Navigation

TheRedEye

You know what's out on the "real" Virtual Console today?

Some kind of lame monkey game.

A game about eating breakfast I think?

haha what the shit

Cutesy cartoon crap!

We don't want any of those! We hate classic games, we only like bad games that never came out! Instead of that stuff, let's play...

The Adventures of Dr. Franken!

Sure, you could play a game about finding your lost bananas or hanging out with snails or whatever, if you're into that baby stuff. You know what Dr. Franken's about? It's about FINDING THE SCATTERED REMAINS OF YOUR DEAD GIRLFRIEND. Some bastards decided to cut her up and hide her various dainty body parts in odd corners of the castle you live in, and you have to find them all.

Being that this game was made in the UK in the early 90s, it involves running around, jumping, and collecting objects in a very particular order, while being given vague clues as to what you should be doing next. See also: every ZX Spectrum game ever.

This game was conceived, drawn, and designed by British developer Movietime Ltd., who are still around today as ELITE SYSTEMS - THE BEST NAMES IN MOBILE GAMES. Movietime developed the game from the ground up for the Game Boy, and outsourced the NES conversion to another developer, Cygnus, a company I know very little about. Apparently they did the Genesis version of Hardball '95, if that means anything to you.

The game is nearly identical to the Game Boy version. In fact, you can basically just plop a Game Boy screenshot anywhere on here, and it will more or less match up. As you can see, there are some minor differences...notice how the recliner looks more natural on the Game Boy version. This is because, I suspect, both the NES and Game Boy SKUs were being developed simultaneously, and the NES version was cancelled prior to completion.

So why was this game canceled? Well, according to this article on NES World, Movietime was not satisfied with the conversion that Cygnus was doing, and pulled the plug themselves.

The port is...well, it's competent, but it really isn't as good as the Game Boy version. Cygnus' choice of colors sucked, a lot of the cool lighting and shading effects from the Game Boy original are missing, and the control is really really bad. Not that it was any good to begin with, but the jumping feels even more hit and miss on the NES.

But enough from me, do you want to play it? Are you sure? Well, okay.

Here's a video I uploaded to Google that plays the game from beginning to end in 25 minutes. It's technically a "tool-assisted speed run," except that I didn't aim for perfection at all. In fact, I accidentally recorded about 40 seconds of me being lost!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4459672803253705175&hl=en

Tongueman · Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 631 Location: Japan

I once got this one wrong too, so I feel your shame: It's Motivetime.

TheRedEye · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:12 am Post subject:

ProgrammingAce · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 580

TheRedEye · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 5:37 am Post subject:

It's my website.

GDRI · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 352

Actually, Motivetime was an "associate company" of Elite's, according to the company website. Elite goes all the way back to the Spectrum and C64 days.

http://vgrebirth.org/games/search.asp?developers=971
Here's some other stuff Motivetime did, in case you're curious for some reason.

TheRedEye · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:09 am Post subject:

They also did another unreleased NES game called Grid Grabber.

Smeg · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:19 pm Post subject:

Fuck a Grid Grabber.

handofg0d · Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 455 Location: PA

For some reason I really like the characters sprite animations. Sure, he controls as accurately as blind sniper, but at least he looks good doing it. I found her arm before getting frustrated with the controls.

KlarthAilerion · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject:

Wassa SKU?

TheRedEye · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:41 pm Post subject:

It's a more accurate term for "version." Dr. Franken for example had three SKUs: NES, SNES, and Game Boy.

Does my games industry lingo confuse and frighten you???

kap · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:18 pm Post subject:

It applies to more than just video games, you fancy man you.

TheRedEye · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:04 am Post subject:

Here's a new term I learned a few days ago that I really like:

Barks - this refers to voice cues that aren't necessarily spoken dialogue, i.e. when a character grunts while jumping, or makes a noise when getting hurt.

Smeg · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:41 am Post subject:

KlarthAilerion · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:14 am Post subject:

I worked retail in a new and used games store on and off for two years or so, I've just never seen that term/acronym before.

kap · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:20 am Post subject:

The term is a lot more applicable in a more corporate setting than a new/used type place.

rbudrick · not rubrdick Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 549

SKU=part, or part number.

This game was incredibly hard to follow in the video. I got completely lost at every turn and exit. Frank, how long did you play this to figure it all out and how confused were you with that insane mapping system? Reminds me of Rambo for NES.

-Rob

nixon · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject:

SKU = Stock Keeping Unit

TheRedEye · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject:

Nosuch · Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 107

So why is this guy running around in his pajamas anyway?

Navigation

Lost Levels Forums