Lots of rare game pics

[clenched]

Originally Posted by Master484

About Heavy Metal, there is already a box scan in HOL, but I think it's of bad quality, especially the front scan is blurry, so maybe you should replace it.

I'd rather not disturb anything submitted by someone else. Yes, yours look better but who knows how much trouble it took to get that box? They aren't different enough to post side by side IMO. The rest is OK.

[Master484]

I'd rather not disturb anything submitted by someone else. Yes, yours look better but who knows how much trouble it took to get that box? They aren't different enough to post side by side IMO.

Indeed, maybe it's better to leave the replacement decisions to the admins.

[Master484]

Thanks for adding all those C64 conversion screenshots, that was quick.

Okay more comes, just uploaded lots of new stuff to the Zone.

There are five zips and here is some info on them:

1. The Amiga Power Pack disks

I included both disk 1 and disk 3, although disk 1 already has a scan on HOL, and my disk 1 looks similar to the one already there, except the hue of the red, although that's most likely caused by scanner lighting settings. So maybe add just the disk 3.

2. Fish! travel card and disk

I put my Fish disk there too in addition to the card, because it looks slightly different to the one already on HOL; my disk has some code and a date written after the "All rights reserved" text.

3. LED Storm disk and manual

Nothing special in this, wish I still had the game box too but it's most likely lost forever.

4. Ratko and some other disks

Ratco/Ratko:
http://hol.abime.net/3903

The disk reads "Ratko", but when you boot the game the title screen says "Ratco".
Most likely they did this on purpose, because "Ratco" sounds better to the english ear than "Ratko". So maybe they had plans to do an international release of the game, but to my knowledge this never happened. The game itself is fully in english.

About the Death Trap demo disk, maybe that should be put to the "miscshot" section of Death Trap? I already wrote about this disk in my original post, if anyone has more info on it, I would like to hear it.

And the Barbarian and Wizball disks belong to the Ten Star compilation:
http://hol.abime.net/5081

5. Hugo 2

Now, this is the tricky one; the game is not yet listed on HOL.

The Hugo games already on HOL are:

Hugo
Skaermtrolden Hugo (same as Hugo, this is the Danish version)
Hugo: Pa Nye Eventyr (New adventures)
Hugo: Pa Nye Eventyr Del 2 (New adventures part 2)

But my Hugo is none of these. It has the forest and mountain sections, and none of the other Hugo games on HOL have this combination. The box cover says "Hugo 2", and the title of the instruction leaflet says "Amiga manual part 2". But otherwise the leaflet only talks about "Hugo" and not "Hugo 2". And also the game disk simply reads "Hugo".

So, I would assume that this is "part 2" of the first Hugo game. But it's not one of those "Nye Eventyr" games, although released at the same year as Nye Eventyr Del 2, and even having one common level, the forest. And "Nye Eventyr Del 2" has 6 disks, while my game only has 5 disks.

This entire Hugo thing was originally a "television game":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_%28game_show%29
Which was then ported to home computers and consoles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_%28video_game%29

And the wiki article about the Hugo games actually adds to the confusion here: it claims that the "Nye Eventyrs" Del 1 and Del 2 were the original releases, and these were later re-named to Hugo and Hugo 2.

So how can anyone make any sense of this series lol?

And all the different versions of the games are clones of each other, they all have 2 levels + an ending level, only difference is that the levels are different from game to game.

And in addition to this all of the games have language specific versions: Danish, Finnish and Swedish versions exist for sure.

So what to do, who knows? I'll just leave the scans to you, and the decision to the high priests of HOL.

[clenched]

Originally Posted by Master484

And the Barbarian and Wizball disks belong to the Ten Star compilation:
http://hol.abime.net/5081

5. Hugo 2

Now, this is the tricky one; the game is not yet listed on HOL.

I guess if TENSTAR means ten disks then those two disks complete that collection. You need a HOL specialist make a new entry.

[Master484]

I guess if TENSTAR means ten disks then those two disks complete that collection.

That's right. It's quite a coincidence that I happened to have those two disks; they are the only TenStar disks that I own, and then by chance the HOL entry missed exactly those two.

You need a HOL specialist make a new entry.

Yes, I somehow thought that this would be the case. And I guess that in order to make a new entry, we would still need a few screenshots to at least make a DBS for the game, and some artist info too. But these are a little bit problematic to get; I don't know if it's possible to find an adf for this exact version of Hugo (and in addition it should be the finnish language version, I sort of remember that the credits listed some finnish names).

