a bit slow for my taste.

Last but not least was Kokotoni Wilf, such a weird name! And an obscure cover.. I tried to get it running on my C64, but it didn’t want to finish loading.. I will give it another try some day, sometimes the old computer just doesn’t wanna play with you XD

Darius Plus – PC Engine

Kokotoni Wilf – C64

HE-MAN video games collection

August 1, 2017 by stopXwhispering

There’s always a few things that you find particularly cool, that are extra entertaining or that you just hold a strong nostalgic value too. I always enjoyed Tetris games and the Castlevania games so I have of course always collected games in those series when I see them :) Another one of these series that I find particularly interesting is He-Man! I loved the animated He-Man series when I was a kid back in the 80s ^_^ GE MIG KRAFTEN GRÅSKULL!!! (yes I watched the dubbed Swedish versions of Masters of the Universe XD).

It wasn’t until recently that I encountered a video game based on He-Man, and it just never struck me that games based on the popular show might have been made back then! So I started researching (= scour eBay for He-Man video games ^_^). The first one I got was He-Man for the Mattel Intellivision. This one has some pretty awesome 80’s style cover art :D

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man – Intellivision

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man back – Intellivision

It was also the first game I tried out with my ‘new’ Intellivision that I acquired not too long ago. Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man is actually a pretty good game, even though the graphics are pretty basic. It varies between two types of stages, you start off with flying in He-Man’s wind raider to pursue Skeletor. After you clear that stage it turns into top-down action where you have to block projectiles from Skeletor and dodge other enemies to reach Skeletor and swing your sword ^_^

After this I discovered a few other He-Man games, like Masters of the Universe the Movie and Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game both for ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie – ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe the Movie back – ZX Spectrum

I tried out the He-Man game based on the horrible movie from 1987 starring Dolph Lundgren XD It wasn’t very good.. I was just walking around looking for the correct way and trying to find some shit.. it was boring, and I never reached the type of gameplay that was displayed on the back of the cover :/

I tried to get Masters of the Universe the Arcade Game to work, but unfortunately I only got it to load the intro scene and then it got stuck :(

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game – ZX Spectrum

The Arcade Game He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in the Ilearth Stone back – ZX Spectrum

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum loading

Masters of the Universe The Arcade Game screenshot

The next He-Man game I bought was for the Playstation 2. I actually haven’t tried Masters of the Universe He-Man: Defender of Grayskull out yet. It looks like a 3D adventure and the further you get from 2D the less interested I usually am in a game XD but I’ll get around to trying it eventually ^_^

Masters of the Universe He-man Defender of Grayskull – PS2

Masters of the Universe He-man Defender of Grayskull back – PS2

At this point I had heard of another He-Man game that I saw a bunch of loose cartridges for on eBay, but never a complete game in box.. This game was Masters of the Universe He-Man: The Power of Grayskull for Game Boy Advance. A few weeks ago it finally popped up though, from somewhere in the US, and I bought it after bargaining a bit with the seller regarding shipping etc. Today it arrived in the mail ^_^

Masters of the Universe He-Man Power of Grayskull – GBA

Masters of the Universe He-Man Power of Grayskull back – GBA

I played it for a bit today and it looks good, but the constant tutorials from Orco were a bit frustrating, let me figure stuff out myself! Or at least turn to the manual if I’m clueless.. I hate it when they force the manual on you through the gameplay >_< Also the controls are a bit slow and clunky, my left hand got a bit tired and soar after just one stage because of all the diagonal steering in this isometric environment.. Since the game is so slow it’s also hard to avoid getting hurt.. I gave up at the second stage when reaching the boss and getting Game Over…

It was an extremely frustrating and tedious game. Also it’s based on the new series and not the cool 80’s one ;D

And this was the worst.. XD

I can break stuff??!

Pick up the shiny objects you say…

I was wondering what those things did..

I just saw that with my own eyes.. but thanks for pointing it out..

No shit Sherlock!

Oh so that’s what that’s for…

Really?!?

