nicknicknickandnick Bandai FL Burgertime
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Last Visit: 18 May 2014 Posts: 107
|
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:57 pm Post subject: Electronic Game Simulators on the PC |
|
|
I posted the below information on a couple forums a while ago, and I figured it would be good here too. I've added the Hit and Missile link posted by Doc Kaotic.
Electronic Game Simulators:
The available programs for simulating early electronic games on PCs are referred to as simulators rather than emulators. Unlike emulators, which use software copies of ROM chips to mimic the operation of other computers or arcade games, the simulators are made by observing and experiencing the play of a game and attempting to program what is observed.
Generally, the simulations include an image of the case of the handheld game, although some only show the play area. The simulations are of varying completeness -- some of them are little more than a display of the game. Most are single-game programs, but there are a couple of programs that group many games together: Handheld Quake has many Russian versions of Nintendo Game & Watch games as well as a few Nintendo games, and LEDhead has many Mattel games.
Handheld Quake:
http://www.emulator3000.emuita.it/hq.htm
LEDhead:
http://www.peterhirschberg.com/handheld/ledhead/index.htm
Emuita.it Network
The single best source of handheld simulator programs is the Emuita.it Network, at:
http://www.emuita.it/emu.php?cat=Schiacciapensieri
A great many of the simulators have been programmed by Luca Antignano of that site, who goes by the nickname MADrigal. He also has a site showcasing his own work, at:
http://www.madrigal.emuita.it/dnload.html
Here is a list of websites that have simulators not found at the Emuita.it Network:
http://webpages.charter.net/ps4/m2049lcd/index.htm (Tiger Miner 2049er)
http://www.emucamp.com/lwsim/ (VTech Learning-Window)
http://theendmusic.org/programming/babble/ (Galoob Babble)
http://home.netvigator.com/~kinghong/casio.html (Casio MG-880 Calculator Digital Invader)
http://www.digitalfan.com/lcd/ballemu.html (Nintendo Ball)
http://www.ardiri.com/index.php?redir=palm...kjr&subcat=play (Nintendo Donkey Kong Jr.)
http://www.ardiri.com/index.php?redir=palm...kjr&subcat=play (Nintendo Parachute)
http://www.boxofchocolates.nl/handheld/ (Nintendo Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong II)
http://www.backtothefuture.nl/flash/donkey1.swf (Nintendo Donkey Kong Jr.)
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/orbix.htm (Milton Bradley Orbix)
http://www.kcvgb.kaotic.ca/missile.aspx (Tomy Hit and Missile)
In addition, there are many websites with versions of the Tiger game Lights Out. It is a puzzle game where the goal is to press the correct buttons and turn off all of the lights. Here are links to the most important pages, many of which themselves have links to other versions of the game:
http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~geist/java/applets/lightsout/
http://www.haar.clara.co.uk/Lights/JS/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/lights.htm
http://www.gersolutions.com/lightsout/default.aspx
There have been a few Macromedia Flash-based games that were available but have since disappeared. Of those, I have the file for the Hasbro game Nemesis Factor, which was on a promotional site for the handheld game. Nemesis Factor is a talking puzzle game with coloured buttons with lights, released in 2001.
The program Visual Pinball, which simulates pinball machines, also simulates two electronic handheld pinball games as well as two toy pinball games (having real physical pinball action) with electronic components. The handheld games simulated are Electronic Pinball (released by Tiger) and Wildfire (Parker Brothers), and the toy pinball games are Astro Shooter Pinball (Tomy) and Atomic Arcade Pinball (Tomy). The handheld games are simulated oddly however, as if the LED ball was a real ball rolling around on the screen. Visual Pinball and the files for the games can be found at:
http://irpinball.ztnet.com/
Click Downloads, then Computer games and Toys.
Many of the simulators whose sites are listed in these notes are in javascript, Java, or flash form, and are not always simple to save in a form usuable for offline play. I have saved such simulators along with html files to make offline play simple. If anyone's interested, I can email such files. |
|