/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10767371
Bad thread idea unless your aim is to start a US vs Yurop flame war.

>>10767845
Actually, we should be able to discuss these retro gaming platforms here.

>>10767371
I'm sure there was a Brazilian ZX Spectrum clone, Hueanon. Look up "TK90 & TK95" microcomputers. A couple of Brazilian guys reverse engineered the Spectrum's Ferranti ULA to develop that clones.

>>10767845
Not at all. I am Brazilian, never been to Europe. I just love micro computer hard and software, the same way people are with handheld and portable systems for /hhg/. I also love the demo scene and to see people demake and home brew their games. Most of all, I just fucking love the chiptune sound from C64, ZXS, AST, and the Amiga. Growing up with rental SNES and cheap Famiclones, I was exposed to PAL developers that cut their teeth in the C64, ZXS, AST, and the Amiga like Rare and Ocean. This guy's channel has long dive videos for some European composers.
>Tim Follin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC1dTzyb5Gs
>Jeroen Tel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx-ggwaWvvs
>Matt Furniss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ke4-oU6e1w
>Jesper Kyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5aG4mJLfc
>David Wise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlcOgxw5ldU
>Barry Leitch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TXW-SZk3yg
>Rob Hubbard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSpzBwmXrBQ
>Alberto Jose Gonzales
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhn2ItJwnBc
>Dean Evans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFLlH1Db0a4
>Jonathan Dunn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r9cb9k2z1s
>Stephane Picq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acyHgxYlBto
>Nathan McCree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8G70jqFnv8
>Martin Iveson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbxGhw84aro
>Neil Biggin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvcE9Ycj3yY
>Patrick Phelan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m73W_665DAo
>Eveline Fischer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2udaU_Jz0o
>John Hancock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WodvjiGIlhk
>Neil Baldwin
(Not featured yet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Io8pTQv28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28CRlRuY1F8
Did you know Atari Teenage Riot got their name because they used the Atari ST for some of their early pieces? Did you also know Aphex Twin has used the Atari ST back in the day?
If you love these artists and composers as much as I have, and you want to shit post, share, and send each other tunes, Discord:
juriamo

I've been playing Head Over Heels on the ZX Spectrum the last couple days. I know that's the normie choice when it comes to Spectrum games, but I can see why. It's really clever and interesting, and kinda reminds me of Oddworld but with a different perspective.

My brother in law gave me his dad's old spectrum about 10 years ago, but I hadn't played around with it much until the past few months when I replaced the caps, did a composite video mod, and got a joystick interface and a tape recorder. I've played a bunch of Elite, Manic Miner, Deflektor, and now this. I'm also working on making a game myself in assembly, a sort of prank chess program with a humorous twist.

>>10767371
Here is my playthrough of "The Beast of Torrack Moor 30th Anniversary Edition"! The original game was created by Linda Doughty in 1988 for the ZX Spectrum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCqS36o0oek

I still can't beat Wizball. I did reach stage 7 though.

>>10768851
>>10769360
Based ancient computer game posters.

can I use a microcomputer as a big microcontroller?

>>10771394
You can use whatever vaguely and inconsistently defined words however you want.
You can even use clearly defined words completely incorrectly and get lots of likes and upvotes in twitter when you throw a tantrum because others don't play along.

>>10771394
Idiot
>>10771869
Hero

>>10768321
>Did you know Atari Teenage Riot got their name because they used the Atari ST for some of their early pieces?
they literally told you via their name and pictures in their albums of their setup.
> Did you also know Aphex Twin has used the Atari ST back in the day?
him and thousands of others, anon. i remember an interview with fatboy slim and he said he only ended up with an ST because he found it in a second hand store for 5 euro or so.

>>10774516
>him and thousands of others
What other artists?

>>10775882
https://www.google.com/search?q=musicians+that+used+atari+st

>>10777096

>>10771394
Many micros have parallel ports or similar so you can make it blink a LED just like your Arduino.
People have also done fancier things like using an ST to control a diy CNC.

>>10777154
nobody here is going to spoonfeed you retarded low iq simpletons with anything but a google search result. nobody here is worth the time or effort as you have the intelligence of retarded baboons.

>>10777165

I was waiting for something else, so I decided to play something that qualifies. It's Boogie Woogi Jungle for MSX (just the regular one) by Ample Software. Interesting little corporation around that time, as it had staff overlap with Zap Corp which in hindsight was quite a star-studded company.

