but by the time NES and FamiCom became an outdated things as market moved on to next big gaming things like SNES (Super Nintendo / Super FamiCom), Sega Mega Drive / Genesis and all...
though as a kid who grew up with that, I must say my thanks to both Japanese, for making such an amazing thing for kids, and to Chinese, for making it available to us even in forms of copies @rockdog 
first and foremost, a little recap to what we all have experienced in our childhood, so called TV games
the mere mention of Mario, Contra etc brings back memories from those cosy days in our childhood, spending hours sitting next to a TV and nailing down cartoonish enemies...for many of us, it was our first introduction to world of Video Games
but, barely anyone cares-cared to know more about how it all came to be
this post will explain it in brief, without much details
> so in 1980s, Nintendo of Japan released their flagship 8-bit console, named 'Nintendo Entertainment System' in the US, and some years before that around 1983, they released it locally first for Japanese market, named "Nintendo FamiCom" (famicom is short for 'Family Computer') - now both consoles are technically similar, there are some Japan-specific differences in FamiCom that made it different like
-> FamiCom was named so because Nintendo of Japan initially wanted it to be a home microcomputer thing, similar to Commodore 64, with basic 8-bit console serving as game unit, then with add-ons like a Keyboard and Floppy Disk drive, it can be turned into a basic computer, with some programmability in BASIC language too! FamiCom had a dedicated 'expansion port' to allow such attachments
Though they made it possible like that, success of entire 'basic home computer' thing remained limited
-> From this experience, Nintendo of Japan decided to mostly project their 8-bit console as a gaming thing for international release, removed most expansion or add-ons capabilities from that american release console named NES and focused solely on gaming thing
-> Now, Nintendo never released either NES or FamiCom for Indian market, over obvious reasons
Enter the Dragon
-> Chinese elctronic hubs based around GuangZhou successfully 'reverse engineered' Japanese version, that FamiCom, and flooded international market with cheap copies of same and game cartridges, around early 90s - These chini bootleg things are colloquially called "FamiClones" in current day gaming jargons
-> We, the Indians, as well as post-soviet nations, and all those second to third world countries who'd recently started getting TV sets in their homes, benefitted from these FamiClones a lot, and THAT was the thing that we got...an 80s era 8-bit game consoles in 90s
So TL;DR
Indians mostly got chinese copies of FamiCom, and most game 'cassettes' too were copied from FamiCom's game cartridges
If you are more interested about historical aspects and all; then I highly recommend this russian gamer's documentary titled "Curse of the White Elephant" where he's mentioning it in detail, there are A LOT of parallels between ways russians got introduced to their chinese-russian "Dendy" consoles to our experiences with chinese FamiClones here
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQr3tnjHlg
and playstation 1 ish controllers...