But of course I could always take my A500 out from the storage and put it back to action...this way I could get the artist info at least, although for screenshots I would still need to get the game to my PC...I know that it's possible to transfer Amiga originals to PC and turn them to ADFs, so that might be one possibility...and I would want to try this method out anyways one day, not just because of Hugo, but because I have some rare PD disks that I believe aren't yet available anywhere in the internet. These include some "Megaflash" demo disks with lots of cool stuff in them, and some funny Avesoft PD games that I still haven't found anywhere in the net.

But that's for later, first I'll finish this scanning operation lol.

[Master484]

Ok, new stuff in the Zone.

Four zips and one big jpg, containing scans for Wanted, Night Hunter, Puffy's Saga, World Tour Golf, International Soccer, Monster Business, Kings Quest and Projectyle.

The International Soccer is known by many names and other games of the same name exist, but this is the right one:
http://hol.abime.net/1992

The back of my box says ST Soccer in the screenshot, but that is an Amiga game, as I mentioned in the original post I believe these same boxes were used for both AtariST and Amiga versions. But of course I can't be 100% sure of this, I guess we would need someone else with the same box to confirm that this is the case.

About Kings Quest, in addition to the disk I also scanned the box, because I think my version is slightly different from the one that is already on HOL. The color is a little bit different, and the bottom left corner has a different sticker. And this time I'm sure about the different color, it's not caused by scanner brightness settings; because I also have a copy of Kings Quest 4, and it's box has that exact same color as that KQ1 box that is now in the HOL, and when I compare my KQ1 and KQ4 boxes side by side, the color difference can be clearly seen.

And the Monster Business and Projectyle manuals are both one of those "poster backside" manuals; and the Projectyle poster was huge, I had to scan that in eight different segments and then combine them into one.

[Master484]

Okay uploaded new stuff again to the Zone.

There are 3 zips and one jpg image containing scans for Lotus, E-Motion, Falcon, Roadwars, Shaq Fu OCS version and for a game called "Time". Also there is some random stuff like the manual covers of "Fire!" and Bubble+, and a big jpg poster back manual for Blastar.

The E-Motion Kixx box is the finnish release version, which differs slightly from the english release; there is a finnish game description sticker on the back side, and also it came with a finnish manual leaflet, which I didn't scan because it's just one of those multi-game instruction sheets that contains instructions for almost every other Kixx title there is.

The Mirrorsoft Falcon box is the english language version. A Mirrorsoft box already exists on HOL, but that is a german language version. So maybe this english version should be added next to it, I don't know.

And about Roadwars, for this too there is a box scan on HOL. But my version is slightly different; it doesn't have that "arcade alley" sticker on the front, and also the one on HOL has the title logo cut off a little bit on the backside of the box. So, I don't know, maybe my box should be put there alongside the current one, you decide.

About Shaq Fu, that is the OCS version, which doesn't yet have any scans on HOL:
http://hol.abime.net/1902

And about Time: http://hol.abime.net/1401
For this too a box scan exists on HOL, but my version looks a little bit different again; the lower part of my box (under the Empire logo) is solid black, while the box right now on HOL has some sort of reflection thing there. And my Time disk too looks different from the one on HOL; it doesn't have that "G" letter on it. And also the HOL Time entry doesn't have any artist information on it, so I included a scan of the "acknowledgments" page of the game manual, you can copy the artist names from that.

[clenched]

Thanks for all the scans. Just try to not swamp me with too much at once! I've noticed along the way two possible candidates to have game maps made so I need to investigate those while they are fresh in my mind. The good thing about that job is it doesn't call for these decisions whether something belongs or not. Update link at the top of HOL page tells how close your scans are to being caught up.

Also, your last two batches of disks look better with that white fringe gone. So whatever you're doing differently, keep doing it.

EDIT:

And about Roadwars, for this too there is a box scan on HOL. But my version is slightly different; it doesn't have that "arcade alley" sticker on the front, and also the one on HOL has the title logo cut off a little bit on the backside of the box. So, I don't know, maybe my box should be put there alongside the current one, you decide.

Some of this stuff really requires a stretch to include. Maybe deemed as so much minutiae. Nevertheless, they're there along with the Fish! disk you uploaded.

About Shaq Fu, that is the OCS version, which doesn't yet have any scans on HOL:
http://hol.abime.net/1902

Now those are a no brainer i.e. they're for me.