That in and of itself is more interesting than the game, really. It's a bit of a loderunner clone, I don't have an exact date outside of 1983, but the earliest coverage I found was in January 1984 so I assume late.

>>10777910
The typical rules apply. Get touched or let the bonus timer run out and you die. You can defend yourself from the enemies by firing a boulder? Fruit? Maybe the manual'd tell you. Get all the items and you win. The further you get, the more items there'll be. There's 15 levels in all and you get an intermission at levels 4 and 12.

>>10777910
The typical rules apply. Get touched or let the bonus timer run out and you die. You can defend yourself from the enemies by firing a boulder? Fruit? Maybe the manual'd tell you. Get all the items and you win. The further you get, the more items there'll be. There's 15 levels in all and you get an intermission at levels 4 and 12.

Forgot to add 0s to the filenames to have it sort properly, oops.

>>10777915
And finally a short webm of the first level. You'll get the idea.

Here's a link with sound, but you're not missing out. Only the opening/intermission/ending have short jingles. Aside from that it is just beep sfx.
https://files.catbox.moe/utace3.mp4

>>10775882
>>10777154
Imagine being this booty blasted because someone knows more about something you learned about from watching a youtube last week.

>>10778183

Went through some of my old Amiga floppies and saw an old cover disk with Venus The Flytrap.
I completely forgot about that game until now.
Weird mix of run-n-gun and puzzle game in a post-apocalyptic robot insect world.

Finally a THREAD FOR ME, though wouldn't this make more sense in /g/?

>>10780243
I know you probably missed this post anon, but we got it covered. They are talking about retro videogame music and posting some retrogames on retro computers. This goes as slow as the computers too which makes it far more retro than most console posters.

>>10780453
the OP didn't mention video games at all but yeah that's what anons are posting.

I'll drop my two cents then.
I really like this game, it's released for multiple microcomputers but I have the speccy version which is balls fucking slow, I hear no talk about it, why is that?

>>10780463
Niche of a niche of a niche, anon. If people are going to play any polygonal game, they'll probably prefer the Amiga version, though I find the music to not really be fitting either way. Atari ST runs fine too, but DOS has decent graphics modes for this so you can just upcycle it and not be blinded as well.

>>10780490
Oh no I don't mean no talk about the speccy version I don't have a chunk of my brain missing, I mean more-so I hear no talk about castle master at all ...like ever in retro gaming circles, esp /vr/

>>10780494
I didn't mean the speccy version specifically. Early polygonal gaming (on micros) is a niche just like 80s pseudo 3D attempts are. It's cool for most as a looksee, but there isn't too much to discuss even if you play them. Most retro circles are going to be console focused to and they had less of these types of games before they got good at 3D in general. /vr/ isn't that different to any other circles except in their slur vocab.

>>10771394
the c64 has a user port. the real question is whether it's worth the power consumption or not.

>>10780463
OP mentioned software and hardware.

>>10780463
>the OP didn't mention video games at all
It's in the URL newbaby

Does the PC-98 really fit in the rest of that list? It was released in the 80s but I don't think anyone really cared about it until the following decade. I've been trying to get into it recently. I have a backlog of promising titles but true to its reputation it's mostly VNs and low quality porn jank, and most of the well-reputed games have ports to systems with more appropriate hardware (ys, xak, legend of heroes, etc).

Currently I'm about five maps into Innocent Tour, a board game RPG. It's a nice game but the AI characters basically stop playing in earnest and just grief the fuck out of you and waste your turns whenever you open too much of a lead.

>>10782554
It definitely doesn't fit there, PC-98 was basically your average IBM PC with some custom hardware and it own MS-DOS

>>10782554
>>10783113
It doesn't fit the list, but outside visual novel threads and RPG threads, I have rarely seen the PC-88 and PC-88 talked about in /vr/, other than when someone else posts Rusty or Lakers for the "Don't" dialogue choice meme. We used to have PC-98 generals, but they died off, so this general is the best way to talk about less popular computer systems, after the rule change made the board go by faster and more spammy.

>>10783132
>the PC-88 and PC-88
Meant to say PC-98.

>>10783132
I occasionally post whatever I play of Japanese micros/macros that's worth posting about. Anything that is just typical early PC stuff but Japanese I only post if there's some form of dedicated thread. The language barrier scares people away from all those systems, even if a large chunk of these games don't even have Japanese in them at all, but it's not like I can really start a thread without it just being me talking to myself.
With the poster count gone, however....