first and foremost, a little recap to what we all have experienced in our childhood, so called TV games
the mere mention of Mario, Contra etc brings back memories from those cosy days in our childhood, spending hours sitting next to a TV and nailing down cartoonish enemies...for many of us, it was our first introduction to world of Video Games
but, barely anyone cares-cared to know more about how it all came to be
this post will explain it in brief, without much details
> so in 1980s, Nintendo of Japan released their flagship 8-bit console, named 'Nintendo Entertainment System' in the US, and some years before that around 1983, they released it locally first for Japanese market, named "Nintendo FamiCom" (famicom is short for 'Family Computer') - now both consoles are technically similar, there are some Japan-specific differences in FamiCom that made it different like
-> FamiCom was named so because Nintendo of Japan initially wanted it to be a home microcomputer thing, similar to Commodore 64, with basic 8-bit console serving as game unit, then with add-ons like a Keyboard and Floppy Disk drive, it can be turned into a basic computer, with some programmability in BASIC language too! FamiCom had a dedicated 'expansion port' to allow such attachments
Though they made it possible like that, success of entire 'basic home computer' thing remained limited
-> From this experience, Nintendo of Japan decided to mostly project their 8-bit console as a gaming thing for international release, removed most expansion or add-ons capabilities from that american release console named NES and focused solely on gaming thing
-> Now, Nintendo never released either NES or FamiCom for Indian market, over obvious reasons
Enter the Dragon
-> Chinese elctronic hubs based around GuangZhou successfully 'reverse engineered' Japanese version, that FamiCom, and flooded international market with cheap copies of same and game cartridges, around early 90s - These chini bootleg things are colloquially called "FamiClones" in current day gaming jargons
-> We, the Indians, as well as post-soviet nations, and all those second to third world countries who'd recently started getting TV sets in their homes, benefitted from these FamiClones a lot, and THAT was the thing that we got...an 80s era 8-bit game consoles in 90s
So TL;DR
Indians mostly got chinese copies of FamiCom, and most game 'cassettes' too were copied from FamiCom's game cartridges
If you are more interested about historical aspects and all; then I highly recommend this russian gamer's documentary titled "Curse of the White Elephant" where he's mentioning it in detail, there are A LOT of parallels between ways russians got introduced to their chinese-russian "Dendy" consoles to our experiences with chinese FamiClones here
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQr3tnjHlg
View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE3FEDC39DEF28E3
View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL37878DE1D5A44C60
View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLykVxlyxfOyKKzdRis2_DXHpYPKRrpcJ-
I know about 'educational computer' things of GameStar, Subor and such makers, built on Nintendo's fork of BASIC programming - it's something that Japanese could've-should've done but never bothered much over lower expectations of success in international market I believe as by then there already were better home and personal computers in market
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K_1GRTab4U
What Chinese did was quite phenomenal in terms of expanding capabilities of a simple 8-bit microcomputer to get a basic home computer thing out of it, my full respects to you all for that
I myself had one such 8-bit home computer FamiClone (that black keyboard thing i posted before) which happened to have that 'expansion port' too, some of these 'educational computer games' are available as ROMs on internet and runs on some emulators too, here a screenshot collageView attachment 25596
explanation
- 1st pic, this is how mouse-operable educational computer famiclone game looked when loaded, you can use d-pad or mouse if it came with yours to select games from that screen, quite GUI-ish, isn't it?!
- 2nd pic, some game where you enter credit, and identify the correct object written below, a basic educational game to make kids learn names of things
- 3rd pic, similar concept as above but now you select objects on a picture
- 4th pic, some notepad like thing where you can type
- 5th pic, some typing hedgehog smashing game
- 6th pic, MS WORD COPY!
- 7th and 8th pic, MS EXCEL COPY! YES, IT COMES WITH SOME BASIC FUNCTIONS TOO!!
- 9th and 10th pic, some...elephant game? that crane-like bird drops egg and elephant's supposed to blow air at it to supposedly save it? and on successful outcome it'll write down alphabet in a-for-apple, b-for-bell fashion
overall pretty interactive educational computer thing,
and if your console came with said expansion port, yes, you can attach dot matrix printer to it too! as these game carts came with some variant of BASIC programming language, you can print stuffs too
as for Canton, yes it's another name for Guangzhou, right?
I know about 'educational computer' things of GameStar, Subor and such makers, built on Nintendo's fork of BASIC programming - it's something that Japanese could've-should've done but never bothered much over lower expectations of success in international market I believe as by then there already were better home and personal computers in market
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K_1GRTab4U
What Chinese did was quite phenomenal in terms of expanding capabilities of a simple 8-bit microcomputer to get a basic home computer thing out of it, my full respects to you all for that
I myself had one such 8-bit home computer FamiClone (that black keyboard thing i posted before) which happened to have that 'expansion port' too, some of these 'educational computer games' are available as ROMs on internet and runs on some emulators too, here a screenshot collageView attachment 25596
explanation
- 1st pic, this is how mouse-operable educational computer famiclone game looked when loaded, you can use d-pad or mouse if it came with yours to select games from that screen, quite GUI-ish, isn't it?!
