Another update so soon, after the last one took three years? This is basically a maintenance update, fixing a few misplaced ROM files, removing "fake" hacks that did not actually appear on any plug-and-play console, and adding a few that had been previously omitted.

You might get excited about a few new advanced hacks (mostly) by Inventor, however, that unlike Dada and Bitha are quite rare to find.


Also notable are three light gun game hacks from Waixing.


Also added are one missing extract each from DGUN-2500 (Tennis from Nanjing) and the Intellivision X2 (Buzz Bombers).


Credits this time go to blootooth and forgotusername for suggestions and sleuthing through the archive to spot errors and omissions. Three pairs of eyes are better than one, after all.

Download the new archive here. No new NintendulatorNRS build this time. As usual, refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file for a complete list of changes since the last release, and LIST.TXT to search for any particular title in the archive. Happy New Year!

Three years after the last release, enough new material has accumulated to warrant a new version of Project Plug-and-Play.

Last time, we introduced half of the games of the Intellivision X2 console, containing NES ports of Intellivision games that were not made by Nice Code Software. Thanks to a redump of the console's ROM, the other half of the games can now be played as well. So enjoy, if you will, two-player editions of Beach Volleyball, Baseball, Football, Frog Bog and Maze Shoot.



The GameZone II plug-and-play console has since been dumped as well, featuring (among other things) entirely original (meaning, different from Jungletac's) ports of the arcade games Asteroids, Frogger, Missile Command, Moon Cresta and Scramble. These ports are not very good; but if you wanted good games, you would not be here.



TimeTop's VT03-based consoles have been dumped for a long time; but so far, nobody has been able to extract their individual games. The reason is that they do not use the regular OneBus method of selecting individual games via the VTxx' outer bank registers; instead, they use a highly customized means of asset management. Our extracts are not true extracts, either, because they include the entire multicart that has only been modified to boot directly into the individual games. But these will have to do until TimeTop's asset management has been fully understood and a true extractor, which will have to be a fully-fledged re-packager, can be written. As usual, TimeTop's games are extremely derivative, replicating game ideas, music and graphics from many other games. Stone Age is effectively a port of a Flintstones game on the Mega Drive/Genesis and uses the music from Waixing's Zelda III NES port at its title screen.



Apart from a few more Cube Tech VT369 games and the usual assortment of replacements of copyright-less ROMs, two original game versions of note deserve mention. First is Pikachu 5, the original Pokémon-themed version of dreamGEAR favorite Wonder Rabbit/Gardman/Diveman, which happened to be included on the NX-85 game console. Second, the complete version of Nice Code's Olympic, extracts of which have graced many a plug-and-play console in various hacks, and which previously was thought to be a series of elaborate hacks from Inventor of Konami's Track & Field.




Credits go to krzysiobal for dumping the Intellivision X2, forgotusername for identifying and extracting unused Cube Tech games and copyright-bearing game versions, and MAME's dumpers for assorted PnP console ROM images.

Download the new archive here, and be sure to grab a recent build of NintendulatorNRS from the left-hand panel of this blog while you're at it. Refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file for a complete list of changes since the last release, and LIST.TXT to search for any particular title in the archive. Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas in the most god-forsaken year since World War II, so what could be more appropriate than a gargantuan onslaught of grotesque new mini-games for the most wretched of plug'n play consoles?



First, we have the second edition of NES ports of various Intellivision games. Techno Source, seemingly unhappy with Nice Code's NES ports of games such as Night Stalker and Astrosmash, commissioned a different developer -- whose name is known but to God and to manufacturers of cheap dance mats -- to re-port some and newly-port other Intellivision games for their "Intellivision 2nd Edition" and two-players-supporting "Intellivision X2" consoles. Their effort bestows unto us a total of fourteen new NES versions of Intellivision originals. There would be even more titles bestowed unto us if the current "Intellivision X2" ROM image were complete; we have to work with what we have.



Next, we join in spirit the ranks of cartoon enthusiasts who rejoice any time a long-lost original title card of a Blue Ribbon Merry Melody is recovered from a dusty 16mm film can, thanks to a slew of Jungletac UM6578 and VT03 games with newly-found title screens. Did you know that "Push the Box" was originally called "Big Workload"? Did you know that "Gobang" was really called "Gobang" even inside the game? Did you know that Jungletac originally had a "Speed Racer" license? It's all true! And, you can now play "Snood" and "Snood Towers" in their "original" VT03 versions before they became "Magic Bubble" and "Bubble Factory", respectively. If that does not excite you, I don't know what will.



