It's sunday, it's ROM release day! And from our cave of wonders we've got no less than four Master System prototypes today. How can we find so many prototypes is a secret beyond my own understanding :-)

First on with the demos:



Ghouls'n Ghosts [Demo] for the Master System, a non-interactive, 32KB marquee rolling demo (in the same as the Castle of Illusion or Super Basketball demos). Probably used on CES '90 show floor. What is noticeable here is that the title screen logo is bigger and or better quality than the final release. Why is that ? Probably because when it comes to finalizing the game and fitting it entirely in a 2 megabit cartridge, shaving up data out of the title screen it's one of the easiest optimization to do.



World Cup Italia '90 [Demo] for the Master System, a non-interactive, auto-playing demo version of the game. Also probably used on CES '90 show-floor.

And then more "regular" prototypes:



Monopoly [Proto] for the Master System, one of the early US developped Sega title, up to 8 players, in all its splendor and youth programming roughness. Also read the interesting Kevin Seghetti's thread about the development of games like Monopoly or Alf at Nexa, if you haven't already.



R.C. Grand Prix [Proto] for the Master System, the classic top down racer by Absolute Entertainment, also based in the US. A little rough on the collision side, it is a very solid and entertaining game for those willing to complete it. Will our reverse engineers experts find out the differences with the final build?



And then finally we have the elusive The Smurfs Travel the World (Les Schtroumpfs Autour du Monde) for the Game Gear. This game is famous for being one of the latest developped and rarest titles on the Master System, and the Game Gear version, although not as rare is also a quite difficult find. The Game Gear version was previously undumped - that's one thing corrected now.

The plot smurfs with the sad discovery that "the whole world suffers from pollution", to which the curious answer is to violently smurf living animals out of their habitats.

Thanks all for your continued support!

Summer days last longer, and this is our second set of releases for today. Also check FA Tetris (SMS/KR), Flicky [v1] (SG/JP) posted earlier.

I went on and decided to unload a bunch of common Game Gear variations left unreleased. Nothing particularly super thrilling but for the sake of completeness this is a welcomed update. Let's see what we have:

- Fantasy Zone (US) for the Game Gear (previously released dump is from JP/EU cartridge),
- James Pond II - Codename: Robocod (EU) for the Game Gear (previously released dump is from US cartridge)
- Master of Darkness (EU) for the Game Gear (previously released dumps are from JP/US cartridges, bearing different names)
- Road Rash (EU) for the Game Gear (previously released dump is from US cartridge)

Also adding to this two dumps I intended to release as well, but which apparently already made their way out to the internet through other people. I'm adding the dumps here to increase their exposure.

- Pac-Man (US) for the Game Gear (previously released dump was from JP cartridge).
- Wonder Boy (EU) for the Game Gear (previously released dumps are from JP/US/BR cartridges, US/BR bearing the "Revenge of Drancon" name).

Sega 8-bit summer continues with two new releases today!


Let's start with the yet adorable FA Tetris (에프에이 테트리스) for the Samsung Gam*Boy / Sega Mark III, an original Tetris clone developped in Korea in 1989. Originally released for MSX, the already obscure release was adapted to the local Sega Master System system. Despite being only a Tetris clone (a competent one, that is) this game breathes love from the developer and has an overal healthly "garage" feeling to it.

As a side note I recommend to our readers who haven't done so already to check out Derboo's excellent article A History of Korean Gaming which covers this era of Korean gaming development.


To follow on our recently established tradition of focusing on games solely based on animals, we have Flicky [v1] (フリッキー) for the SG-1000, an updated build of the classic arcade game port on the SG-1000.

As reverse engineered by our private ROM investigator Paul Baker, the v1 build is essentially a bug fix update of the game code. The original v0 had a bug where sound wouldn't be properly cut off on pause, and it was possible to play with both controllers. Updated v1 has a workaround against the sound bug and removes the possibility to play with both controllers (was it a bad thing, really?). It's uncertain whether the builds have other noticeable differences.

Have fun, and stay tuned for ever-continuing Sega 8-bit summer!

We're on a roll for good releases this month!



And first we have a brand new game, Kkum Ui Dai Ryuk (꿈의대륙) for the Samsung Gam*Boy / Master System as released in Korea by Zemina. Its none other than Konami's 1986 Penguin Adventure for the MSX ported to the Master System by Zemina. Sequel to epic jumping game Antarctic Adventure, Penguin Adventure adds plentiful levels, secrets, items and even boss fights. Video games featuring penguins are generally as cool as penguins themselves, and Penguin Adventure isn't an exception.

(Bonus trivia: The game is also notorious for being the first game Hideo Kojima worked on at Konami, before he went on with designing the Metal Gear saga and taking pictures of himself in pretentious poses.)



Another thing for today, we have Cheese Cat-astrophe (Starring Speedy Gonzales) for the Game Gear, with previously no dump available. This is a multi-language dump from the European version - there is probably a different dump for the US version but it's not yet dumped (but I have acquired the cartridge now). Video games featuring mice are generally as cool as mice themselves, but Cheese Cat-astrophe is an exception.

Lots of recent redumping paying off in helping to sort out and confirm various dumps. Today we have three alternate builds of early Japanese SG-1000 games.



Champion Golf [card] (チャンピオンゴルフ)) for the SG-1000. This is the later Sega MyCard rerelease version of this early peculiar sports game from 1983, among one of the first game to be released on the SG-1000.



Then we have GP World [v0] (ＧＰワールド) for the SG-1000, spiritual predecessor to SMS early release World Grand Prix / The Circuit. Build [v1] was already released some time ago but this is an earlier build of the game.



And finally Wonder Boy [v1] (ワンダーボーイ) for the SG-1000, a later build of the game.

Can you spot differences within those games? Game expertise or reverse engineering required :)

I've been gathering and redumped a lot of SG-1000 games lately so the situation with dumps verification and alternate builds is pretty much settling down. The big gap still lies in the early SC-3000 educational softs (english/physic/history/maths) which are all pretty difficult to find and a little expensive. I found a source for some of them and intend to try purchasing more within the following months. Donations are always helpful to speed up the process.