Now there is one more He-Man game that I know of, and I went to eBay to check on the current status of it right now for this piece. I usually only see the occasional loose cartridge of the He-Man game for the Atari 2600, but for the first time there was a complete copy! In super nice condition! So I had to buy it :D Now I can’t wait for it to arrive ^_^ Here’s the eBay pics of it:

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man for Atari 2600

Masters of the Universe The Power of He-Man back for Atari 2600

Can’t wait for it to arrive ^_^ The gameplay looks totally different from the Intellivision version, based on the pictures on the cover :)

Do you like He-Man? Do you know of any more He-Man video games out there that I might have missed? :)

RSM loot – Gleylancer and other Mega Drive beauties :)

July 1, 2017 by stopXwhispering

This year at Retrospelsmässan I actually had a table shared with my friend Cleareyes where I spent half the time selling some of my doubles. I also spent time on the Tetris competition that I was hosting, so I didn’t get much time to shop around. There were LOADS of games for sale this year! I wish I had more time to scour through everything! But I did manage to find a few cool things :)

NES games

Atari 2600 games

ZX Spectrum games

More games

He-man!

Retro games for sale

First up are some really nice Japanese Sega Mega Drive games! The Swedish Pong champion, Barkis, was selling off his personal collection. I managed to score Gleylancer, Splatterhouse Part 3 and Awesome Possum! I also got Rastan Saga II and Shijou Saidai no Soukoban which I had no clue what they were but I was hoping they were playable XD

Gleylancer – Sega Mega Drive

Awesome Possum – Sega Mega Drive

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban – Sega Mega Drive

Splatterhouse Part 3 – Sega Mega Drive

Rastan Saga II – Sega Mega Drive

Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer is an awesome shoot-em-up. It’s quite pricey and I didn’t think I would ever find a copy that I’d be willing to pay the price for. But together with these other games I made a good deal :) It’s a pretty good shmup! It has nice graphics, varied stages, power-ups and various settings for your side-guns. It was fairly easy, but once you die you loose your power-ups and side-guns which make it a bit more challenging.

Gleylancer Sega Mega Drive

Side-guns in Gleylancer

Gleylancer intro

Gleylancer ship

Gleylancer Stage 1

Gleylancer Stage 1 Boss

Gleylancer Stage 2 Boss

Gleylancer Stage 3 lasers

Awesome Possum is a classic platformer, unfortunately not as awesome as I had hoped >_< You could basically just jump around, and Mr. Possum was very difficult to control. It didn’t feel like you could steer him to where you wanted to go. And the story was a bit lame.. you have to run around the rain forest and collect trash to save the environment, and stop robots from cutting down the trees.. in between stages you got a quiz, felt like you were back in elementary school XD A poorly produced game if you ask me..

Awesome Possum Sega Mega Drive

Awesome Possum save the rainforest!

Awesome Possum trees

Awesome Possum tree-killing robots

Mid-term Quiz in Awesome Possum

I have a few games in the Splatterhouse series, the second one for Sega Mega Drive, the one for PC Engine and Wanpaku Grafitti for the Famicom (although that one can hardly be counted as the same XD) and now I also got Splatterhouse Part 3 which I think was better than what I remember from both the 2nd one for Mega Drive and the PC Engine version. The controls were a bit smoother, it was more fluent. It wasn’t just a regular brainless beat ’em up where you can just button mash the attack button and get away with it. Even though Rick only had one attack button you still had to use timing and strategy to outsmart the enemies. You had to be on your toes a bit more than in usual beat ’em ups. I liked that about it :) But some rooms were ridiculous, like the flying hands or the books/objects’ room where stuff just came flying at you constantly, pushing you backwards with no way of you being able to attack them back.. super annoying.. I also ran out of time on the third stage, but nothing happened, I could just continue to look for the boss room until I found it and beat it o_O

Splatterhouse Part 3 Sega Mega Drive

Upper cut!

Groin punch!

Monster toss!

