Mainland China may have been the country that had the largest throughput in educational titles. Let's be honest, not so many people are interested in them and while original games developed there seem to be quite hard to come by, there's quite a fair supply of unheard of, old educational cartridges showing up on auctions sites. But hey, don't think this is all boring and not worth being checked out!

小学生数学 CAI

Moving the date of the earliest known Waixing cartridge a bit further back in time, this collection of four math learning games is far less professionally made than the English 3-in-1 CAI cartridge released here some time ago. Use the Subor keyboard to enter numbers when asked to.
What's the nice touch that makes this educational cartridge unique? Possibly the fact you're greated by a flying saucer. That's some Extraterrestrial Technology after all!

Scans:
Cartridge cover
Box cover

小状元数学 (B1.0版)

A completely obscure Math-teaching cartridge made by 宏图发展公司 (Hongtu Development Company) and manufactured by 先达电子公司 (Xianda Electronics). It was released sometime in 1995. The included games are really simple and while some have interesting title screens, the games themselves are neither particularly polished nor enjoyable.
The cartridge cover suggests that there may be more cartridges. It notably reads Ｂ版 (B Version). May we suspect that an A版 may exist with a different set of games? And before we forget this last fact, it appears to use a font last seen in Supergun 3-in-1, developed by Tai Jing Da Dong and released by TXC around 1993.

Cartridge scans:
Cartridge front cover Cartridge back sticker

铁甲突击 (KT-1025)

星河战队 (KT-1026)

Two Jncota title screen hacks of the same game, namely, Waixing's Chinese translation of Bandai's third entry into the SD Gundam Gachapon series, the original Japanese title being "SD Gundam Gachapon Senshi 3: Eiyuu Senki".

Scans:
KT1025-1026 (1)
KT1025-1026 (2)
KT1025-1026 (3)
KT1025-1026 (4)
KT1025-1026 (5)

4-in-1 HQ 高品質合卡꞉ 金牌可選關 - 影像淸晰穩定

This four-in-one multicart has both Super Mario Bros. and the Japanese disk-only Super Mario Bros. 2 on the same cart, but with the graphics swapped!
The Chinese tagline ("off-image is clear and stable") seems to imply that the status bar at the top of the screen not scrolling along with the rest of the image, which it did in Whirlwind Manu's LE10 conversion of SMB2j.

Super 1998 6-in-1 (VT-856)

It's your run-of-the-mill late 1990's non-repeating multicart, with one 512 KiB game (China Rabbit Baby), one 256 KiB game (Eliminator Boat Duel), and four CNROM-sized games (Gradius, Hokuto no Ken, Dr. Mario, Battletank).

少林武者 (Chinese Kungfu)

We're sorry happy to bring this game again into the spotlight. A redump of a redump! It turns out that our previous copy had a single bit flipped from its intended state, either due to age or a manufacturing error. We redumped it to ensure that it was not a processing mistake and it definitely wasn't. Now, this matter should be settled, finally.

三国志 II꞉ 覇王の大陸 (Subor 0102)

Namco's second Three Kingdoms game seems to be insanely popular in China, going by the sheer number of both fan and official translations in existence. This bootleg version from Subor was most likely the most common version of the game until Chinese translations came along. Waixing's translation in turn is based on this bootleg version.

Batman꞉ The Video Game (Fine Studio)

Bootleg copy on a custom mapper with a level select cheat. Take sarcastic note of the "easy-to-follow" instructions on the disk label! The game's circuit board for some reason has the words "HAPPY NEW YEARS 1990" etched on it. Well, thank you nearly 30 or so years later.

Cheats sheet (back cover)

The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.

➡ Download ⬅

Special thanks to NewRisingSun for the emulation, Consolethinks for the VT-856 and famiac for Batman and the 4-in-1.

What do we have here?? FDS conversions? Multicarts?! Educational multicarts!?! The later are always the most exciting of the set. And we mean it.

Lucky Rabbit (ロジャー・ラビット)

Roger Rabbit for the NES? Yes… and before it was framed!

Audience booing

Here's an obscure Disk System to cartridge conversion. This conversion look fairly professional on the outside. The japanese title screen and copyrights were completly removed without leaving any blank space. You still get to see the "Now Loading" message after pressing start.
As to the company responsible for this port… we just don't know. The cover is bland and so is the PCB.

Regarding the name of the ROM, this photo should be self-explanatory. Cartridge cover

エキサイティングサッカー コナミカップ (Exciting Soccer Konami Cup)

If you read this blog, the name Super Soccer Champion may ring you a bell. This was a port of Exciting Soccer Konami Cup released around 1992 that featured a bunch of cosmetic changes to make the title more attractive to international markets. It definitely was not particularly popular however as the cartridge is not particularly common except in South America…?
Now, did you know it had a predecessor? Kaiser had released their own cartridge conversion of this one game around 1989. A more faithful port retaining the original title screen. In comparison to the FDS game, it just lacks the Konami copyright.

