CAN YOU DIGGETT? - a proof-of-concept for a "modern-day" Mr. Do! clone/remake

A couple of proof-of-concept screenshots of a hypothetical remake/reboot of Mr. Do!, one of my absolute personal favorite arcade games and one that I wish had some sort of modern rerelease available somewhere (other than on the Taito Egret II Mini, although that's very much a niche product).

I am very much aware that there are some modern fan-made ports being developed and worked on even as of writing (the ZX Spectrum fan port came out not too long ago, and somebody's currently working on an Intellivision conversion), but also I feel as though a good version of Mr. Do! that runs natively on a modern-era PC and includes some extra features (e.g. simultaneous multiplayer, a scene editor, maybe even online scoreboards) would simply be neat to have. Maybe even a more frantic, psychedelic game mode like the Pac-Man Championship Edition games. Now, if only I actually had the programming chops to make any of this a reality...

(Also, side-note/shameless plug: if you're somehow working on a fan remake of Mr. Do! for PCs, have come across this very post, and are impressed by what you saw, feel free to contact me!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's just reached midnight in this part of the world, so what other way to celebrate than with Clip being their usual, non-heterosexual self?

Pussy: Love Story from Titanic (ZX Spectrum) - PUSSY! Now that I've got your attention, play Popils

A playthrough of an average level of Pussy.

First of all, let's get it out of the way; yes, this game really is called Pussy.

Pussy: Love Story from Titanic (also occasionally referred to as The Love Story from Titanic) was developed throughout 1999 by the Belarus-based demoscene group, Fatality, and published on cassette in 2000 by the Austria-based LCD Design. The game's plot, as you may assume, takes heavy inspiration from a certain massively successful blockbuster film from around the time, revolving around the poor artist "Leonardo" and the upper-class "Kate" (represented by Trunks and Android 18 from Dragon Ball Z, respectively) and their ill-fated tale of romance upon the RMS Titanic.

Apparently, what this translates to in terms of gameplay is a clone of Tengen's 1991 Game Gear offering, Magical Puzzle Popils, an excellent little puzzle-platformer in which a young boy must rescue a princess from perils such as spikes, slimes, and other such obstacles, using the powers of both his brains and brawn (your only way to interact with the obstacles is by punching them). As far as I can tell, Popils has never seen an official rerelease in any form, remaining a true Game Gear exclusive, although Famicom and PC-Engine versions were in fact planned. It is quite clear, however, that Fatality were massive fans of the game, going so far as to directly credit Tengen in the credits.

A comparison between stage 6 of Popils and stage 6 of Pussy. If the general aesthetics of Popils remind you of something, you may not be surprised to find out that the game was designed by Fukio Mitsuji ("MTJ"), who also designed Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands for Taito.

 Although the basic mechanics and stage design (minus "Leonardo" seemingly only being able to move horizontally on a 8x8 grid) are practically identical to Popils, it is absolutely not an exact port whatsoever, only including 50 of the 100 stages, and completely lacking such features as the stage editor, the "step" mechanic, and the ability to replay previous stages (the latter of which seems to be more of a limitation of the Spectrum itself). The game, however, does feature a password system (which the cassette inlay proudly boasts consists of 800kb of compressed code), and adds a couple of interesting features in order to both make up for the shortcomings and also to distinguish it from Popils, including completely original "action" scenes that appear inbetween stage 20-21, stage 40-41, and the final stage (all of which feature incredibly smooth horizontal scrolling, parallax scrolling, and comparatively little attribute clash, a rarity for the Spectrum), and cutscenes that roughly tell a condensed version of the film this is loosely based on via dithered screenshots and footage. Pussy is one of the most visually and aurally accomplished games on the Spectrum, but this comes with a drawback, as it was also apparently one of the last homebrew titles to be mainly distributed via cassette, and as a result takes a while to load even in emulation; apparently on real hardware, the game can take up to 90 minutes to load from tape.