Based micro general, I just downloaded c64 dreams this week, once I finish dq4 I’m going to start playing some of the popular games on it, I know there’s a section of it called top games or something like that. I never try to play more than two games at a time, and right now it’s dq4 and R4 ridge racer, trying to unlock all the cars got a ways to go so I’ll probably play some c64 RPGs or adventure games to balance out the game pace.

>>10780501
What’s that polygonal game for the x68000 that looks really good? I think those guys went on to make jumping flash.

>>10783735
Geograph Seal?

>>10783813
Yep that was it, cool ass game. Does the x68000 count as a micro? I actually don’t even know it seems like a such a luxury product for its time.

>>10783857
No, it's a workstation specifically.

>>10768851
If you love Head over Heels you need to play Batman by the same developers. It was made before the former so it's simpler, but it's still very good and has lot of charm. Try also The Great Escape.

>>10783990
Why did the British like isometric games so much?

>>10783113
lol just admit you don't wanna talk about Japanese games, Pip. That custom hardware most definitely makes it its own platform.

>>10783113
>just your average IBM PC
>its software won't run in any way shape or form on an IBM PC
kayyyyy

>>10777170
lurk moar

>>10783883
>>10783857
Workstations are microcomputers. A microcomputer is a small computer making use of a microprocessor, compared to a mainframe or minicomputer.

>>10785393
Sure, if we want to be technical about it (I do realize that is the best type of correct). I think it's fair to separate what most people consider micros from workstations and IBM PCs though, after all IBM PCs are also microcomputers by this correct distinction but it muddies the water of what OP would like to talk about. We can go further and include 90s and 00s phones too, they've got games and have microprocessors, though maybe palmtops would fit in better.

>>10785412
I think it's fair to include all of those things here, considering the PC-98 is even listed in the OP, which is very similar to IBM PCs, albeit not compatible. I can understand leaving out IBM PC stuff since that's big enough to have it's own threads, but anything else with a different architecture seems fair game.

>>10785427
Or if we just limit it to 80s micros, like op mentions, the x68000 would still fit.

>>10784738
I’m guessing because it was a computationally easy way to get “3D” plus the local maxima of a few Brits doing it so it gets passed around

>>10785393
Colloquially, microcomputers refer to the early home computers from back when it still made sense to differentiate them from bigger computers. It's like how if someone says pantaloons today, they're probably not talking about modern trousers/pants, though technically I guess you could say they are.

>>10782554
I really want to play the PC-98 version of Popful Mail; are there really no english resources (guides/shop translations) on this version of the game? I found a guide on the pc engine cd version of the game, can I use that?

>>10785637
>are there really no english resources (guides/shop translations) on this version of the game?
PC-98 translations are rare.

>>10788160
me gusta taco bell

>>10788160
>es el volvo de los ordenatas
hey now, there's nothing wrong with volvos

>>10788194

Content warning: Gore, dismemberment, body invasion, incisions, beheading, drowning, corpses.
Below is some art from the PC-98 doujin slideshow demo, "The bitmap graphic of Glass Corpse" made by BitMap Works in 1994. Not much information is available on the title online except for one site with two screenshots, but I am going to run the game through a translation engine and get all the image names and short bits of dialogue in the demo soon.

https://lennalefay.neocities.org/

https://zxart ee/eng/authors/g/grongy/

Done with what I was initially waiting on, so guess I'll knock out some games that catch my interest using the list from 8-bits.info. That means I'll be starting early in whatever system's lifespan (mostly PC-88, though some MSX games might pop-up), so lots of not particularly good stuff. Makes me feel like a kid looking at boxshots (and getting disappointed) again. Union Planning and Riverhill Soft are credited, I assume Riverhill taking on publishing duties.

Zoom in Space was released in the middle of 1983 (either May or July) and is a fixed screen space shooter. Not the most shocking of releases in the early 80s, space is a useful background when black is the default and fixed screen is probably the one strength for early NEC computers.

It seems to take inspiration from the style of Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1982 arcade game in Japan, got loads of home computer ports), but isn't actually a clone. Plays more like a shitty Radar Scope with height added into the mix. That's it's main gimmick. Enemies can pass under or above you, but it's a bit wonky. This goes for your twinshot too, doesn't always hit even if it seems it should.

