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Crazy Faces for Game Gear
Post Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:03 am
It's been a month since the last batch of releases, and I've come back with another little pearl this time - the recent streak of luck following NBA JAM, Street Hero and Korean rarities continues!



I've managed to acquire a prototype cart of Unreleased Game Gear game Crazy Faces. The game has been discussed before but no prototype had surfaced - until now! Crazy Faces was developed by The Kremlin in 1993 (same developers as SMS/GG versions of Desert Strike and Prince of Persia among others). It is an original variation on sliding puzzle games where you have to push around blocks to assemble a picture. The pictures here are based on Domark properties - and Sonic!

The prototype we managed to get hold of doesn't come with music but otherwise looks pretty solid and fun. It is unsure whether the game development ever reached completion or why it was canned.

Enjoy another treasure from SMS Power!
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Temporary Transitional Attachment Fairy
Post Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:14 am
This message will auto destruct itself someday.

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Reason for being unreleased
Post Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:29 pm
I think I know why this game is unreleased. It is very similar in gameplay to a Nin-do Gamboy game from 1993 called "Splitz". They are both clones of an earlier 8-bit computer game called "Split Personalities". Either "The Kremlin" chose to ripoff "Splitz", or two companies chose to ripoff "Split Personalities" at once. Either way, it appears that threat of a lawsuit cancelled the game.
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Post Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:14 pm
Thanks, great release!
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Post Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 10:08 am
Good work, Bock.
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Post Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 6:52 pm
Diet Go Go Fan wrote
I think I know why this game is unreleased. It is very similar in gameplay to a Nin-do Gamboy game from 1993 called "Splitz". They are both clones of an earlier 8-bit computer game called "Split Personalities". Either "The Kremlin" chose to ripoff "Splitz", or two companies chose to ripoff "Split Personalities" at once. Either way, it appears that threat of a lawsuit cancelled the game.


...or maybe no publisher was dumb enough to expect people to pay full retail price for a sliding puzzle on the Game Gear?
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Post Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:40 pm
Wackypedia tells me that "Split Personalities" was made by Domark, so it was their own IP. (The Kremlin were an in-house dev team at Domark.)
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Post Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:17 pm
Also I slightly disagree on TheRedEye's remark, handheld always had room for "small" puzzle games, if you consider e.g.: the Poker Face Paul's series we are in a similar league, Domark could have released that. Not saying it would have been a hit but 1993 was a decent year for the Game Gear.
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Post Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 2:09 am
But if you really wanted to play a portable sliding puzzle game, you could probably find one for a dollar or whatever pharmacies/grocery stores charge for their random crappy toys. :P

(whereas with poker, it is perhaps less convenient to carry around a stack of cards to play at any time.)
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Post Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 3:10 am
This game is a lot better than the traditional sliding puzzles. It has more depth, and is much less frustrating for me. A similar game "Splitz" was released, so I don't know why this one wasn't. The quality is sure there.
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Post Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 3:47 pm
Just discovered lead programmer Michael A. Carr's website. He mentions about Crazy Faces that "This was a short project I did just before I started work on Desert Strike. It is a conversion and update of the old Commodore 64 title, Split Personalities. Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out and the game which was almost complete was dropped."

I wonder what it was that "didn't quite work out".

http://www.thegameengineer.com/blog/game-portfolio/crazy-faces/

Also note the "Marko's Magic Football" and "Desert Strike" pages in the right menu there, that Carr worked on. Someone with editing access to the SMS Power! game database should add that "Marko's Magic Football" was developed by The Kremlin. (I've just added that information to the RetroCopy game database here http://www.retrocopy.com/sega-game-gear/markos-magic-football.aspx )
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Post Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 9:19 pm
He seems only to mention the Mega Drive version of Marko's Magic Football.
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Post Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 9:23 pm
Oops, didn't notice it said Mega Drive for that one...
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:47 am
Hey is this game out?
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 12:32 pm
Yes it's been released.
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