Jennifer smells of rot…

Bat smack!

Bear punch!

Disgusting annoying hands! >_<

Stages of face decomposition XD

This guy… >_<

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban was a puzzle game where you pushed blocks around to get them to the marked spots to clear a stage. The graphics/colour and overall look of it was kind of boring. I played a couple of stages but eventually got stuck and I don’t have patience for these kind of puzzle games. I prefer Tetris ^_^

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban Sega Mega Drive

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban stage 1

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban boxes

The final Japanese Mega Drive game I got was Rastan Saga II. Everybody has told me it’s the shittiest game ever. And sure, the character was a bit stiff, he looked silly and was badly animated, but I liked the colourful graphics, it was definitely not as bad as Sword of Sodan XD But yeah, after reaching the second stage boss I agree, it’s definitely not a good game. I wasn’t able to get a hit on Medusa without her hitting me like three times first >_<

Rastan Saga II Sega Mega Drive

Rastan Saga II Jump attack!

Rastan Saga II Swinging

Rastan Saga II First boss

Rastan Saga II Stage 2

Rastan Saga II Second boss

I picked up an original grey Nintendo Game Boy as well, mainly because it came in this funky carry case. I already have this carry case, but it’s my favourite, so now I have two :) I also got two games with it, Tetris and Motocross Maniacs, and it was a good deal.

Apart from that I picked up a few Game Boy titles: Star Saver, Migraine, Booby Boys, Volleyfire and Sanrio Carnival.

Nintendo Game boy with carry case

Nintendo Game Boy with case and games

Star Saver & Migraine – Game Boy

Booby Boys, Volleyfire, Sanrio Carnival – Game Boy

Migraine is a typ of puzzle game where you turn levers to steer a laser that pops bubbles. It was extremely boring and frustrating. The controls were slow and the stages had an annoying time limit..

Migraine Game Boy

Migraine stage 1

Migraine stage 2

The Adventures of Star Saver on the other hand is a great platforming shooter :) And the music is awesome!! I recommend trying this one out :D

The Adventures of Star Saver intro

The Adventures of Star Saver

The Adventures of Star Saver powerup

The Adventures of Star Saver boss

I thought Volleyfire would be a shmup as well, but not really. You’re only on one screen, facing an opponent and you have to shoot down his health by getting your shot in between the moving obstacles in the middle. It’s kind of like the old school Outlaw on Atari 2600, but with space ships.. boring.

Volleyfire Game Boy

Volleyfire stage 1

Volleyfire stage 2

Booby Boys is a top down platformer where your objective is to collect all items on a stage, find the key and enter the next stage. Your weapon is that you make traps for the enemies, dig a hole and they fall down, push it again to kill them when they’re stuck. It was so-so..

Booby Boys Game Boy

Booby Boys Stage 1

Booby Boys screenshot

Sanrio Carnival was just like Columns! Except with the heads of Sanrio characters instead of gems XD You make matches of three horizontally, vertically and even diagonally. It was ok :) There’s a hard mode where the blocks just stick mid-air when you destroy a row, that was different O_o

Sanrio Carnival Game Boy

Sanrio Carnival screenshot

Sanrio Carnival difficult stage

I also found some PC Engine titles that I had been looking for, and some that I didn’t know I wanted XD I found Winds of Thunder which I have been looking for for quite some time, and PC Genjin 3 which is a great platforming series. Then I also bumped into a game called Lady Sword.. I had no clue what it was but it looked absurd so I had to get it XD

Winds of Thunder – PC Engine

PC Genjin 3 – PC Engine

Lady Sword – PC Engine

I got convinced to buy a boxed Super Famicom as well XD I already have 3.. but none of them are boxed and two of them are in really shitty condition. One is extremely yellowed, and the other one has been spray painted in silver, a really bad paint job at that.. So it was mainly because of the content that I picked it up. The console is complete and in really minty condition :) And it was a fair price.