- 2nd pic, some game where you enter credit, and identify the correct object written below, a basic educational game to make kids learn names of things
- 3rd pic, similar concept as above but now you select objects on a picture
- 4th pic, some notepad like thing where you can type
- 5th pic, some typing hedgehog smashing game
- 6th pic, MS WORD COPY!
- 7th and 8th pic, MS EXCEL COPY! YES, IT COMES WITH SOME BASIC FUNCTIONS TOO!!
- 9th and 10th pic, some...elephant game? that crane-like bird drops egg and elephant's supposed to blow air at it to supposedly save it? and on successful outcome it'll write down alphabet in a-for-apple, b-for-bell fashion
overall pretty interactive educational computer thing,
and if your console came with said expansion port, yes, you can attach dot matrix printer to it too! as these game carts came with some variant of BASIC programming language, you can print stuffs too
as for Canton, yes it's another name for Guangzhou, right?
Yea I remember Samurai . . It was Luxury Game Box for us as it was all Japanese and expensive. Those days this is the brand which ran Ads on TV. And yeah Game shops. Thats had crt TV's and coin box to play Contra, Mario. They were real destroyer of Children - Shagun money received on trip to Naanke/or rare pocket money. A Game at that shop and later drinking that Banta Lemon Soda bottle or chomping Imli Gud Goli .. thats what I remember of those trips
first retro game that i'd like to introduce to you all,
[ before i move forward, a little disclaimer,
when it comes to cheap chinese FamiClones, a lot of stuff that we got was actually in japanese or chinese; then some outright 'bootleg' stuff was made from existing lesser-known games with replaced sprites of mario or some other characters, then these chinese guys also made their original stuff too so bravo,
thus it's important in this internet age to mention actual origins of these stuffs just to be clear ]
now,
have you seen legendary sports-comedy movie "Shaolin Soccer" ?
the plot of movie was mixing martial arts with football in fantasy-comical waysShaolin Soccer - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
But what if I tell you, even before this movie was made, some Nintendo game actually depicted (albeit somewhat crudely and comically at it) fantasy martial arts mixed with football thing? well not actually martial arts x football per se, it's rather like, japanese delinquents going around the world for some football tournament and bringing their hot-headedness in these all...but honestly this video game reminds me a lot, A LOT, of 'Shaolin Soccer' movie
meet Goal 3 (chinese bootleg name) or Kunio-Kun no Nekketsu Soccer League ( くにおくんの熱血サッカーリーグ actual japanese title for Famicom, means Kunio's Hot-Blooded Soccer League)
in west it was released as Nintendo World Cup, actually this Goal 3 // Kunio-Kun's is a sequel to the western release, but my personal recommendation, don't bother with western release, it's botched a lot
View attachment 25614
some pointers for this game
> well, it's football, but mixed with hot-headness of this Kunio guy and his gang, you can do "super shots" by kicking the ball with certain combinations to make it turn say, shuriken, banana (lol yes) and what not before it goes towards the goalpost, and some powerful supershots can hurt others too in comic ways, and yes most football rules regd to player behaviour and all doesn't matter, although there is some way to call for 'foul' in it
> basic commands in-games are to tell nearmost guy to either pass the ball to you, or play on, i believe, he may interact positively or negatively depending on his mood or 'relationship' with your character (more on it later, in RPG-ish pointer)
> this game supports two-players, so you can play it with your friend too
> in-game music is quite good, lots of memorable chip-tunes that repeat
> there will also be...fights with other characters from enemy teams as you play through football field - you and they can elbow, stomp on each others and what not, and the character reactions would definitely tickle your funny bones
> well, it is a pretty easy peasy game to win if you've mastered basic controls, you can rain goals to opponent teams, but in hard mode opposite teams are somewhat proactive and reactive to your movements so yeah it can be made tough
> minor thing in game but can come useful for hard mode players - it does have some RPG-ish elements, like character rooster menus have ;character status; like thing, where each character's mood, willingness to play, likes-dislikes and such things are shown, you can do basic text-selection thing to say, serve some character with his favourite food to elevate his mood, place them in a team with like-minded characters etc all basic tinkering around
i mean, just look at this video yourself
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u75QFlGFZOY
as i said, original game was in Japanese, and chinese bootleg one was also perhaps in Japanese with perhaps title card changed to 'Goal 3' and it could either be in japanese or chinese dunno remember much; but there already are fan-translated english version of it on internet, i shall share one ROM file in english with you, put it on any NES emulator on your PC/Smartphone and it'll run just fine
wow man, so some form of Home Computer thing was also present in India hhmm, based on 6502 8-bit microcomputer thing hhmm...