But wait, there is more! Jungletac (a.k.a. D.J. Jungle, a.k.a. Junglesoft) did not rest on their laurels after having blessed the world with their VT03 games. When V.R. Technology of Taiwan unleashed their next enhanced famiclone model, the VT369 with 256-color eight-bits-per-plane graphics, the "D.J." rose to the challenge and gave many of Jungle's games a much-needed facelift. All this in addition to entirely new titles, such as something that pretends to be a Golf game, something that pretends to be a Mini-Golf game, and something that pretends to be a Fishing game. The first impression is all that counts, they say, and accordingly, the games end or repeat after the first impression, or about three holes in Golf. Jungletac's business partner Lexibook seemingly had more luck than brains and for some inscrutable reason managed to obtain a license to publish Disney-themed variants of various Jungletac mini-games. So don't get suspicious when you see a Star-Wars themed "One Day of Mr. Potato", or Huang Xinwei's "Columns" port -- a game that Jungletac had originally hacked into "Jewel Master" -- with Minnie Mouse in it.



Project Plug'n Play had previously omitted one of the most prolific developers of plug'n play material: Cube Tech. Our exhibition of their handiwork will begin with an overview of their graphics hacks of regular NES games. Cube Tech's VT03 hacks can easily be recognized by their over-use of garish rainbow colors, and by some of them crashing after the first level, such as "Eat Beans" (Pac-Man). These early hacks were originally included as bonus material on various Macro Winners "Game Sporz" consoles whose main attraction, such as it were, was a single original Cube Tech sports game.



Cube Tech later created many, many hacks of NES games for the VT369, featuring all-enhanced tasteless 256-color graphics and completely-replaced audio comprised of 8 kHz samples of stolen Italo Disco and public domain tracks. Many of these VT369 hacks even exist in high-resolution (512x480) variants, but we only have the NES-resolution editions so far.




Slightly more exciting are Cube Tech's originals. You have seen many of their VT03 games without realizing that they were originally from Cube Tech: Waixing games such as Cat vs. Dog, Get Lost, Helli-Mission or Water Fire were all made by Cube Tech. Having an aversion to the NES APU, Cube Tech instead made use of a custom ADPCM sound chip to deliver low-fidelity smashing music on the title screens, and appropriate sound effects in-game. Waixing had no time for such extravagant nonsense, and in a jiffy replaced all audio with a single nerve-wrecking NES APU muzak track per game that never stops, and no sound effects whatsoever. With the original ADPCM audio, games such as Get Lost are actually somewhat fun to play. Some of the restored VT03 titles come from a VT369 source for the time being, so don't be surprised that it does not say "VT03" in the emulator's Debug window.



Another batch of Cube Tech originals are the aforementioned Boxing/Ping Pong/Tennis games from the Game Sporz consoles, plus ten soccer-themed sports offerings from a Taikee plug'n play controller. The term "soccer-themed" should be taken with a grain of salt though in light of such gems as "Soccer Arkanoid". The remainder of Cube Tech titles are all-original VT369 games, "original" in the sense that Cube Tech programmed them by themselves, though obviously "inspired" by the game ideas of more capable game authors.




Last, but certainly least, we have a few entirely original games from Shenzhen Wellminds. The most outstanding feature of these are the samples recorded at the ultra-low rate of 4 kHz. "Baba qu Naer" is a game based on some Chinese reality television show. The others are native games for a 160x128 handheld display, and will therefore look like thumbnails on a normal computer screen.

That concludes our fantastic journey into the cave of monsters for today. Be sure to download the latest NintendulatorNRS build from the left-hand panel of this blog, or you won't see much of many of the new exhibits. Refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file for a complete list of changes since the last release, and LIST.TXT to search for any particular title in the archive. Download the current archive here. Merry Christmas!

Credits to bunnyboy, Tim Schuerewegen and MAME for dumps of the various consoles from which these extracts were taken.

Project Plug-and-Play has moved to LIBG!



Today's update at last brings us the original Intellivision ports from which some of the most "beloved" Nice Code games are descended. Specifically, we now have all titles from the TV Play Power: Intellivision 25-in-1 plug-and-play console.



This update also adds Jungletac's VT03 ports of Scramble and Time Pilot. Although you could not tell from the colorfulness of the graphics, both ports use the VT03's four bits per plane graphics mode.

For a full list of additions and changes, please refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file that is included in the project archive. To find any particular title that you might be looking for, search the LIST.TXT file that is included in the project archive.

➡Download the Project Archive⬅

The latest build of NintendulatorNRS, available in this blog's sidebar, is necessary to play many of these games.