Super Famicom boxed

Super Famicom controllers

Minty Super Famicom

The first and last thing I bought at the convention were Atari 2600 carts! I just love these, especially when they’re some weird bootlegs and stuff XD A lot of them are German and have some pretty funny names, like Raumroboter :) Spider Fighter is not in very pretty condition, but I recently bought a bootleg of it and realised it’s an amazing game so I wanted to try the original cartridge :) Phantompanzer I bought together with an Amiga CD32 game called Gloom. It’s been suggested to me before, I think it’s supposed to be an FPS game kind of like Doom…

Weltuntergang, My Way & Raumroboter – Atari 2600

Bobby Geht Heim & Phantompanzer – Atari 2600

Dschungel Boy & Pygmy – Atari 2600

Tele-games 14 & 5 – Atari 2600

Alien Force, Hoppy & Spider Fighter – Atari 2600

Gloom – Amiga CD32

At the end of the day I picked up some odd things over at Butik Mackapär. Markus always has some weird things and lots of Japanese goodies ^_^ I found a newly produced game for the Sega Dreamcast, it looked cute :) I also got a bunch of odd third party controllers. And some of the Atari 2600 games above were from him as well. He threw in an odd cartridge for the Sega Mega Drive, an Interceptor Specify Card.. I have no clue what it does XD

Alice’s Mom’s Rescue – Dreamcast

Interceptor Specify Card – Mega Drive

Third party controllers

Well this turned out to be a pretty long post XD There’s even a few more games I forgot to mention that I got at RSM, but this will have to do for now ^_^

Various Atari 2600 carts & other Atari l00t from Retro Gathering VCE 2017

February 15, 2017 by stopXwhispering

This is part 1 of my Retro Gathering l00t :) I will go through everything bit by bit once I’m done sorting and cleaning stuff ^_^ As you might have seen on my Instagram it was quite a large haul XD So let’s start off with all my Atari related pickups! I found quite a few Atari 2600 games thanks to my friend nesfrk who pointed out to me the big box of Atari carts that was hiding under a table that I had missed! I ended up buying 22 Atari 2600 games in total, and many of them were in different shapes and sizes. I haven’t really read up a lot about these, but it started fascinating me after I found out about the Atari V-carts that I recently bought from a friend, and now I kind of wanna know what the rest of the weird looks of the Atari 2600 carts are about XD

End labels on Atari 2600 games

Some of them are a bit more obvious, they were released by a certain company that just made their own style of cartridges and labels, such as Parker Brothers or ActiVision. Parker Brothers’ Atari 2600 carts have a really cool shape in my opinion, and the labels are silver. I don’t know if there were other variants, but all the ones I own which read Parker Brothers on the back all have silver labels. And the ActiVision ones are a bit more dull, just black and white but with the ActiVision logo printed in the plastic on the back, just like the Parker Brothers logo. ActiVision does have other labels as well, more colourful, I own a few of those as well, but I think these black and white ones might be region specific.

Spider-Man and Sky Skipper – Atari 2600

Black and white ActiVision games on Atari 2600

These are the common Atari carts that I’m used to seeing. Either with a silver label, a black label with a colourful name on the side or the black with silver frame labels. Also there’s the full color ones, that have one bright background colour and same colour on the end label.

Millipede, Pac-man, Slot Racers and Freeway – Atari 2600

Miniature Golf, Indy 500 and Sky Diver – Atari 2600

I found some odd carts with 2 games in 1 called 2 Pak Special. I’ve never seen these before. The seller told me they were Australian (if I’m not mistaken). Kind of ugly, but still charming in a way XD

2 Pak special – Atari 2600

I also got Hero by Imagineering, from 1990 (!!), and I just read that they didn’t discontinue the Atari 2600 until 1992! 25 years later!! this blew my mind XD Then there was a Telegames game called Armor Ambush with a silver label and finally three unidentifiable games. Two of them have the same cartridge case, it has S.S imprinted on the back, but other than that it only reads the game name and no publisher, so I’m thinking they might be bootlegs? They’re German at least I can tell from the names XD Funny names! Super-Cowboy beim Rodeo and Vom Himmel durch die Hölle (From heaven to hell). The last one called Lilly Adventure has a similar cartridge case but it’s a little bit shorter and doesn’t have anything printed on the plastic..