小百科 精选教育启思卡 2合1 智力拼图+嘟嘟哇哇大冒险

This is the pinch of educational goodness this release needed. It is a compilation of two mini-games made by the mysterious developer named "SUMAN GAME" (or not, it is 北京先锋卡通 aka Xianfeng Cartoon). It was released by Shenzhen Lingjie Electronics in 1994 at the modest price of 76 RMB. According to tenyuhuang, this was quite more expensive than the common cartridges on the market back then so it probably sold poorly. The cartridge is advertised for their series of Famiclone named 小百科 and has the ID 104. We honestly really wonder if it is good or bad news that there may be more cartridges from this series. Provided are photos of the cartridge to satisfy your curiosity: Click here for detailed photos of the front and the back of the cartridge



Next up are a few game compilations released throughout the 90s and 2000s from numerous companies such as Ka Sheng, Waixing...
All of the following ROMs were provided by Consolethinks.

'95 卡聖 2-in-1 (NT-811) COVER


4-in-1 1999


4-in-1 (0203)


New Super Game 4-in-1 (FK-7079)


1998 Series No. 10


80-in-1 (KD-6096)


9-in-1 Super Game (KY-9006)


3-in-1 (VT-4063)


Precious 500-in-1


4-in-1 (YH-4103)


9999999合1 - 可能是世界上最強組合


'95 世界大賽冠軍卡


The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.

⇨Download the ROMs⇦

Special thanks to NewRisingSun for the emulation, Consolethinks for most of the dumps in this publication, famiac for the FDS conversions and tenyuhuang for the Lingjie cartridge.

As a side note, this website has moved to a new domain as the masterdisk site was closed. All links are even redirected nicely so no one gets to face a 404 page!

Update 2020-09-17: Now that Krzysiobal has analyzed 大話三國's circuit board, it turns out that the bank order should be different after all.
大話三國.nes and NintendulatorNRS were updated accordingly.

You heard right: Mega Soft dumps. With some others that lacks the Soft part.

大話三國 (Dahua Sanguo)

We have a completely new undumped game. But before you hyperventilate out of sheer excitement, keep in mind that the game was developed by Mars Productions and published by Yancheng. 大話三國 (Dahua Sanguo) is a turn-based strategy game. It plays like Fire Emblem on the NES, except that enemy troops look exactly like player troops unless they are active. The music is probably the worst you will ever hear on the NES/Famicom, even after factoring in The Terminator. As if that were not enough, any time that a message window or character portrait opens, the current song is restarted from the beginning, to make sure you hear the same two seconds again, again, again, and again. You have been warned.

The game comes is provided as an unmodified ROM file for NintendulatorNRS as well as mapper hacks for the very-similar-but-not-quite-the-same mapper 164, which is supported by better PC emulators, as well as for mapper 241, which even most flashcarts will support. Note that the game saves to EEPROM rather than battery-backed RAM, which only NintendulatorNRS emulates at this time.

夢工場: ドキドキ Panic (Doki Doki Panic, Kaiser version)

We released Kaiser's cartridge conversion of this FDS game almost two years ago here, dumped via Kazzo back then to suit the already-existing emulation code of FCEUX. A collector has now desoldered the mask ROM and read it out directly, showing that the bank order was incorrect in the previous dump. This new dump has the advantage of being 100% faithful to the actual mask ROM content, and the disadvantage of not running in FCEUX and Nestopia Plus anymore, only in NintendulatorNRS so far. Tough luck.

もえろ TwinBee꞉ Cinnamon 博士を救え! (Moero TwinBee: Cinnamon Hakase wo Sukue!, Whirlwind Manu LG25 version)

Another FDS-to-cartridge conversion, manufactured by NTDEC. This conversion is well-done, preserving even the ending. It actually is slightly better than Konami's official "Stinger" U.S. and Japanese cartridge re-release in one aspect: vertically-scrolling stages have no garbage tiles at the bottom of the screen because unlike Konami's official cartridge ports, this bootleg conversion has selectable nametable mirroring.

Bookyman (Mega Soft)

You have seen this game a thousand times probably, but not with its "original" Mega Soft copyright. This cartridge was sold in Brazil by CCE.

Destroyer (Mega Soft)

Another game that has already been dumped in various forms, but again not with its "original" Mega Soft copyright.

Credits to famiac for dumping Moero TwinBee and Doki Doki Panic's mask ROM, fcgamer for Bookyman and NewRisingSun for the emulation.