The game is also quite hard, I'm running it at 4 Mhz and enemies really do zoom in space. Even when you recognize the patterns, sometimes you can't react in time as your ship is very slow. You can hold to fire which slows the game down a bit, making it more playable.

It only has 1 enemy on screen and 3 enemy types. 2 of which are very similar and one is a spazzy guy. Surprisingly the latter is more predictable when you figure out he doesn't spazteleport near your position on the same side as he spawns.

Anyway that's far too much information for this type of game.

>>10790551
>webm was too long
I forgot the limit was 2 minutes. At this point I probably wasted more time messing with recording and video software than the actual game. It's a learning experience.

Had to switch to a different emulator, being slightly too fast is one thing, but this became unplayable. Shame, because that means more messing with video canvasses.

The 2nd game for today is Star Struck by T. Maekawa published through PSK. Also a 1983 release (August) and another space shooter. A horizontal shmup, though technically it's also fixed screen, just a graphical illusion really.

It is basic, but generally does things right. It has full player movement (vertically and horizontally) and even allows diagonal movement by pressing both keys. You can fire plenty of lasers, though you can't hold. It has a handful of somewhat varying enemies, however they have 1 extra gimmick in the enemy formations, these are groups of enemies with 1 that gives bonus score and sometimes drops a life (sometimes it's a skull that'll kill you though).

It's biggest issue is the slowdown. If too many enemies or bullets are on screen (and sometimes they remain in position until it scrolls) it will slow down pretty badly. Still playable and another curiosity is that if you activate caps lock, the game plays faster, seemingly at the cost of the topbar becoming a bit garbled. I only found this out after though.

>>10790781
The game doesn't have much in the way of music, just very crackly lasers.

The highscore screen got some music though. It's just beeper, so click at your own risk (it's not that horrible):
https://files.catbox.moe/yg1m5q.mp4

>>10788548
I'd rather have pixels as big as a fist than color clash.

A quick bump with Sokoban from Thinking Rabbit. The one I actually bookmarked was from August 1983, but this was the release date of a type-in and the preview images were that of the regular game which is actually from December of 1982, so might as well do both. I didn't actually get to the Extra edition, I'll leave that for tomorrow I guess.

I don't really have to say much, most everyone will have played this in some form or other. You push boxes into the designated areas, but you can only push. No webm needed for this.

This original version has 20 levels which are divided into 10 normal ones (1-10) and 10 "wall-crushing" ones (11-20). The 2nd is kinda bullshit as it relies on you finding pieces of the wall to break which is dependent on the side you approach the wall from. Once you find these breakable walls, the levels are easy, so it's not so much a puzzle game anymore at that point. They wisely dropped that gimmick immediately afterwards.

Graphically the game is obviously one of the worse versions you can play, though the upside down flipping for pushing from the top makes up for it. It's also easy to see thigns anyway. 1 slight problem is that the storage tiles are marked with small red dots which aren't hard to see, but they do disappear when you walk over them which can be an issue if you didn't happen to take screenshots.

>>10792028
Turns out that both copies of bangai hen/extra edition (both found on compilations only) are broken and crash attempting to load the 3rd level. The 1983 August edition of the Japanese "PC Magazine" seems undumped. Suruga-ya seems to have many issues of that magazine, but I'm not part of the sokoban community so I'll pass on spending 2500 yen+shipping+international shipping+exorbitant import fees and taxes for 10 levels of sokoban and a few hours of scanning.

Next up is Hiroton Wars released in August of 1983 and made by Carry Lab. It is very much a battlezone clone and this was around the time that started getting ports in general too. This was also ported to quite a few Japanese computers, but that tends to be the norm, especially for earlier games like this.

An enemy tank can only fire 1 shot at a time until the shot despawns (same goes for you) and killing an enemy tank has 1 of the pyramid shaped objects transform into a new tank, you can destroy these first, but you'll get less points. There's also a challenge stage where a flying object will charge you, kill a few of them and you get a bonus after which you'll go back to regular gameplay.

Objects will move if you progress or start on a higher difficulty, even the pyramid things. You die if they bump into you, but you can bump into the other tank. You get a mini-map that displays everything as dots, even shots which does help with avoiding them.

A tank game obviously has tank controls, but it's actually quite simple to use. 1/7 for the left track and 3/9. Top key being forwards and bottom key backwards. Makes sense and all you'll really need to get used to is how tank controls work.