Hero and Armor Ambush – Atari 2600

Super-Cowboy beim Rodeo, Vom Himmel durch die Hölle and Lilly Adventure – Atari 2600

So many variations right! :D That’s probably far from all of them as well XD I also found two joysticks for the Atari 2600. The Driving paddle controller :) It was apparently needed for the Indy 500 game, so I ran and picked them up from the place at the convention where I had seen them earlier that day, by Butik Mackapär ^_^

Atari 2600 driving controllers

I also picked up a few Atari 400 games. I bought an Atari 400 not too long ago, haven’t got it up and running yet, but I will make another attempt soon. Meanwhile I found these game cartridges for it :)

Atari 400 – Star Raiders, Galaxian and Pac-Man

Atari 400 – Donkey Kong Junior, Jumpman Junior and Frogger

And I also got one Atari ST game ^_^ It was cheap, in nice condition and I liked the cover art :)

Prison – Atari ST

More posts are coming with the rest of the loot from Retro Gathering soon ^_^

Retro Gathering VCE 2017!

February 7, 2017 by stopXwhispering

This weekend I visited Retro Gathering VCE (Vintage Computer Edition) in Västerås with my friend Gabriella. This years focus was Commodore PET that celebrated 40 years, Apple II and adventure games which is right up my friend Gabbi’s alley ^_^ It was as awesome as always! A bit fewer people visiting the convention this time, but that just meant less people crowding around the tables where I wanna buy stuff XD But I understand that it might be frustrating for the sellers to get fewer customers :/ But it’s usually a bit fewer people at the Vintage Computer Edition of Retro Gathering in spring time, compared to the regular Retro Gathering they host each fall. Probably because less people are into old computers and more people are into Nintendo and newer consoles … unfortunately :( Well, another thing that might also have been the cause of less visitors is that Nintendo at Bergsala in Gothenburg hosted a launch party for the Nintendo Switch during the same weekend. I know a lot of people who went there instead.. But I had a great time at Retro Gathering VCE! Met and chatted with so many friends that I’ve gotten to know through these last couple of years, I just love the retro gaming community here in Sweden! :D

There were still a lot of things to look at and to buy. My biggest mistake was not to snag an Atari Jaguar CD unit, boxed and WORKING! I waited and they were gone within the hour.. >_< But I bought lots of other cool stuff ^_^ I’ll make another post when I’ve gone through it all XD

Vintage Computers for sale

Commodore PET 700

Michael and his calculators ^_^

COMX 35 The Clever Computer

Sinclair ZX Spectrum games

TAC-2 joystick

Sinclair QL

TAC-2 joysticks

Boxed Atari Jaguar CD unit

Minty Atari Jaguar games and accessories for sale

Atari games

Retro Gathering VCE 2017

Atari 130XE

Atari Light Pen

Mega Drive games

Sven666 from Retrospelsmässan

Games

Retro Gathering VCE 2017

Japanspel selling Japanese games

Söders at Retro Gathering

Boxed NES games

Nintendo games for sale

Nintendo games

NES games

Zapper and Game Boys

Retro games for sale

Sega games

Retro gaming artist

Pikachu Pixelart

Xbox and playstation – retro?

Sales at Retro Gathering

Super Famicom games

Neo Geo games!