➡Download the ROMs⬅

The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.

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.

Three different types of games presented today, all together aboard on this very blog post. The chosen title? It's explained in the upcoming paragraphs.

悪魔城 Dracula (Kaiser)

This is one of two known cartridge conversions of the original Famicom Disk System version, named 悪魔城ドラキュラ, of Castlevania.
This conversion by Kaiser only removes the copyright notice from the title screen, and until the ending, seems to run flawlessly.
Unfortunately, the ending loops endlessly, preventing players from seeing the second run of the game with its unique bonus items.
What makes this conversion interesting from a technical point of view is that the mapper's bankswitching facilities are triggered entirely by reads from magic CPU addresses, which is otherwise almost unheard-of in the NES/Famicom world.

Anyway, that was the Good part, let's switch to a totally different subject.
Thousands and thousands of cartridge compilations exist. Some made history thanks to the variety of games they offered, like the Golden Game series or more recently, the CoolBoy 400-in-1 Real Game. Some others made it due to their menu (such as the Powerful 250 by NTDEC) or simply because they contained some exclusive games (Asder 20-in-1).

And of course, conversely, there happen to be an large quantity of immemorial compilations of games. These usually features the same set of games. In the early days of Famicom piracy, these cartridge would have typically featured Wild Gunman, Galaxian, Duck Hunt and Battle City. Years passed and these games would eventually be used to fill up the selection of games as more ambitious titles were occupying the podium of the menus.

However, around mid 1997, really cheap multicarts were overturning the market all around the world. VT cartridges were coming from Ka Sheng and another unknown company, the King series was starting. Waixing had seemingly stopped their EW line at around that time. Smaller business like J.Y. also switched to cheaper products and slowly put an end to their line of quality products at the same period. Realtec was seemingly gone too (or at least, had completly changed strategy).

So, how does one cut cost on products that were thought to be already more than cheap and where the seller's margin was already low? Easy. Pick any of these bullet points and you're in for some serious cost cutting:

• Use the exact same printed circuit board for a large lot of cartridge (10+)
• Rely on another manufacturer that has cheaper technology readily available. Such as the ASICs which we know as mapper 45, 52, 176 and possibles variants.
• Have a fixed selection of advanced games that are readily compatible with the mapper and each cartridges are just a slightly different selection every time.

A combination of these factors lead to what we'll present today: multicarts from seemingly different manufacturers and years that all offer just the same set of games.

Here are some examples that fall in the Bad category.

1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-201)


1997 Super 6 in 1 (JY-202)


1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-203)


1997 龍珠武鬥會 7 in 1 (JY-204)


1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-205)


1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-206)


超强小新2＋瑪莉家族 7 in 1 (JY-215)


1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 6 in 1 (JY-222)


1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 7 in 1 (JY-224)


1998 97格鬥天王 激戰篇 6 in 1 (JY-225)


SUPER 8 IN 1 (JY-301)


SUPER 8 IN 1 98格鬥天王＋熱血 (JY-302)


絡克家族大集合 - Rockman 16-in-1 (SD01)


And lastly, the Ugly. These cartridges are just like their counterparts discussed in the previous paragraph. But what makes them different? The game selection menu.
These multicarts were seemingly cheap alternatives frequently sold in Mainland China and Thailand in the late 90s. They were sold under various ID: JB, 4Y, JY and possibly others. It's not known at this time if these may have been related or not to the actual Jing Tay in a way or another. These all uses mapper 52, yet they don't appear to be related to Realtec either... but hey, they did use some similar fonts and some similar games to the SPC002 multicart. The Samurai Spirits port by Rex Soft was seemingly considered as a hit back then.

1996 Super HiK 2-in-1 - 新系列超武鬥會 2.3 代組合強卡 (2B31)


1997 Super HiK 3-in-1 - 新系列眞侍魂・蝙蝠俠・ 天使之翼II代 組合強卡 (3D166)


1996 4-in-1 Super HiK Gold Card (JY-412)


1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列超霸眞人快打组合卡 (4Y21)


1996 超级新卡 新系列眞人ⅡⅢ代上尉空魂組合強卡 - Super HiK 4-in-1 (4Y26)


1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人II,III代 足3 龍2 組合強卡 (4Y27)


1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列武鬥2.3 12人 古巴 組合強卡 (4Y48)


1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人2.3 人間忍3 組合強卡 (4Y52)


1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列12人古巴斧4脫2 組合強卡 (4Y55)


1997 Super HiK 新系列　武鬥會、激龜、蝙蝠俠　組合強卡 (4Y257)


The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.

⇨Download the ROMs⇦

Credits to NewRisingSun for the emulation and Kevtris for dumping Akumajō Dracula.