The Forgotten PCE Projects of MindRec

[Bt Garner]

Here is short video of some of the "forgotten" PCE Development efforts that were underway, but had been shelved for whatever reason (lack of time, lack of time, or perhaps lack of time).

It is not all of them, and in some case (like the Action Demo), the game was made as more of a proof of concept.

Included are:
   Action Demo
   Rainbow Hopper (a Q-bert/Pogo Joe sort of game)
   Xymati (title screen and early MGS prototype)
   PC Gunjin (stage 1, sans enemies)
   a few others

Enjoy.

[NecroPhile]

Heh, neat stuff.  Damn you lack of time!

[JoshTurboTrollX]

I enjoyed it very much!!

The xymati and PC Gunjin parts nearly brought a tear to my eye!!

FINISH THEM!!!! 

[Bt Garner]

I received a private question about "Shin Mahjong Super Battle," yeah, it does not say MindRec, but it was something that I did.

The story ... back when the internet was still young, and people made it their business to steal information and sell it as their own, I noticed that much of the data in the PCECP and PCE Complete Listings was being pilfered and distributed without proper credit.  So I eventually started adding some fake information just to see how far it would go.  So "Mahjong Shin Super Battle" was created.  A completely fake game, complete with fake cheats.  At some point I noticed that the fame game had spread far and wide, and that ROM site folks were asking for this mystery game.  So the plan was to release a game with only the title screen, but then crashed beyond that.  So what you see in the video is basically that ROM that was created,  It was never released.  But if you search for "Mahjong Shin Super Battle," you will still find quite a few sites that list the game and cheats for it.

I released a video of MSSB a while back, along with the full explanation, and the number of sites listing it have been dropping.  But even Digital Press has the game listed (or did).

[NecroPhile]

Ha!  BT's trolling the interweb clowns!

[Bt Garner]

Since 1994. (probably well before that)

Ha!  BT's trolling the interweb clowns!

[esteban]

I can't wait until I am home and watch the video! 

UPDATE: So, I just watched the video. In Xymati, I liked how "mindrec" was spelled out by the cosmic girders floating in space. I am intrigued by the "I & II control speed" play mechanics...what's the scoop? Was this simply to cycle through 3-4 speeds (a la Blazing Lazers/GunHed) or was Xymati pioneering somme new stuff?



Anyway, I was happy to see all of these demos

...  A completely fake game, complete with fake cheats.  At some point I noticed that the fame game had spread far and wide, and that ROM site folks were asking for this mystery game.  So the plan was to release a game with only the title screen, but then crashed beyond that.  So what you see in the video is basically that ROM that was created,  It was never released.  But if you search for "Mahjong Shin Super Battle," you will still find quite a few sites that list the game and cheats for it.

I released a video of MSSB a while back, along with the full explanation, and the number of sites listing it have been dropping.  But even Digital Press has the game listed (or did).

SWEETNESS! 



A fun way to see who was scraping pcecp for information.

[VestCunt]

Thanks for the video, BT. I regularly checked the Mindrec page for updates BITD (and still visit 1-2 times/year), so it's nice to see how far some of these got.

Also thanks for your work on PCECP. It still has information not duplicated elsewhere.

[cabbage]

Thanks for sharing. It is great to see some of your unfinished stuff. I bet you had a lot of fun working on them! The story behind the mahjong game is very funny Thanks again, I love this kind of stuff.

[DesmondThe3rd]

Any chance of getting one of them finished. Maybe through a Kickstarter?

[blueraven]

Hey bt,

Thanks again for the compilation of RPG walkthroughs on the site.

good stuff over there at mindrec.

Here is short video of some of the "forgotten" PCE Development efforts that were underway, but had been shelved for whatever reason (lack of time, lack of time, or perhaps lack of time).

It is not all of them, and in some case (like the Action Demo), the game was made as more of a proof of concept.