Billy Mitchell XD

Oliver Frey Artwork

Oliver Frey book

ZX Spectrum games

Retro gaming friends ^_^

There was a big showcase of some old computer stuff, I don’t really know much about this kind of stuff, but some things were from the 70s and quite unique. The coolest thing was a guy who had put together Spacewar for people to try out, the very first video game from 1961! :D Both me and Gabriella tried it out ^_^

Music on old computers

Gabriella trying out Spacewar

Spacewar from 1961

Homebuilt controllers for spacewar

Spacewar

Computer exhibition

Old computers

Apart from all the awesome people that were there, visiting or selling, there were also loads of computers on demonstration that you could try out :) I kind of fell in love with the Microbee and the game Hopper! I got the highscore, until Magnus had to go beat me by 100 points XD I need to get me one of these computers so I can practice some more ;) Seriously though, if anyone has a Microbee lying around I am more than interested! :D There was also a competition held on a Commodore PET to play the game Car race by Satoru Iwata. This reminded me a lot of Race on Philips Videopac, but it was a bit more difficult, especially because of the slippery stages XD But I managed to get a decent score on there as well :) I’ll have to wait and see until they upload the scores on the Retro Gathering homepage to see where I ranked ^_^

Amstrad

Making music on vintage computers ^_^

ABC 80

Luxor computer

Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k

Atari 800

Alice with Flappy Bird

Vintage Computers

Sord M5 CGL Home Computer

Commodore 64

Luxor, I think.. XD

Sinclair PC 200

Gaming on vintage computers

Kids playing old computer games

Sega SC3000

Texas Instruments TI-99

Commodore VIC 20

Sega SC3000 Personal Computer

Family Computer with breakout

Family Computer

Hopper game on Microbee

Macintosh Plus computer

Apple mouse

Macintosh IIci

Macintosh IIci

Macintosh Plus computer

Microbee playing Hopper

Microbee computer

Playing hopper on Microbee

Famicom Family Computer

Family Basic for Famicom

Vintage Computers on Retro Gathering

Microbee – Hopper

I’m already looking forward to Retro Gathering this fall! Meanwhile I’ll also be attending Retrospelsmässan in Gothenburg in April ^_^ I’m happy they’re back!

T-Tris on Atari Lynx!

January 6, 2017 by stopXwhispering

I got a link to an eBay auction from my friend JV on instagram, and I just bought it instantly without hesitation… because it was TETRIS! :D (I love Tetris) I didn’t even know there was a Tetris game on the Atari Lynx! XD

I never heard of this one and it didn’t look like an official release because it came as a bare card and in a bright orange plastic case. I was still curious to try it out :D

T-Tris on Atari Lynx – Tetris homebrew

It has an instruction manual on A4 paper and a little sticker with “T-TRIS” printed on it :) It’s apparently a homebrew Tetris game created by a German guy called Bastian Schick. I don’t really buy a lot of homebrews or repro games, but when it’s the only Tetris game on the system I do not hesitate!! :D

T-Tris on Atari Lynx – Tetris homebrew

It plays like most Tetris games. Pressing down throws down the blocks, and so does pressing A which is quite annoying until you get used to it. The B button rotates the blocks, but as in a few other Tetris games you can’t rotate once your block is pressed against the wall. It’s a bit tedious to move, holding left or right moves you in that direction but very slowly, to speed it up you have to tap left or right which gets harder the faster it gets..

You have the option to start the game on various levels, it shows you how much time has passed, how many lines you’ve cleared, the points, level, high score and how many players. It apparently has a multiplayer function, I haven’t tried this out yet, I don’t have the Comlynx cable and I’m not sure whether it demands several copies of the game or not.. On the right side of the screen you see how many of each type of block you’ve received, at the bottom it reads “PREV” which my brain wants to interpret to “Previous”, but it probably stands for “Preview”. It shows the next block either way, and it’s quite annoying since I’m used to having that one on the top, so every time I glanced to see what was next I kept seeing that same top block XD

I tried to take a screenshot of the gameplay:

There’s no music, only some sound effects and a very German voice saying “Oh toll!” (which translates to “Oh cool”) when you do something good XD It gets almost impossible when you go above level 9, it’s so slow to move the blocks left or right and they kind of stick as soon as they touch another block.. but I’m still happy to have a Tetris game for the Atari Lynx!! Thanks Bastion for creating this ^_^