Forums

[CRV]

Last night, I noticed for the first time the copyright screen on George Foreman's KO Boxing and saw that it said, "Programmed by Sims Co., Ltd." Can I assume then that James "Buster" Douglas Knockout Boxing and Heavyweight Champ were also done by them?

Also, are Sanritsu and SIMS the same company?

[Maxim]

Sanritsu and SIMS share a manufacturer code for Game Gear games, but I can't find any useful information about them being linked (apart from my own page mentioning it...).

[CRV]

Looking closely, I have a suspicion that Gain Ground, E-SWAT, and Golden Axe Warrior may have been done by SIMS as well (the music in all three was done by "Tarnya", BTW).

[CRV]

Some further developments, courtesy of much ROM searching and other detective work...It's like putting together the pieces of a very frustrating jigsaw puzzle...and I lost the box...

Read on and see how the names criss-cross:

[CRV]

I see my investigative work is falling on deaf ears (or blind eyes). But I can crack this with or without you...

[guest]

[CRV]

[CRV]

It might be safe to say Tecmo World Cup '93 is a SIMS game...

[CRV]

Inspired by a thread about R-Type by Compile, I decided to disassemble the games and look at the code:

George Foreman's KO Boxing (developed by SIMS):

[CRV]

Here are some more code samples:

Bonanza Bros.:

[Maxim]

My CloneSpy analysis might help you in your quest for evidence, although it's easy to find plenty of false positives.

Beware that the first 100 bytes or so of almost every SMS/GG rom will look pretty similar, and we don't know how much code Sega gave to developers which they'd re-use.

[lCEknight]

Hmmm... I already suspected Asterix was related to Land of Illusion, but it's kinda strange Castle of illusion isn't included as another clone. I wasn't surprised to see Coca Cola Kid as a Sonic Chaos/Sonic Triple Trouble clone, either. =|

Anyway, can you please upload those versions of CloneSpy and ListSpy somewhere? I can't seem to find them anywhere, and the old versions don't want to work on my computer...

[CRV]

[CRV]

- Interesting thing I found out. The Air Rescue credits give special thanks to Mikiyo Ohno, Azusa Senou, Erika Haneda, Rieko Miura and Maki Miyamae. It turns out these were members of some J-Pop girl group called Coco that was popular at the time (the credits also say "Presented by Coco since 1989").

- Psychic World might be a SIMS game:

Credits of note:

[CRV]

This is SOOOOOOOOO confusing!

- If you look at the cover scans for the SMS versions of Bank Panic on this site, you'll see a copyright to Sanritsu Denki Co., Ltd. Doing a search, I found that there still was a company called Sanritsu Denki Co., Ltd. A Babelfish online translation of their company profile brings up the words "game equipment" and "software," but you probably know how online translators can be.

Later, I did a search at the U.S. Copyright Office site and up with one game, Bank Panic, came up with Sanritsu Denki as the "Author on Copyright Application" Two other games also came up, but with "Sanritsu Electronics Co., Ltd." as the "Claimant."

[CRV]

- According to this, "denki" literally means "electricity". It can also mean "electric" and "electronics". So Sanritsu Electronics and Sanritsu Denki could very well be the same company. Hey, what are the chances that two companies named Sanritsu made video games and polarizers for use in liquid crystal display devices (see here and here).

- Now that we've established that Sanritsu Electronics and Sanritsu Denki were probably the same company, were "they" the same company as the home publisher that gave us Fantasy Zone Gear? Well, a flyer for a Sanritsu arcade mahjong game called Jantotsu (here) and the back cover of Fatman for the Japanese Mega Drive (published by Sanritsu) (here) have the same phone number, if that means anything. Also, some sites such as GameFAQs refer to Sanritsu Denki as the publisher of Fatman (MD) and Peppar Time (FC), both of which use the "Sanritsu" name and logo.

