How did Japanese developers create their artwork?

[esteban]

Good to see you, comrade.

[gilbert]

Speaking of Hudson's development unit in Hong Kong, they actually sponsored a (really obscure) TV drama series (sorry, Chinese Wikipedia page only) here in the early 90's, which was about a certain game designer who created Bomberman(yeah... and I am not making this up; the script writers were) and a girl supposed to be a game character (in Cotton even, according to the Wikipedia page, but I couldn't remember this) he designed somehow came to life in reality. The story was just clinched and silly like this and it was not very good IMO.

However, there were loads of references to Hudson PCE games (mostly visually as props such as game flyers and game screens on monitors; the descriptions were all made up) and it used a lot of game musics as BGMs (most frequently and blatantly the AWESOME CDDA tracks from Far East of Eden II).

I bet there might be some scenes that some of the PCE development tools were shown on screen too.

AFAIK that division worked on the PCE version of Ninja Ryuukenden, which was quite obvious as it contained a secret language switch code to switch the game between Japanese, English(even though this version was never released in the west I think) and Chinese. This may account for why this version was considered lacking in some aspects(ESPECIALLY the parallax scrolling part), which was probably due to the people there not being experienced enough at the time.

This is confirmed from GDRI and apparently they developed Cotton too. That explains why Cotton appeared in that TV drama. Considering the (extremely) frequently appearance of Bomberman in the show it is quite possible that they are responsible for (co?)developing some of the Bomberman games too.

And yeah. It's nice to hear someone who used to work there BITD still has the tools.

[esteban]

gilbert—intriguing! Your info about the Hudson TV drama corroborates info on the specific games Hudson HK directly worked on (Bock/Omar can elaborate).



ALSO:

(1) It would be fun to document all the PCE and/or Hudson assets/IP/references that appeared in the show.  It was both *frugal* and *brand-centric* to recycle music, art and IP assets for a TV show. I am assuming that the TV drama was a very short-lived project, however? Still, a TV "drama" is an interesting marketing tactic to promote brand/products.

(2) Bomberman as a "brand" in HK market... did Bomberman have broad appeal, in HK market? Bomberman spanned many consoles over many years...it certainly had the potential...but, for all I know, some other Hudson game/franchise may have been wildly popular in HK market at that time).

(3) I HAVE TO ASK: Do you remember if Blodia (HuCARD) ever had a cameo or passing reference in the TV show? (I know it is unlikely  that Blodia would ever make such an appearance...and even less likely that you would remember such a thing). Forgive me for this silly request.



Hudson HK:
(1) Cotton
(2) Ninja Ryuukenden
(3)
(4)

[Necromancer]

Welcome aboard, Bock!  Thanks for the Off the Wall dump.

Three cheers for Bock!!! 


Welcome aboard, gilbert!  That sounds like an interesting but odd way to advertise.  Was TV time relatively cheap to purchase in HK at the time?  I assume it cost a pretty penny to produce and air such a show, which wouldn't be a great investment of advertising dollars if it weren't very good and nobody watched.

But now I wanna watch it. 

[gilbert]

(1) It would be fun to document all the PCE and/or Hudson assets/IP/references that appeared in the show.  It was both *frugal* and *brand-centric* to recycle music, art and IP assets for a TV show. I am assuming that the TV drama was a very short-lived project, however? Still, a TV "drama" is an interesting marketing tactic to promote brand/products.

Yeah it would be fun, but as it's been more than two decades ago I couldn't recall much details. That and the series was quite boring and childish didn't help. I think it's hard to find some clips of it now (AFAIK it did have some VCD/DVD releases but obviously I don't have them), maybe on some mainland video sharing site but I think it would not be safe to check (last I checked, only its theme song was available on Youtube, as this song was indeed a large hit bitd). If Wikipedia is to believe it had 20 episodes, which was indeed relatively short for 90's standard here.

(2) Bomberman as a "brand" in HK market... did Bomberman have broad appeal, in HK market? Bomberman spanned many consoles over many years...it certainly had the potential...but, for all I know, some other Hudson game/franchise may have been wildly popular in HK market at that time).

The Bomberman games were quite popular among gamers here, but not very well known to the general public. I don't think any single Hudson franchise was very popular here either. At least to do the system justice the PCE did equally well as the Mega Drive and SFC here, unlike the TG16 disaster. As I mentioned the descriptions in that series were all made up, so while Bomberman imageries were frequently brought up in the show they're referred to as something else, something stupid like Marble Man or whatever. Ironically, the B-da Man Bomberman anime series were then aired here and they're quite popular (here the Bombermen were indeed literally referred to as Marble Men here, which is actually quite fitting, as if you didn't know it already, B-da Man is a toy franchise featuring figures shooting marbles, which initially licensed Bomberman characters for the figures) and years later when the proper Bomberman spinoff Bomberman Jetters aired here it's still considered part of the B-da Man franchise here, so you got funny things like the characters throwing a bomb while saying they're shooting a marble(which could also be regarded as a form of censorship, as bomb throwing may be considered inappropriate in a kids' show by some moral guardians).

(3) I HAVE TO ASK: Do you remember if Blodia (HuCARD) ever had a cameo or passing reference in the TV show? (I know it is unlikely  that Blodia would ever make such an appearance...and even less likely that you would remember such a thing). Forgive me for this silly request.

As I mentioned I couldn't remember and confirm this, but it's possible that it did somehow appeared in the show.

I think Bock may have a better chance to learn which games were developed by this division now that he has a connection.

[esteban]

Gilbert—thanks for the wealth of info, I did not know about the interweaving Bomberman <--> Marble Man (B-Da Man) franchise history! Crazy.