And also the HOL Time entry doesn't have any artist information on it, so I included a scan of the "acknowledgments" page of the game manual, you can copy the artist names from that.

I'm afraid yet again you need the services of a HOL guru to modify these data.

[Master484]

Ok, I'll try to send the stuff in a little bit smaller quantities from here on, hehe. I have been scanning like a maniac these past few days, trying to get everything done as quickly as possible, even though there is no actual need to hurry. But, as a result, what I thought would be a few weeks of scanning has been done in a few days, and thanks to you for adding all this stuff so quiclkly.

And we can start relaxing now because almost everything important has already been scanned and added, just some loose disks and some random stuff remains.

And thanks for adding my slightly different boxes and disks; for some of this stuff I myself also thought whether I should scan and send them or not, and how different something should be for it to be added.

But then I saw some HOL entries which included many different disk scans, even though some of them had only minor differences, such as in Microprose F1 Grand Prix: http://hol.abime.net/611/diskscan or in Corporation: http://hol.abime.net/3092/diskscan . So I thought that maybe it's best to send it, even if the difference is small. Sometimes these differences might mean something, and sometimes not, maybe different factories just printed the disks differently.

And also I noticed that some scans in HOL have been tagged by the admin for blurriness or for something important being cut off, such as here: http://hol.abime.net/1850/boxscan. And the blurriness of that SDI scan isn't even so bad, for example the Heavy Metal box front right now on HOL is more blurry, and although that's not tagged by the admin, I'm sure they would tag it if they saw it, and that's why I sent my own scans, so that there is something to use as a replacement scan if the admins some day decide to replace it. And the same goes for the Roadwars box back; I sent a scan where the title isn't cut-off, and now the admins have a second version of this rare game and can decide which versions to keep or if they should keep both.

---
About my disk scans, yes they indeed look better without the white border, the white areas were caused by the scanners lid, which is white, but the resulting scans looked a little bit bad on the dark theme background of the HOL. So I put my mouse mat on top of the disks during the scan, and this way I get nice black backgrounds for all of them.

Also, I would have question about the disks in general; should I scan all the disks in the boxes, for example Shaq Fu has 6 disks, should I scan them all?

The HOL FAQ currently says that only one disk is required. But in this thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=17715&page=20 one of the mods says that the disk scan rule has been revised and that the FAQ should be updated soon. However, the FAQ still says that one disk only should be scanned. So just to be sure, what is the HOL's current policy on this?

---

Ok, new stuff in the Zone. I'll give you a small brake after all that hard work; only 5 Euro Power Pack disks to add.

Deluxe Pacman:
http://hol.abime.net/5400

F1 Tornado:
http://hol.abime.net/472

International Truck Racing:
http://hol.abime.net/2657

Wibble World Giddy:
http://hol.abime.net/1806

And the one which reads "Laskuvarjotaistelu" is for Parachute Joust:
http://hol.abime.net/5586
The game in the disk is the normal english version of Parachute Joust, despite the finnish title text on the disk.

And some names on those Euro disks such as "Pinball Dreams" and "Apocalypse" are demo versions. But all the other titles are full games.

[Master484]

Aha, just noticed Monster Business getting some level maps.

That was an unique game, a nice combination of platforming and shooting, and in the later levels some tactical planning too was required to take down the monsters. If memory serves right I never finished it back then, but looks like I was close; I clearly remember those "hole in the ground" levels in the last world.

Put some new stuff to the zone, a small package again.

There are alternative disks for Karate Kid 2, Leatherneck, Star Blaze and Volfied, and also a manual cover for Leatherneck and a coverdisk scan of "Infiltrator", which is the pre-release name of the Psygnosis game Ork, and which has it's own HOL entry: http://hol.abime.net/5315 .

And about the Volfied disk, that is the disk of the Arcade Masters / Readysoft version; the disk scan that is already in HOL is the Empire version. The HOL entry says that Readysoft handled distribution in North America and Empire in the UK, but my copy of Volfied was bought brand new here in Finland, and it has the Readysoft box. So I guess Readysoft handled distribution in some European countries as well.

[fryguy]

Originally Posted by Master484

5. Hugo 2

Now, this is the tricky one; the game is not yet listed on HOL.

The Hugo games already on HOL are:

Hugo
Skaermtrolden Hugo (same as Hugo, this is the Danish version)
Hugo: Pa Nye Eventyr (New adventures)
Hugo: Pa Nye Eventyr Del 2 (New adventures part 2)

But my Hugo is none of these. It has the forest and mountain sections, and none of the other Hugo games on HOL have this combination. The box cover says "Hugo 2", and the title of the instruction leaflet says "Amiga manual part 2". But otherwise the leaflet only talks about "Hugo" and not "Hugo 2". And also the game disk simply reads "Hugo".

