Grid Grabber (Jaleco). An original game by Elite out of the UK. Elite no longer has this in their archives. I know someone who has a demo cart but every time I ask him about it he kinda pretends like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, and has done so for about 20 years.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

Pyross (American Sammy). An arcade conversion that possibly had some RPG-lite elements added for the home player, as was common at the time. There was a (pretty poor) conversion of this made in Japan for the Disk System, but it is unrelated.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

5. Buster Bros. (Hudson). Based on the arcade game, Hudson had both an NES and Game Boy version ready to go, but only Game Boy made it out. No screenshot of the NES version has ever been seen.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

4. Ace Harding: Lost in Las Vegas (Kemco). This is an NES conversion of the computer game Deja Vu II. It seems to have been totally finished for both U.S. and Japan release, but was never manufactured. The later Game Boy Color version likely uses a soundtrack written for NES.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

3. Mark Dart's Challenge (Arachnid). This game would have come with an electronic dart board that plugs into the NES! Someone who has a cart has been ghosting me for years, and separately, we archived the source code of its (deceased) author and he didn't maintain it. Argh.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

A Famicom version of Wild Boys was also evaluated. Maybe someone smarter than me should look into what weird nonsense Bandai Japan was licensing in 1988/1989, maybe this is based on an existing property I'm not aware of (and then changed for U.S. consumption?).

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

2. Wild Boys, by Bandai. Seems to be about a fictional glam rock band? This is the one screenshot ever published, from Nintendo Power. The actual cartridge sent to Nintendo was spotted on eBay back in 2015...but it had long ago been harvested to test another game's chips.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

1. Cat Runner. Submitted in playable form by Kemco-Seika in 1989 but never seen or screenshotted. We knew absolutely nothing about this until some design work by anime director Rintarō (Metropolis) was exhibited in France about three months ago!

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VGDensetsu - now on Patreon @vgdensetsu

@VGDensetsu

Oct 30, 2022

Design documents made in 1989 for an unpublished game called Cat Runner and presented at an exhibition focusing on the work of movie director Rintarō (Metropolis, Kamui no Ken, Genma Wars) currently held in Nantes, France. twitter.com/Kessentchu/sta

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 27

I've been digging hard into unreleased games for the original 8-bit lately. Here's a brief list of games that were submitted to Nintendo of America but are now lost (as in, they didn't come out in Japan either). (1/?)

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 26

If you listen to his performance there was obviously a disconnect somewhere. Someone brilliant cast The Joker as Majima because duh, of course that's what you do, but whoever directed him obviously didn't get the memo so he gives a pretty generic tough guy performance.

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Λ ｒｋ

Commission waitlist 3/3

@arkeresia

Jan 25

Mark Hamill voiced Majima in the original Yakuza on PS2 and doesn't even remember doing it twitter.com/SuperPodSaga/s…

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes Retweeted

Tito Beauregarde

@TitoMahalo

Jan 26

I work in a store twitter.com/DonCryptoDrape

This Tweet is unavailable.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 24

OK this has to be Last Crusade with a misprinted title, which Wikipedia says came out 12/93.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 24

Looking at an 11/93 list of upcoming NES games and uh what

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

Video game history in pictures: It's out of focus, but I captured the first ever dong to be drawn in #IDARB for the Xbox One, a pivotal moment for the game. Artist unknown.

Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

So NESTT0P.001 is broken down as NES (region, USA) TT (product code, this is on the game's label!) 0P (first PRG ROM chronologically, there might be a 1P) .001 (mysterious chronological number)

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

Column 2 is of course the file, column 3 (I hid a ton) is the file path on Nintendo's server somewhere for the first program ROM on the cartridge. The "extension" is another chronological number, I suspect for playable ROM submission (as opposed to merely "can we make this?")