(3) I HAVE TO ASK: Do you remember if Blodia (HuCARD) ever had a cameo or passing reference in the TV show? (I know it is unlikely  that Blodia would ever make such an appearance...and even less likely that you would remember such a thing). Forgive me for this silly request.

As I mentioned I couldn't remember and confirm this, but it's possible that it did somehow appeared in the show.

I understand, naturally.

So, obviously, I simply have an unhealthy obsession with Blodia...but, based on what you said about the "Marble Man", Blodia could ***easily*** be marketed as a puzzle game that goes into the B-Da Man franchise (OK, I admit this is very weak, but—hey!—I am going to stoke the flames of my little fantasy).



Again, thank you for helping to demystify the Hudson/PCE scene in HK.

Feel free to share *anything* with us (we are ravenous) about *anything*  (but mostly PCE).

[elmer]

Hi Omar & Gilbert!

It's always nice to see foreign fans find their way here, and super-thanks to Omar for that prototype dump! 

It's always nice to see more of the original tools get released, especially if they are versions that don't actually need a devkit attached in order to run.

It would be really lovely to know if there are any transitional or developer-only art tools between that 1993 version of CE that was found on the Art of Fighting CD, and the AGE editor that was in the PC-FXGA SDK!

I should probably scan the English Hu7 System2 dev-system docs at some point, but there really hasn't been much point when nobody seems to have/run the actual old hardware anymore.

[turboswimbz]

What an awesome thread.  Much thanks to gilbert and bock.   

Estebannnnnnnnnn! we need to remember this thread 3 years from now when it comes up we know how to reference it.

[gheebee]

Might this be the TV show that was mentioned: http://www.yesasia.com/global/romance-beyond-dvd-end-tvb-drama/1004862246-0-0-0-en/info.html ?

[xelement5x]

Might this be the TV show that was mentioned: http://www.yesasia.com/global/romance-beyond-dvd-end-tvb-drama/1004862246-0-0-0-en/info.html ?

After reading the description:

Game designer Chung (Frankie Lam) is creating a game about female warrior Ding Dong (Athena Chu) fighting against the vicious Salomi (Emily Kwan). In a strike of lightning, the computer game characters jump from the screen to the real world. Mistaking the lovably clueless Ding Dong as an illegal immigrant, Chung lets her crash in his apartment, and gradually falls in love with her. Ding Dong, however, knowing the virtual nature of her identity, refuses to accept Chung as her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Chung's brother (Vincent Lam) has a crush on Ding Dong, and the daughter (Money Lo) of Chung's uncle also falls in love with Chung...

I am sold.

[gheebee]

Yeah, it sounded right but I was having some issues matching the actor credits from the Chinese Wikipedia page with other sources. It's too bad that there are no English subs on the discs and that, unsurprisingly, no fansubs appear to be available for this though.

[sanjo]

The PCE can put so many colors on screen at once ... but you often don't see anywhere near that many displayed in games, especially early ones.

That's something I've always been wondering about too. The gap in graphics between early PCE and late PCE games were so huge!
early games really looked more like an NES/FC plus. Arguably comparable or worse than early Gen/MD games.  But towards the end, some really awesome stuff came out that looked very comparable to mid.. and sometimes even late era SNES/SFC games with its rich palette. Xanadu 2 for example, looks like a Square game.

[ccovell]

Various reasons for early PCE games having low-colour graphics: the companies that moved to PCE early were 1) existing Famicom developers, using existing 4-colour or inappropriate tools; 2) then Japanese home computer developers, who were accustomed to 16 colours or less with tons of ordered dithering; 3) doing their graphics work on MSX machines (seriously!) etc etc.

Mega Drive developers were... arcade and X68000 developers.  The worst-looking MD games were from Japanese home computer devs, naturally.

[esteban]

Might this be the TV show that was mentioned: http://www.yesasia.com/global/romance-beyond-dvd-end-tvb-drama/1004862246-0-0-0-en/info.html ?

After reading the description:

Game designer Chung (Frankie Lam) is creating a game about female warrior Ding Dong (Athena Chu) fighting against the vicious Salomi (Emily Kwan). In a strike of lightning, the computer game characters jump from the screen to the real world. Mistaking the lovably clueless Ding Dong as an illegal immigrant, Chung lets her crash in his apartment, and gradually falls in love with her. Ding Dong, however, knowing the virtual nature of her identity, refuses to accept Chung as her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Chung's brother (Vincent Lam) has a crush on Ding Dong, and the daughter (Money Lo) of Chung's uncle also falls in love with Chung...

I am sold.

I ordered the DVDs (shipping label printed, but not yet @post office).

I will report when they arrive and take the screen captures.

If only I could convince my colleague at work to translate this (she is too busy...but she can help with little bits here and there).

[Bock]

This is confirmed from GDRI and apparently they developed Cotton too. That explains why Cotton appeared in that TV drama. Considering the (extremely) frequently appearance of Bomberman in the show it is quite possible that they are responsible for (co?)developing some of the Bomberman games too.

Just to confirm what you said (I should have written it in my original post): the guy explicitly told me he worked on Ninja Ryuukenden and Cotton. That's the only ones he mentioned but maybe he team-mates worked on more, or maybe he left before further games. Next time I see him I will try to clarify.

He also had pictures on his phone from some retro newspaper/magazine with him surrounded in boards and games.

Gilbert are you in Hong-Kong? Since I have made that connection and shared it with people who knew him but didn't know his Hudson past, I think he will come to RetroHK on Aug 10-13 and maybe there'll be a Q&A or something. Anyway if you are around it would be nice to ask him stuff. His English isn't so good and my Cantonese is non-existent.