So, I would assume that this is "part 2" of the first Hugo game. But it's not one of those "Nye Eventyr" games, although released at the same year as Nye Eventyr Del 2, and even having one common level, the forest. And "Nye Eventyr Del 2" has 6 disks, while my game only has 5 disks.

This entire Hugo thing was originally a "television game":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_%28game_show%29
Which was then ported to home computers and consoles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_%28video_game%29

And the wiki article about the Hugo games actually adds to the confusion here: it claims that the "Nye Eventyrs" Del 1 and Del 2 were the original releases, and these were later re-named to Hugo and Hugo 2.

So how can anyone make any sense of Gthis series lol?

And all the different versions of the games are clones of each other, they all have 2 levels + an ending level, only difference is that the levels are different from game to game.

And in addition to this all of the games have language specific versions: Danish, Finnish and Swedish versions exist for sure.

So what to do, who knows? I'll just leave the scans to you, and the decision to the high priests of HOL.

There's also a Hugo version in the HOL db which you cannot find by searching on HOL, but it shows up with Google.

It's the 8 disk (swedish) version i have.

http://hol.abime.net/754

[Master484]

There's also a Hugo version in the HOL db which you cannot find by searching on HOL, but it shows up with Google.

It's the 8 disk (swedish) version i have.

Interesting.

And that version seems to have all the 4 levels: plane, forest, mountain and train. But it's just called "Hugo". And the cover art is exactly the same as in my "Hugo 2" game, the only difference being that my version has number "2" after "Hugo". But still, my version has only the forest and mountain levels.

So, quite a mess this whole series, seems to be. And I have a feeling that there are still even more versions around...

---

And the funny thing is that these are actually pretty good games, full of big graphics, mid-game cutscenes and spoken voice, although quite painful to load and play if you have only one floppy drive.

I found a Youtube video of my finnish version:
[ Show youtube player ]

Check out around 0:55 on that video, I always thought that was very impressive, a sudden full screen cutscene in the middle of gameplay, showing the witch pressing a magic button and a storm starts, just like in the TV version! I wish Shadow of the Beast had that sort of stuff.

[fryguy]

Originally Posted by Master484

Interesting.

And that version seems to have all the 4 levels: plane, forest, mountain and train. But it's just called "Hugo". And the cover art is exactly the same as in my "Hugo 2" game, the only difference being that my version has number "2" after "Hugo". But still, my version has only the forest and mountain levels.

So, quite a mess this whole series, seems to be. And I have a feeling that there are still even more versions around...

---

And the funny thing is that these are actually pretty good games, full of big graphics, mid-game cutscenes and spoken voice, although quite painful to load and play if you have only one floppy drive.

I found a Youtube video of my finnish version:
[ Show youtube player ]

Check out around 0:55 on that video, I always thought that was very impressive, a sudden full screen cutscene in the middle of gameplay, showing the witch pressing a magic button and a storm starts, just like in the TV version! I wish Shadow of the Beast had that sort of stuff.

Yep i also think Hugo is pretty good, although the gameplay is a bit like Dragons Lair :P

How many disks are your version?

[Master484]

How many disks are your version?

It's 5 disks, and the game levels are forest and mountain, in that order.

It would also seem that there are German and Spanish versions too, at least Youtube gameplay videos of these versions exist.

Here's a Spanish version gameplay video:
[ Show youtube player ]

Looks like they even changed the color of his trousers to match the colors of the spanish flag.

[clenched]

Originally Posted by Master484

Also, I would have question about the disks in general; should I scan all the disks in the boxes, for example Shaq Fu has 6 disks, should I scan them all?

The HOL FAQ currently says that only one disk is required. But in this thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=17715&page=20 one of the mods says that the disk scan rule has been revised and that the FAQ should be updated soon. However, the FAQ still says that one disk only should be scanned. So just to be sure, what is the HOL's current policy on this?

Go ahead and scan them all if you want to. The link in fryguy's post shows there is precedent to do it. HOL policy? You might as well ask me what Skull and Bones do in their meetings.

[Master484]

Ok lol, I'll scan all the disks in all my boxes then, at least it gives me a nice amount of cheap points, 1 point for 1 scan right?

