Weekly Obscure Arcade Games

Posting about 1 interesting/strange/obscure arcade game a week, DM for submissions (may not post every week)

[1arcadegameaweek]

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Welcome to Weekly Obscure Arcade Games!

This is a blog ran by @pulstar-tb where I post about arcade games I find interesting every Wednesday!

Have a game submission? Send it in DMs!!

(PFP is the eye from the X-DAY duology, taken from X-DAY 2, games shown in the banner are Balance Try and Gynotai)

[1arcadegameaweek]

Poly-Play (1985)

Developer: VEB Polytechnik

Publisher: VEB Polytechnik

Hardware: U880

Dump Status: Dumped

Poly-Play is a multigame arcade machine developed in East Germany. It is the only arcade cab to be produced in the GDR. Only around 2,000 machines were actually produced.

The machine's coin slot, while designed for a 50 Pfennig coin, was able to be tricked easily by pressing a coin on the top of the slot. However, this exploit was tolerated as the machine wasn't entirely meant to make money, as it was a state-owned machine found in hostels and non-profit clubs.

The machine contained 8 games, many are clones of pre-existing games.

1. Hirschjagd (Deer Hunt) - Plays similarly to Robotron: 2084. You have 10 shots, and must shoot the deer that moves and loops around the screen. All shots that hit the deer won't lose ammo, and you have 15 seconds to shoot the deer or you'll lose another shot.

2. Hase und Wolf (Hare and Wolf) - Pac-Man clone that's based on the Soviet cartoon Nu, pogodi!, which was popular in the GDR.

3. Abfahrtslauf (Downhill) - Skiing game where you have to ski between flags. The space between the flags often varies.

4. Schmetterlinge (Butterflies) - Game where you have to catch butterflies with a net while scattered flowers block your way.

5. Schießbude (Shooting Gallery) - Carnival clone. Each of the 3 rows have a multiplier that can be increased if the multiplier fields at the top are shot at. If you're not careful, the duck enemies can steal your ammo!

6. Autorennen (Motor Race) - Simple racing game where your red car must win 2 of 4 rounds.

7. Merkspiel (Memory Game) - Game where several icons are shown to you, then are turned into ?'s. You have to select the icons that were shown from left to right.

8. Wasserrohrbruch (Water Pipe Burst) - Game where you prevent a room from flooding by catching waterdrops in a bucket. The bucket can be emptied out in windows.

Some specific machines (MAME romset polyplay2) have 10 games total, including exclusive games such as:

- UFO - Another shooting game where you shoot at several UFOs.

- Der Taucher (The Diver) - Game where you dodge fish.

- Der Gärtner (The Gardener) - Game where you have to keep watering flowers while spiders try to destroy them.

- Im Irrgarten (In the Maze) - Maze game with fullscreen 1st person psuedo-3D visuals.

- AFU - You control a spaceship flying through an asteroid belt. You survive by shooting the asteroids, but you only have so much energy to move vertically.

- Der Lindwurm (The Lindworm) - You play as a worm that has to sneak up on oncoming birds from behind to knock them down. Getting hit anywhere else will end up with the bird eating the worm.

The names of other games have been found in the source code:

- Im Gewächshaus (In the Greenhouse)

- Hagelnde Wolken (Hailing Clouds)

Multiple copies of the game can be found in various museums and other locations, such as the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, RetroGames e.V. in Germany, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and the Science Museum in London.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Bug Busters (2001)

Developer: Mizi Production

Publisher: EM-Teck

Hardware: Unknown PC-based hardware

Dump Status: Dumped

Bug Busters is a lightgun railshooter themed around bug extermination. The main gimmick to this game is that, instead of a gun, you now use an optical aerosol can controller! It actually shoots air, and you even have to shake the can in order to reload!

The game's plot is relatively simple: there's an evil scientist named Zizerbung who wants to contaminate the world completely with bugs, while Dajaba and Gadoori have to stop him.

Each stage has the simple format of shoot several waves of enemies, and fight a boss at the end. All of the visuals for each stage are done with sprites overlayed on top of FMVs.