Included are:
   Action Demo
   Rainbow Hopper (a Q-bert/Pogo Joe sort of game)
   Xymati (title screen and early MGS prototype)
   PC Gunjin (stage 1, sans enemies)
   a few others

Enjoy.

[Duo_R]

Thanks for the post BT, hope all is well!

[SuperPlay]

Thanks for posting the video and what a great story about Mahjong Shin Super Battle :-)

[seieienbu]

Nice stuff.  If you're done with them, any chance of source code being released?  I'm curious to see how you did the scrolling layer in "level 1 demo."

[henrycsc]

Awesome stuff bt.  You're truly one of the great pioneers of awesome!

May the PCE Gods grant you time to complete some of these. 


Oh, and back in the day, the Turbo List was king!

[Bt Garner]

So, I just watched the video. In Xymati, I liked how "mindrec" was spelled out by the cosmic girders floating in space. I am intrigued by the "I & II control speed" play mechanics...what's the scoop? Was this simply to cycle through 3-4 speeds (a la Blazing Lazers/GunHed) or was Xymati pioneering somme new stuff?

These are all just early prototypes, so nothing in there was meant for "final deployment."  The speed control really was just to show off some different scrolling speeds of the background.  At the top speed the background flies by *really* fast.

[Bt Garner]

Any chance of getting one of them finished. Maybe through a Kickstarter?

I have given some though to leveraging "crowdfunding," but the bottom line remains the same ... it's a matter of time to get things done, and although there is a devoted audience for the Turbo/PCE softs, the market is minute.  Several of the games in there were pretty close to begin completely playable (Rainbow Hopper and the Bubble Demo come to mind), so those would be good candidates to test the current waters.  I am not saying it will happen, but a likely scenario would be to work on those (when not plugging away on Xymati for the PC: http://xymati.com or http://facebook.com/xymati) and see if there is any interest in a crowd funded CD pressing of those.  Maybe even use that as filler material for the MB re-print.  Just ideas.

[Bt Garner]

The xymati and PC Gunjin parts nearly brought a tear to my eye!!

FINISH THEM!!!! 

Xymati is close to being done, just not on the PCE (I know, I know).  And done is a relative term here.  I have full weapons int eh PC port, bombs are now working and all sorts of other things.

The stuff in Xymati, would be difficult to do on the PCE.  not saying that it cannot be done, but it would be challenging to fit all that content into the 256 KB of memory.  By putting it on the PC and hopefully XBLA), I can keep that 16-bit GFX look, and have the game that we want, on a platform that has a much bigger user base than our beloved (but ever failing) Turbo hardware units.

Depending on how this works out, I am thinking that PCG or the RPG could be revived, but there's a  lot of gates that need to be passed through before we get to the decision point.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Woah, I never saw the newer tiles for the RPG, nice.  I do hope you get to do that re-print of MBDX.  I think I heard you were going to go with the same group that we used for Mysterious Song?  Any chance of updating any gfx, maybe touching up the cinemas, adding voice acting, etc., or more likely it'll be a straight up re-print?

More then anything, I do hope you find time to work on PCG, that's one department of games the Turbo lacked, & I don't think we have any specific plans for any kind of run n' gun just yet.  BTW, have you heard anything from Nate of Vodkatron, I haven't heard from him in months, I should probably try emailing him again.

[Bt Garner]

I was looking at a few small updates -- nothing major.  Including a lot of the signature edition features, and one of the MindRec splash screens.

And yes, I spoke with Nate yesterday (on the phone) for about an hour.

Woah, I never saw the newer tiles for the RPG, nice.  I do hope you get to do that re-print of MBDX.  I think I heard you were going to go with the same group that we used for Mysterious Song?  Any chance of updating any gfx, maybe touching up the cinemas, adding voice acting, etc., or more likely it'll be a straight up re-print?

More then anything, I do hope you find time to work on PCG, that's one department of games the Turbo lacked, & I don't think we have any specific plans for any kind of run n' gun just yet.  BTW, have you heard anything from Nate of Vodkatron, I haven't heard from him in months, I should probably try emailing him again.