The "movie" segments in this game feature an interesting effect in which the text itself is dithered and swaps between two copies in rapid succession in order to give the illusion of more detail; unfortunately, it doesn't show up nearly as well in a static screenshot.

 One of the more notable aspects of Pussy is simply its sheer amount of plagiarism; alongside the aforementioned Titanic/Popils/Dragon Ball Z connections (and yes, as you may expect, the game does play a rendition of My Heart Will Go On at several occasions), almost every asset in the game seems to be sourced from something else, mostly other well-known institutions of pop culture. This especially applies to the soundtrack, which contains quite well-done AY remixes of such songs as the cantina theme from Star Wars, Yakety Sax, the overworld themes from Super Mario World and Land, an arrangement of the Muppet Show theme that segues into In the Hall of the Mountain King for reasons unknown, the Macarena (just so you know that this game was made in the 1990s), and the ending theme, which is a cover of Madonna's Frozen. Other, less immediately noticeable thievery includes the brief screenshot of the dolphins "Leo" and "Kate" ride on to get to the Titanic, taken from the title screen for Ecco the Dolphin, the music on the menu, which is a rendition of the main theme from Fantastic Dizzy, the rat on the menu screen, taken from Comix Zone, and, my absolutely personal favorite, the elderly "Kate" sprite artwork in the ending, which is taken, from all things, the reprehensible licensed Eek! the Cat game for the Super Nintendo.

The "action" stages boast incredibly smooth horizontal scrolling and parallax, both rare sights on the Spectrum, and also help to make the game feel more like a unique experience as opposed to being "just" a clone of Popils.

 As a game in its own right, Pussy is quite an enjoyable little puzzler that manages to retain most of the charm of Tengen/MTJ's cult classic, and for some (namely, weirdos like me who like to see people's weird, illicit takes on intellectual properties) will find the game to have some weird, unique charm of its own. The only two real caveats I could think of are the long loading times, which unfortunately basically comes with the territory of the Spectrum, and also that certain characters in the font the game uses for the password system (namely the "H", "M", "N", and "W" letters) tend to be a little hard to discern between one another, which honestly tends to result in more frustration than the puzzles themselves. I'm not sure if I would say it's a game you have to absolutely go out and play right this second, but if you're a fan of Popils or puzzle games in general, I'd say it's worth checking out, even if just to amuse yourself at the sheer amount of theft present within the game.

Also, it's called Pussy. What more of a reason do you need to play it?

I plan to make "Get PlaYed !" my catchphrase in the near-future; all I need to do is find an actual use-case for it.

Don we now our gay appar- nah, forget it, it's too easy

The Yuletide season is coming up, so what better time to draw Clip being its usual flamboyant self?

A couple more Clips

It's been a while since I posted something here, huh? Anyway, here's another pair of Clip drawings, because I refuse to ever stop drawing my little fruity jester thing.

 

 

The first of the two is this piece of pixel artwork I created using the program Multipaint, a handy little program that allows you to create artwork within the graphical limitations of early 80s microcomputers.

 

 

 

Yesterday (December 22nd) was the 30th anniversary of the release of the SEGA Saturn in Japan, so I figured it would be quite appropriate to have Clip dress up as NiGHTS. Purple genderless jester entity solidarity.

Happy Halloween 2024!

Here's a drawing of Clip dressed up as some other jester character. I don't know, this other jester seems pretty obscure, pretty sure nobody's ever heard of them.

Tripuzz fan art

A couple of pieces of fan art I have previously drawn of the obscure Japan-exclusive PlayStation game, Tripuzz. I previously posted these elsewhere on other sites, but figured I may as well share them here in one massive pile.

If you're a fan of the Puyo Puyo series and other colorful falling-block puzzle games of a similar type, I highly recommend checking out Tripuzz at some point. It's a fun little game that puts a couple of new twists on the Puyo formula.

May write a full review of the game at some point in future, it's good stuff. There even exists a partial fan translation that unlocks all of the hidden characters at the start, if that is your preference.