It has some rudimentary sound effects and even tries to do music with the beeper. It even uses a somewhat familiar stage start jingle...

The PC-88 version is quite slow and it does have some extra slowdown if 3 objects are onscreen. The map is also small and whilst it does wrap, your shots do not.

>>10793329
You can boost your clockspeed to make this run a lot smoother, but for accuracy's sake this is it at the available 4 Mhz.

Probably better off with the X1 version, still it is somewhat fun if you get used to it and the low framerate. Barely dodging as shell as it slowly flies by you is kinda fun, but that requires some very high tolerance for some very low framerates.

An early Falcom release, their first adventure game to be specific. It's Horror House. Japanese ADV games were still a bit of a rarity in 1983. This did get a translation if you for some reason are curious about it, its sequels didn't though.

This one was quite short even without knowing exactly what to do. The only really noteworthy thing about the game itself is that after 6 commands in the same room one of the monsters will pop-up, meaning you have to leave the room. Aside from that you have an intro that is trying to give you an epileptic seizure after a bit, it doesn't actually tell you anything about the game.

There's no way I can get the intro small enough due to the constant colour changing, so link here for a free seizure:
https://files.catbox.moe/rk37xl.mp4

>>10785393
"Workstation" just means a computer intended to be used by a single user for skilled professional work. The LINC didn't use a microprocessor.

Away from wireframes, but back into space with Space Cruiser, a port of the Taito Arcade game by Nidecom (which is apparently also Carry Lab).

It's definitely not as flashy or smooth nor does it have an intro, it is mostly silent and plays slower, but everything else seems to be there. Not that Space Cruiser was a big game. It supports green monochrome too.

I managed to fit it all into a 2 minute slightly schizo montage, keep in mind that the asteroid stage does get a bit busier than is shown. The boss seems to be more annoying in this in that it just refuses to throw bombs if you're ready for it. Beating it is a loop, just like with the arcades.

Apparently the price was 7500 yen, so you're probably better off stuffing coins in the arcade version. Maybe PC-80 owners would be jealous?

>>10793882
True enough, but the X68000 is also a "workstation" while also a home computer with a microprocessor. Not every workstation is a micro, but the one originally being asked about is.

I actually had a tactical game on the list, but movement is retarded in it and I don't have the manual. Instead here's Front Line, another Taito arcade game ported by Nidecom a month after their previous. Just as expensive too, but definitely not worth the price.

As usual, most everything is there (except different graphics for a loop), but it suffers quite a bit more than Space cruiser. It slows down real quick when 4 dudes/tanks are onscreen. Enemies flicker heavily. Also the boss doesn't actually seem to fight back? This is definitely one of those shit ports where they focused on making it look nice for the box screenshots.

>>10795457
Oh and yes, it gets very unresponsive when it slows down to the point where it just refuses to shoot at times.

Next up I had Legends of Star Arthur 1 -Planet Mephius- made by T&E Soft. The trilogy itself is considered by the Japanese to be up there with other "greats" of early Japanese ADV gaming, like Dezeniland/world, Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom and Horii's ADV triplets (Portopia, Okhotsk, Karuizawa). It was quite large in size, consisting out of 3 tapes in its original release. It also had a VHD release, which replaces the graphics with an animated version of it.

This one is styled as a space opera based on the idea of smashing Star Wars and King Arthur together. So it follows that the first game is Space Arthur trying to get a legendary space sword. Gameplay is largely what you'd expect, except it only has 1 word input. Anything that needs interaction is done with a cursor.

The "normal" adventure sections, which is most of the game) are actually quite small in the amount of screens. Later you'll get into a 22x22 desert area, but as you'd imagine that repeats a lot of graphics and essentially overlays other graphics used on numerous tiles to make unique screens. It's also the worst part of the game as you'll be pixelhunting for tablets and some other info. In some cases in barren desert tiles with nothing to reference. The game will beep at you if a screen has something though. After that you go into a pyramid and have another small ADV section to get to the sword and it ends there for now.

It has decent graphics for ADV games of the era and the alien designs are diverse, maybe a bit too much, every alien is a different species almost. Another neat feature is that there is mouth movement when NPCs talk, which is uncommon at the time.

>>10796209
Did this game inspire half of Tumblr's comic artists? I swear that style is extremely familiar.

>>10796248
I highly doubt that. It's just early 80s Japanese programmer art. Maybe it being simple and somewhat low quality reminds you of it?