so outdated; most students would rather take PT as subject over computers as our school at least did have a huge ground behind school building where they can do all sort of sports, mostly cricketoh for us too computers were strictly school thingy. Only few kids with good money or top Govt Jobs had computers at home. These computers were expensive. In School late 80's and early 90's 4 students used to sit in front one computer. We used to divide Keys on Keyboard to do Logo or Basic programming. I remember for the first time I see a Computer with Mouse was when one kid trying to draw a plane on MS Paint (I had no clue at that time what software it was or what was windows) via mouse - And I was like oh so thats how fighter planes get designedwow man, so some form of Home Computer thing was also present in India hhmm, based on 6502 8-bit microcomputer thing hhmm...
i'm hearing about it all for first time though, wish i got to experience this machine
well I'm a 90s product and never ever saw this or heard about it in my side of world in Gujarat....heck, i didn't even get computer as a subject till i reached High School, and it only happened because mine was a govt high school so they had to keep some token computers there in a lab, but even then in late 2000s those computers were just...
but as i said before, my introduction to computers was still in time, as my uncle and his friends-coworkers did have computers in his office, he'd sometimes let me play games there, or introduce to basic functionalities of windows like start menu, how to open and close things, how to use ms paint thing and all, if i remember correctly his office side computers ran on windows 98
. The only exposure to mouse till that date was Black and Computer Basic computer book which listed Mouse as one of the "external input peripheral" or National Geographic magazine article which showed how planes are cars get designed on computers and Computer Simulators or Discovery clips.(Again remember I did not know what internet was - even at that time).Man you surely had access to interesting games other than regular staple of Contra, Mario, Kung Fu, Load Runner etc. I fondly remember playing brick ball and alley cat on rare occasions on school computers running DOS.a sidenote but, what's even deal with this 'Kunio' guy?
well it's more or less, a series of Brawler-style games by a company Technos Japan (now owned by some other company) that made these games based on a fictional, 80s-90s era Japanese Yankee = Delinquent (in our words, a Chhapri lmao) High Schooler named Kunio, and his misadventures around his school and city, fictionalised as 'Nekketsu School' (lol, as i said before, Nekketsu means Hot-Blooded or Hot Tempered in general) and 'River City'
games include some sort of city marathon game where you can beat others, then 'River City Ransom' where Kunio and his gang of chhapris goes around beathing the shit out of other chhapris in said river city, a Dodgeball game, a Hockey game and what not, you can read more about it all in following links
Kunio-kun - Wikipedia
Kunio-Kun Wiki
kuniokun.fandom.com
Game Franchises - River City / Kunio-kun - GameFAQs
Game Franchises - River City / Kunio-kun on GameFAQsgamefaqs.gamespot.com
because we had monochrome monitors. Only computer with colored screen was commodore 64. There was fight among students who would get to sit in front of commodore 64 - because you could type logo, basic commands in color.
well, i had been fortunate in sense that two local game store owners were like good friends to my uncles, and they'd let me play games for almost free in exchange of doing errands for them, like sending / receiving mails and parcels,