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

I'm gonna explain stuff and you're going to read it Column 1 is a chronological number that starts with the year (here, 1986). I'm not entirely sure when this number is assigned, my current theory based on how many are missing is initial concept approval.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

if I stare at this hard enough the secrets will be revealed to me. there's a pattern here I know it.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 19

When the job is done and I've got time to cut loose and get wild I like to...stare really hard at Nintendo's ROM manufacturing database trying to find patterns in their chronological numbering schemes to determine how many NES games were evaluated but unreleased

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 18

yeah, what's Gex's excuse

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BlueAizu 青

@BlueAizu_

Jan 18

Replying to @frankcifaldi

Doesn't Kermit usually have a hand in his butt? Because he's a puppet

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 18

according to this technical overview "GEX has 12 bones in his mouth/head alone including 5 bones in his tongue." Please incorporate this into your fanfic

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 18

Job tasks so far today: 1. Tech meeting 2. Invoicing, emails, tax stuff 3. Lunch 4. Look at old PR stuff for Gex

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 13

It is the year 3000 and there are still NES clones being sold

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Brian

@Protodude

Jan 12

News: My Arcade Mega Man 1-6 "Micro Player" and "Mini Player" Revealed rockman-corner.com/2023/01/my-arc

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes Retweeted

Cosmic Bus Special "Yuuyake Kumo"

@sebmal

Jan 11

In the market for some Japanese video game consoles in varying conditions? I'm selling some! Act quick, these listings end tomorrow! ebay.com/sch/i.html?ite

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 9

Few more of these ads every year and Twitter will have no problem with that billion dollar annual interest payment

Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 7

Finally a movie aesthetic inspired by Sega CD games

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Daniel Galleghost

@BeanWalrus

Jan 6

I'm absolutely obsessed with this scene in Amsterdam where they talk about World War 2 as if they know the future, and are also all weird robots

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 6

When you visit me you go home with water-logged relics of the past

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Gabe Swarr

@gabe_swarr

Jan 6

Hey, I'm a Nintendo player! I need "The Game Player's Guide to Nintendo"! (1988) Looks at these ads-- the pixels! Good tips like "your Spelunker is very, very fragile" LOL Thanks @frankcifaldi #retrogaming #nintendo #NES

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 6

If you're wondering what MAGFest is like, these are the panels I'm considering attending tonight. Please note the times.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 5

I love this show and I'm happy to be here. I'm going to assume it was a boneheaded mistake and something that wasn't thought through. Everyone I've met who runs the show is cool as hell so it was surprising!

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 5

I've been told the sign is gone now. I get it, they're mad about an article from a year ago, but I totally forgot about that and I'm sure others did too. For me as a casual observer this was "KotakuInAction" and it made me feel gross for being here.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 5

Gamergate dogwhistling is about the last thing I expected to see at this show, I'm very disappointed in the org for displaying this. I'm on the hook for two talks here that I was excited to give and this has made me lose steam.

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Jennifer/Aster @ Home

@jbu3

Jan 5

#MAGFest

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 5

And as is MAGFest tradition I will be creating tomorrow's talk entirely in my hotel room up to the wire

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Video Game History Foundation

@GameHistoryOrg

Jan 5

MAGFest is upon us, and the schedule (guidebook.com/g/magfest2023/) says we're doing two panels:

Preserving Games with VGHF — Thursday 3:30pm, Panels 4

Inside the VGHF Archives — Saturday 9pm, Panels 2 If you're at the event - super.magfest.org - come check it out!

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 4

Everything we've scanned from publishers who don't take them down (everyone but Future) is on the Internet Archive, and we're currently building something that we hope can host the rest legally and permanently, but it'll be a while until we get there.

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Dormant Core

@DormantCore

Jan 4

Replying to @frankcifaldi

Where online are they accessible?

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 4

That way all bases are covered. They're scanned and accessible online, they can be handled and read physically in protective volumes, and original loose issues are kept in nice shape if needed.

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 4

So we're duplicating entire years/volumes, stripping out the pages, scanning them, then getting them hard bound for the library shelves. Then the now-redundant, intact magazines in nice shape go to off-site storage as a form of physical preservation.

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Replying to @frankcifaldi

Do you put 'em back after for completeness, or are you disposing the pages anyway?

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 3

Can't argue with the results though. Truly lossless, and very little residual glue left (just what seeped between pages)

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 3

No, I came up with a ridiculous process where I melt and absorb the glue off of the spine so that I'm left with loose sheets with zero margin loss (other scanners guillotine but I don't like the results). I'm left with a flat cover sheet that I just slice.

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Dr. Sparkle

@Chrontendo

Jan 3

Replying to @frankcifaldi

Do you guys have one of those big guillotine blade paper cutters?

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Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes

@frankcifaldi

Jan 3

Made an office house plant out of all the Game Player's magazine spines I chopped off for scanning

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