In comparison to Star Arthur, this bump feels quite lackluster and it's not like Star Arthur is particularly good either. So this is the sequel to Horror House, Kyouki no Yakata (House of Madness) by Falcom. Released in December of 1983, at best it had 4 months of development time by the 1 guy who made it. They were thinking about a 3rd one, but I guess that never happened. Demon's Ring looks way better than what a part 3 of this could've been anyway, maybe that's why.

There isn't really much else to say about it as it is just very similar to the first with more rooms, except it's less unique. No seizure intro, no shortcut keys, no monster holograms ready to ambush you. Just a guy and his bomb that will only give you a small seizure at the end.

>>10793338
>>10793658
>>10793997
>>10795457
>>10796209
>>10796629
Why does this board make fun of zx spectrum games a lot when the average japanese home computer game looks like these?

>>10796637
This is just every homecomputer in the early 80s. It's just that the Spectrum is a bit extra in the ugly department from a quick glance at the "top 25 spectrum games in 1983". Don't think I'll grab random games for the Spectrum if that list of cherrypicked games is anything to go by. Tends to be a bit more earrapey with its beeper too.

>page 6
I assume something got deleted? /vr/ can't be that slow on the weekend.

Anyway here's a quick bump with a Galaxian port by Dempa. They generally handled licensed ports of arcade games and most of the time they are decent enough. Something you might want to spend your money on unlike Front Line. They'd have to be, because something like Galaxian or Dig Dug should run on most anything and did in fact get ported to everything when people got to grips with the computers and graduated from making Space Invaders clones.

This was apparently released in December. There's also the earlier unofficial "Galack" which is a competent enough port from the beginning of the year. Looks a bit more stuttery to me though (could just be video encoding) and the beeper usage is more grating. I also bookmarked an early MSX port, graphically that'll probably be a downgrade, but maybe it plays smoother.

>>10796209
>>10796629
these look cool, man

>fix the pillarboxing for the recording
>game itself has it
Now back to MSX. This one actually has 12-1983 as its release date on most places though, despite the 1984 on the title screen. Not a new year yet I guess.

It's Antarctic Adventure by Konami, specifically the initial Japanese educational "I Love..." release. Not that it really matters outside of a few bits of text being Japanese. It also got a few European releases. America got it on Colecovision.

I probably don't have to say much about this, but I never really played it before. It's actually quite similar to racing games of the time with some jumping mixed in to avoid obstacles. Your speed works as a slider that you can adjust with the cursor keys which gets reduced as you hit an object. Avoid holes, grab flags and fish, reach the stations in time to move to the next of 10 levels. Beat the tenth and it loops.

It holds up quite well for what it is. Here's a video of a different stage with sound for the music:
https://files.catbox.moe/vzsq6v.mp4

And back to PC88, got rid of the scanlines/hi-res option. Works fine for screenshots, but not so well for videos. Going to make the radioactive colours look a bit more radioactive though.

These 2 games were released as a 2-in-1 for 2800 yen in December of 1983, both made by Rhodus for Ponyca. They're both quite outdated, as you'd expect for "budget" games, but they otherwise play fine.

Cyclops Crusher is a Space Panic clone, except instead of just digging holes for aliens to fall in and filling the holes back in, you just need to jump down and crush them instead. There's an elevator in the middle as you can't actually fill the holes back in. The stage is randomly generated aside from that.

Water Man is a Heiankyo alien clone, except you don't dig holes. You create puddles instead and then presumably drown them further as they splash about in your puddle. Aside from that the main is that you need to refill your bucket(s) of water at the town and that you need to protect the town as well.

Both simple and playable variants of early arcade classics, with Water Man actually having a somewhat decent twist on it.

Here's Jelda by Carry Lab. Still in 1983. The cassette doesn't load properly, but it's on various compilations anyway. Got ported to quite a few other machines.

What you get is basically Xevious with Battlezone's aesthetics. You have air and ground targets that you can shoot or bomb. Aside from being able to move sideways you also get forward and backward movement. Enemy types are reminiscent of Xevious as well.

Unlike Xevious, but quite like Hiroton Wars, this doesn't run very well at 4Mhz either. Aside from that it's just a slightly more basic version of Xevious trying its best to be 3D.

A final bump for now with Dig Dug. This is the non-SR version, the SR version looks a bit better and has actual audio being on an 88SR. It's definitely a Dig Dug that's completely playable.