- Now we must establish if the Sanritsu Denki behind Bank Panic is the same as the Sanritsu Denki of today. I e-mailed an inquiry, but it was in English, so I probably won't get a reply. Even if it was in Japanese, I still probably wouldn't get one. But they make/made electronic products, so it's very likely. If that is the case, then "Sanritsu" did not become SIMS. SIMS somehow spun off or broke off from Sanritsu Denki. Perhaps SD decided to get out of the video game business and sold off their game division?

- I'm still wondering if Machida, programmer of George Foreman's KO Boxing, is the same guy as Noboru Machida, the programmer on NES/Famicom Alien Syndrome? Is it any coincidence that a Noboru Machida, of Sega apparently, owns 70% of SIMS (the top of their company outline actually implies he bought out the whole company)?

[idrougge]

I'm at work now, so I can't delve into all your delicious details right now, but I'll just add some notes.

Tom & Jerry the movie:
----------------------
Program: YONE, BAHAM
Plan: LEHTO
Grafik: LEHTO, MASA, BAHAM
Musik: NASU=BI, P=KO CHAN
Thanks: YAMA, KOMINEKO, MATU TOKUJYOU, ENJYOH, SHOGUN MAYEDA, MORI, T ASANO, KOU, PUKUPUKU, DANNA, S KAWA

Masters of combat:
------------------
Program: CHAOS_BRAIN
Grafik:
TED
Musik:
NASU B,
SHEED
Thanks: S:KAWA,
YAMAX, NINJA, K=SUKE, ISE, WAT
Putt and putter:
----------------
Program: WAT
Plan: LEHTO
Grafik: LEHTO, MATSU
Musik: PYGMY WADA
Thanks: KOU, YONE, T.ASANO, T.HAGIWARA, S.KAWA, MANMA, CHAOS BRAIN, DANNA, BAHAM, PRETTY TOSHI, HOEHOE, KAW

Gain ground: (Yours and my info differ here. Mine is from a hex dump)
------------
Plan (original): MAC AOSTIN, YANG WATT
Plan: KOU
Grafik: KOU
Program: YONE, O_B, KOU
Sound: TARNYA
Thanks: T_KATOH, MIYA, T_ASANO, NONCHAN, T_HAGIWARA, TOMMY


MORI and MORIMAN should be the same person.
MATSU, MATSUTOKUJO and MATU TOKUJYOU (Matsu Tokujô/まつとくじょう) likewise.
Same goes for KIMURON and KIMROM.
It might be that WAT and YANG WATT are the same, but it is not so obvious.

Interestingly, YONESAN is credited on Borgman/Cyborg hunter:
--------
Program: LEE HO-GANG, MAKO NITTA
Grafik: YONESAN, MVX 203, JUDY TOTOYA, ICHIEMON, KAMEREON AKI
Musik: KEY, NAV
Director: KAZUOH
Thanks: MUSEKININ YAMADA

We also find YONE, IPPO and TOMMY on Forgotten worlds:
-----------------
Program: KIMROM, YONE
Design: TOMMY, YUKINO
Sound: IPPO
Plan: TOMMY, YUKINO
Thanks: CAPCOM

In Japanese game credits, graphics are often called "design", which is an entirely different profession in the rest of the game developing world.

I think that all this should rather be collected in a spreadsheet for easier organisation.

[guest]

This all really needs to be tied up with the other Project people have mentioned that records the end game credits so these can also be incorporated.

It appears Mobygames.com already has some of this information recorded.

ie.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/sega-master-system/disneys-aladdin/credits

Main Planner Lehto
Planners Johny-Ittetsu, Kikkawa-H.P.U., Max-T2
Main Programmer S. Kawa
Visual Programmers Yama-X, Chaos Brain
Main Designer Johny-Ittetsu
Aladdin Designer Kikkawa-H.P.U.
Enemy Designer Max-T2
Additional Design Manma
Music Composition Nasu-B
Special thanks to Yen, Enjyoh, Sgt. Yama

[CRV]

[idrougge]