And I just put a new item to the Zone, scans for Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2: http://hol.abime.net/1680

There is already a box scan on HOL, but my version is different; it has a sticker which says "Canada Cup Edition" and "Includes 1991 Cup Teams". And also the side of my box has a "Canada Cup" sticker.

The game was released at 1991, and the Canada Cup was held near the end of 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Canada_Cup

So I would imagine that the box right now on HOL is the standard first release version, and then my "Canada Cup" version was released some time later, most likely during or after the 1991 Canada Cup.

And also I included some extras from the game box: a "license agreement letter", which was originally sealed shut, and the game disks were inside it, in a Bethesda disk holder, which I also scanned. And to the other side of the letter was written a standard license agreement, and opening the letter meant that you agreed to the terms of the license.

It's quite interesting, I have never seen that sort of thing in any other game.

[Master484]

New stuff in the zone, the disks 2-6 of Shaq Fu, and a box scan of Battle Valley.

My box is otherwise similar to the one already at HOL, except that the HOL version has a big Pactronics sticker on the back:
http://hol.abime.net/73/boxscan

I checked through all other games published by Hewson, and none of them have this sticker, except one, Onslaught:
http://hol.abime.net/2306/boxscan

And Pactronics actually has a HOL page:
http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_publisher=617

They are an Australian publisher, so maybe they handled the distribution of Hewson games in Australia, while Hewson handled the rest of the world. So that would mean that my version of Battle Valley is one of those that Hewson distributed themselves, and the one on HOL is the Australian release, distributed by Pactronics.

But that is just my theory, I can't be 100% sure about the australian version thing. But at least we can quite safely assume that a Pactronics sticker on a Hewson game means that it was distributed by Pactronics, but it's harder to be certain about the region.

[dlfrsilver]

Hello Master484, could it be possible that you dump your original disks ?

I mean dump them with the KF free tool for Amiga available on the kryoflux website, or either with your kryoflux board if you have one ?

Thanks

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Master484

And I just put a new item to the Zone, scans for Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2: http://hol.abime.net/1680

There is already a box scan on HOL, but my version is different; it has a sticker which says "Canada Cup Edition" and "Includes 1991 Cup Teams". And also the side of my box has a "Canada Cup" sticker.

The game was released at 1991, and the Canada Cup was held near the end of 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Canada_Cup

So I would imagine that the box right now on HOL is the standard first release version, and then my "Canada Cup" version was released some time later, most likely during or after the 1991 Canada Cup.

Interesting! Any chance you can put disk images (preferably ADFs, if possible) of Wayne Gretky 2 in the Zone please? I'd like to see if there actually were two releases of this game.

And also I included some extras from the game box: a "license agreement letter", which was originally sealed shut, and the game disks were inside it, in a Bethesda disk holder, which I also scanned. And to the other side of the letter was written a standard license agreement, and opening the letter meant that you agreed to the terms of the license.

It's quite interesting, I have never seen that sort of thing in any other game.

Only American software publishers ever did this on a regular basis IIRC.

BTW good work with the scanning for HOL! By any chance, did anyone point you to the FAQ for HOL contributions before you starting scanning like a man possessed? You might notice that the dimensions for scans are double what they used to be. Blame clenched if you must!

http://hol.abime.net/hol_faq.php?section=contributions

[Master484]

Yes I would like to share the adf files of WGH2 and a few other games too. But unfortunately I don't have a Kryoflux board, and have zero experience on the entire subject of transferring Amiga disks to PC.

But I think I'll try to learn this art some time in the near future.

I have read about the KryoFlux board, and that most likely is the best option for me...because the other option, linking my Amiga to PC and transferring the disks that way, sounds quite hard and technical to me. As far as I have understood that would mean linking my Amiga and PC with a modem cable, and having some software on both of them, and then transferring the disks. And I only have an A500 with 1MB and Workbench 1.3, with no hard drive, and I remember hating doing anything in Workbench and especially in that CLI/Shell thing.

But yeah, the KryoFlux, sounds cool and easy enough, maybe I should buy one of those things. It's hard to say when I do it, but I'll inform you when I have one and got some disk images ready.

By any chance, did anyone point you to the FAQ for HOL contributions before you starting scanning like a man possessed? You might notice that the dimensions for scans are double what they used to be.

Yes I read the FAQ many times before I started scanning, so I have scanned at 300dpi, and then cropped and resized the scans, disks to 640*X and boxes to 1024*X, just as the FAQ says, I hope these are the correct dimensions.