>>10796648
Nah spectrum games look the best of them all. It's only the color clash making zoomers seethe and piss their pants.

Here's Dezeni land by Hudson Soft. Despite it looking like just any other ADV game, it was actually very important for Hudson Soft as it marked the turn from their earlier mindset.

Early 80s Hudson was a bit different, releasing many type-in tier games. At the time they truly were a quantity over quality company, sometimes excessively so. 1983 was the turning point of that thinking to an extent, with Dezeni Land being a big factor alongside the more well known Bomberman and PC versions of Nuts&Milk. Previously games that were good got 10k sales at best and they were rare for Hudson. Dezeni Land managed 50k copies and that's a real tidy profit in the very cheap computer game market of that time. 1983 was a good year for Hudson and the Famicom would only heap on cash for them too.

As an ADV game itself, it's nothing too special. It's got a good amount of screens, but is somewhat linear and blocks you off if you progress a slight bit. It's got quite fast drawing speed, but that's only a selling point in a time when it took a minute or two to draw a screen.
Another interesting thing is the inclusion of a rudimentary backlog. Pressing enter without typing will remove the graphics and show the previous text hidden underneath.

Text input is still stuck in English, though the actual text is Japanese. Most of the time items that are interactable will be mentioned in English too as a hint. The use of the word "ATTACH" instead of more common "SET" or "PUT" confused many ADV players at the time.

I ran into a bug with the first candle not spawning, but a clear game command and getting the oar after getting the candle seems to have fixed it.

>>10785393
>>10783857
Like others have said, anything with a microprocessor is a microcomputer. Rhat said, if OP wanted a distinction, you could just consider anything that doesn't use X86_64, MIPS, ARM or PowerPC. Basically anything that uses a 6502, 68000 or a Z80 variants would be micros. This leaves a loophole for macs and amigas to still be counted, but that doesn't matter.

"1980s computers that aren't a Mac or an IBM PC or clone" would also work. DESU, you could also call them cheap, non-business home computers.

>>10800058
OP is clearly talking about home computers.
I've seen people say "micro" when they mean home computers before. I'm not sure how that started but it's clear from the context here.

What were the controller options for MSX?

>>10801515
Plenty.

https://www.msx.org/wiki/Category:MSX_Controllers

Panorama Toh was next, an early game by Falcom and the first "RPG" by Kiya who'd go on to make the Dragon Slayer series. Calling it an RPG is a bit much and maybe ARPG would technically be closer as battles are real-time.

It's basic design is that of an Ultima clone; towns are topdown and dungeons are 1st person with single enemies. The overworld is styled more like a strategy game with hexes and it has random events like snakebites, natives, creatures trying to eat you, boatmen, food trees (sometimes meat), etc. You can interact with them in a few ways.

Dungeons can have NPCs and enemies tend to require some item(s) rather than just levels as that's not really implemented here. Power does have a similar effect but you still need a certain # of swords to fight some enemies. Dungeons are single floor, except the Pyramid which has 5 floors, getting smaller each time you go up.

The copy that is floating around is either buggy or edited as 1 of the towns (likely the first you'll enter) gives you money to buy items, which I then spend on an inordinate amount of food which I then didn't need because a more unique bug occured where I had ~15k health. That's a lot of health, but hey don't look a gift cheat in the buggy code.

There's a few annoying things too, like your inventory doesn't show the # of items, you need to go to the pawnshop for that. Empty batteries are still in your inventory. I guess my swords break or just disappear? I didn't read any text that indicated that, but I did speed the game up and the text doesn't pause. The old man in the castle kept popping up too even though I got his map already.

I quit after I got the "bad ending" by going up to the top from the 5th floor. It is one of those impenetrable early RPGs that really doesn't have any of the satisfactory parts. It feels more at home on the 8001 too with these graphics. 1982/3 are far too experimental for JRPGs to bother. 1984 is a better starting point as it's recognizable (and playable).

>>10801868
>would

Should already be auto-sage, but might as well post this last short one. Almost managed to make it out of 1983. It's the MSX version of Frogger by Konami. Solid version all around, but there's nothing else to really say about it.

Video with the jingle:
https://files.catbox.moe/v44lcj.mp4

>>10801992
NOOOOOO MY ADVERTISERS!!

thank you MicroSOFT

>>10803214
You are welcome.

http://www.oldskool.org/shrines/lbd
https://www.computerspacefan.com/roguesgallery.htm