This game is also unusually long for a non-endless arcade game, as most playthroughs end up being around an hour or more!

Many audio assets are stolen from other game series, such as Vampire Killer from Castlevania being used for the game's intro animation.

Interestingly, the game was later reworked in 2004 under Andamiro as Spray Gun. This version of the game has a very different cabinet design with a lower screen, most likely intended for children. The FMVs were also completely re-rendered with different character designs. This version of the game also turned it into a ticket redemption game.

[1arcadegameaweek]

MAMBO A GO GO (2001)

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Hardware: Konami System 573 Digital

Dump Status: Dumped

MAMBO A GO GO is a one-off arcade rhythm game by Konami, as part of their BEMANI rhythm game franchise. This game is pretty notable for its visual style, as well as TOMOSUKE (of Orange Lounge fame) being the sound director.

Similarly to many BEMANI series being played with some sort of instrument, MAMBO A GO GO utilizes 3 conga drums. Each has a large main area, as well as two smaller areas that can be hit. The main part is used as a button across all difficulties, while as you go up difficulties, the smaller sections will be used as well.

When the game starts, you're given a menu to select a difficulty. This changes the amount of note lanes that will be in play (Easy only uses the main 'button' for each drum, Normal uses all 3 but only for the left drum, and Hard uses all 3 for each drum, making for 9 'buttons'.)

After this, the game proceeds as any typical arcade rhythm game, where you have a song select, you play a song, and you move on to the next one out of 3. However, something interesting this game does is that it has a system to access a hidden song.

To get to the hidden song, you have to collect 5 Lucky Coins. The game always displays the amount of Lucky Coins collected, even during the attract mode when no one is playing. If you finish a song with enough HOT or DELICIOUS judgements, a song on the next song select will have a Lucky Coin icon on its jacket. Play it, and a specific note will give you a Lucky Coin when hit. The amount of Lucky Coins collected isn't reset between sessions, and it's impossible to collect enough on a single play, as you can only play 3 songs per play. Once 5 Lucky Coins have been collected, you'll be able to play the Extra Stage after the main 3 songs finish. This song only has 1 difficulty (utilizing all 9 'buttons', though you can't fail out mid-song), and it replaces the song select with a character select. Depending on the character you select, a different background animation will play out.

This extra song, "One Minutes Kitchen Battle!" is the game's main theme, which can also be heard on the attract mode's title FMV. This song was later extended and arranged into "100sec. Kitchen Battle!!", which was used in many of Konami's more popular BEMANI series. Another Orange Lounge song, "La brise d'été" originates from this game as well.

This game, similarly to other BEMANI games at the time, also has several things accessed by hitting the drums to form a certain code.

On the difficulty select, you can hover over the Hard difficulty and mash the right drum a bit to switch it into Very Hard, which contains an exclusive song named "Krank heit" that's only found in this mode, and has never been seen in any other BEMANI game.

A bunch of other codes can be entered on the song select to activate different modifiers, such as Left-Center-Right-Left-Center-Right activating random notes.

The game was planned to be localized outside of Japan with the name of Mambo King, but this never came to fruition.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Zunzunkyou no Yabou (1994)

Developer: Minato Giken

Publisher: Sega

Hardware: Sega System C2

Dump Status: Dumped

Zunzunkyou no Yabou (ずんずん教の野望) is a shoot em' up where you play as a Jizo statue trying to stop a secret society known as Zunzunkyou, who is trying to take over the world through dancing. This is shown ingame as nearly every enemy you encounter is doing some sort of dance, and even the shadow figures on the title screen are dancing!

The game was made in response to the then-recent sarin attacks from the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Minato Giken was only able to release the game if they made it clear that Sega didn't make the game, and this was only after a lot of controversy over if the game should even be released! They also had to add a disclaimer in the game's attract mode that the game isn't related to any religion.

