General Questions and Information Thread

Their method: Being a professional layout illustrator for both videogames and anime companies. LOL. Full thread here.

 

Here ... some of them were not archived ... better than nothing ...

Edit:

Index 1-10

Index 11-20

Index 21-30 ...

 

Just gonna dump a bunch of Aftermarket Mega Drive stuff here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1549719931/noahs-ark-for-nes-and-sega-genesis-0
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...r-a-nes-snes-genesis-turbografx-and-cd32-game
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/retrogames/switchblade-a-retro-video-game-action-figure-line
https://pikointeractive.com/#!/Sega-Genesis/c/14008387
https://pikointeractive.com/?s=~&tax_games=&platforms_98=98

 

The Fighting Vipers Taikenban has been on archive.org since 2012 apparently and its article is eency-weency-tiny-winey. I wouldn't know where to start adding info...

EDIT: Removing the link in case it breaks the no-ROM linking rule. Almost forgot about that.

 

A screenshot of the title would be a good place to start.

 

Digitiser question (see also: Talk:Digitiser):

is it possible to work out when reviews were published? The then-current time and date is going to appear on all our captures - if reviews were published on set days of the week, it might be possible to work out a date.

e.g. if 3rd October was a Saturday and Digitiser updated on a Monday, we could date the review as the 28th September.

 

Digitiser updated daily every morning Mon-Sat. The only weekly updated content was the charts which updated every Wednesday. Reviews only stayed up for a day (just a round up of that week's reviews on the weekend).

 

Digitiser was daily (except Sundays) until October 2001. The weekend editions would have a brief round-up of Monday-Friday's reviews.

http://www.superpage58.com/digitiser-vault-teletext-screenshot-image-archive-1995.htm

There are some complete weeks in Super Page 58's 1995 archives, which should give an idea of the format.

So unless the screenshot is of a weekend round-up, then the date should be accurate.

 

Okay that'll make things interesting (I only ever used Teletext for Bamboozle, which I think was updated weekly).

I guess we'll need a system where you can specify the date and page, and it'll return a set of what Teletext calls "frames". And... we'll be mapping out ten years of broadcasts. Which is slightly insane.

Of course unless Digitiser was moving around every day, it looks like different regions used different page numbers. So that'll make things complicated.

 

Digi for the most part was always page x70 - it moved to 480 towards the end of 1999 and then 175 for the final few months of its existence.

It was very rare for regional variations in page numbers outside of the Ancillary services typically tucked away towards the end of the teletext index, which were often provided by Intelfax for the ITV regions/Channel 4 and not Teletext the company.

 

So if anybody has the American versions of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise or Judgment for PS4, or Catherine: Full Body for Switch SEALED we need scans because each one of these games has stickers on the plastic.

 

So I guess we're a Digitiser archive now:

Digitiser/Archive/1995
(I was going to have a massive table, but Mediawiki said no.)

Assuming Digitisier was never allotted more than 7 or 8 pages, we should be set up to record the whole ten years of the service (although it's a simple enough change if not). I even used my 1337 wiki skillz to detect the Sundays.

The format is:

Code (Text):

1. {{DigitiserRow|DATE
2. |PAGE_FRAME=IMAGE
3. }}

e.g.

Code (Text):

1. {{DigitiserRow|1995-12-20
2. |x72_1=Digitiser Madden96 MD Review Page1.png
3. |x72_2=Digitiser Madden96 MD Review Page2.png
4. }}

It wasn't obvious how many "frames" each page could have (this is the "after x seconds, the screen changes" thing). It could be as high as 256, though I've capped it at 20 (and most will be 2 or 3 or 4).


Obviously this only supports screenshots of Digitiser, whereas it would be nicer to have the underlying data to be able to reconstruct the image in a consistent way. But I'll leave it up to the Teletext preservationists to work that one out.


So yes, this is a thing.

 

Super Page 58 is quite active on Twitter, they might be able to field any questions about page numbers etc. I know the page numbers did change a few times over the years, but I've no idea if it ever differed by region.

 

Primal Rage/Video coverage, take 2

Code (Text):

1. {{videorow|digitiser|1995-08-29|x72
2. | title=
3. | comment=
4. | rating=83
5. }}

So the image reviews here need to be moved to this new "archive", then the "xxx/Video coverage" pages need making/amending. Someone else can do that - my brain hurts.

Our set were collected a while ago, so Super Page 58 probably has more and/or has better verisons. They do seem to be updating fairly regularly - it didn't cross my mind that a good chunk of Teletext might be saved on people's VHS recordings.

 

VHS Teletext recoveries are a fairly recent thing. If anyone has decent quality SP recordings of Channel 4 between 1993 and 2003, they'll most likely have Digitiser text data.

Hopefully the infamous Sonic 3 review will surface :P

 

So I went out of my way to find the picture I took of Lost Paradise right when I got the game and I couldn't find any sticker.

 

Osamu Muto has been tweeting about some of his video game box art recently.

The reason for Sonic's cameo on the Pengo box art, which was a topic of conversation recently: https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1312772385649557504

Puzzle & Action: Tant-R (with textless box art): https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1310412033519579136

Tatakae! Pro Yakyuu Twin League (with textless box art): https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1306885143877939201

Ecco the Dolphin II: https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1307938602874142720

Shin Souseiki Ragnacënty: https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1305529519495761920

Not sure about this one, he says it's 25 years old, so presumably another video game (there's space for a logo up top): https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1302855955286126597

He talks a bit about the process and tools/programs used in some of the tweets.

VGDensetsu identified some of his other box art a while ago: https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/922889759130824706

 

Apparently Sega plans on releasing a build of the cancelled Golden Axe Reborn on Steam as part of the Sega 60th celebration, in four days: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1368460/Golden_Axed_A_Cancelled_Prototype/

 

Streets of Kamurocho is like something plucked out of my deepest desires....