The game involves going to several parts of the world to stop Zunzunkyou. It starts with a menu to select from 4 branches: Japan, Asia, Europe, and America. Each branch has 3 stages and a boss stage. Every stage has their own set of enemies, and you're locked in an arena to shoot them all down.

Enemies for each stage are very bizarre, as they can be something as mundane as a bunch of businessmen, to things like clowns and pandas, while all of them are dancing! The bosses are as equally bizarre, as the boss of the Asia branch is a chef in a ramen bowl, and the America branch boss is a Captain America lookalike who can shoot letter projectiles that spell out JUSTICE.

After the main 4 branches have been cleared, you move on to the final branch. This last area includes pink doll-like enemies and enemies that look like the Jizo statue you play as, followed up with the final boss, which is Earth with an eye, arms, and legs. Beating this boss won't show the ending, however, as the game will go through another loop where you have to play through all 5 branches again with a much higher difficulty before you can actually see the ending.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Honne Hakken-Ki (2001)

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Namco System 10

Dump Status: Undumped

Honne Hakken-Ki (ホンネ発見キ) is a lie detection game where one player will ask a question to the other, while the game will determine if they're lying or not!

The game uses technology called Truster, which can analyze the user's psychological state with only just their voice! This technology was used in many places, such as insurance companies, financial institutions, and psychiatric medical fields!

The game has two modes, Basic Style and Freestyle. In Basic Style, the game will ask the two players about their gender and relationship between them, and from the answers given it'll provide some of the best-fit survey themes for the players. The players then choose from the themes given, then the game will move on to the main part with 7 questions. In Freestyle, you can ask as many questions as you want with an overall time limit, which can be increased if more credits are inserted.

For each response to each question, the game will analyze the player's response and will determine it to fall under 1 out of 10 types of psychological states. After the game has finished, the game will print out the results on a research report. This includes data such as the reliability of the results, advice to the questioner, an overall evaluation, psychological graphs, and comments for each question!

Not only can you just play with another person on the cabinet itself, but you can also choose to play solo and call a phone number to play with someone else over the phone!

[1arcadegameaweek]

Urachacha Mudaeri (2002)

Developer: GamToU

Publisher: GamToU

Hardware: Brezzasoft Crystal System

Dump Status: Dumped

Urachacha Mudaeri (으랏차차무대리) is a minigame collection based on the Korean manhwa Yonghada Yonghae!

The gameplay is exactly the same as Konami's Bishi Bashi series, where you have a big set of minigames played out one after another with no breaks, aiming to gain more points than the other players in each one. The only real difference is that (from left to right) the button colors here are blue, yellow, red, while on Bishi Bashi they're red, green, blue.

The minigames mostly revolve around the life of an office salaryman. This can involve trying to push a bunch of people into an elevator or sorting papers that come out of a printer. However, they can also be very bizarre, as one of them is about the three main characters flashing their underwear to a crowd of women, and the player(s) must react to quickly throw a lobster or crab on the character who is not wearing underwear (censored with a cloud of green pixels)!

Interestingly, this game is very kid-friendly when compared to its source material, which is the complete opposite. It contains a lot of sex scenes, yet the worst the arcade game gets is green pixel censors.

Another thing of note is that this game has a (VERY obscure) PC version! This version is very interesting as well since, while it's arcade-perfect for the most part, has one major difference: it uses 4 buttons for minigames instead of 3! This version introduces a green button, and shifts the yellow button up. This is shown in-game as Bishi Bashi's button layout with an extra yellow button above the green one.

This version even has some new minigames that make use of this button! This includes new quiz minigames, and more bizarre minigames, such as shooting pellets out of a character's mouth to prevent getting hit by a water balloon, and another where you have to quickly put shoelaces into a shoe.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Flamin Finger Tournament Edition (2005)

Developer: Dell Electronic Labs

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Unknown (Likely hardware made for these games specifically?)

Dump Status: Undumped

Flamin Finger was originally a redemption arcade game released in 2003, where you have to quickly trace a randomly-generated maze from start to finish before time runs out. The amount of tickets you get once time runs out is dependent on your progress through the maze. However, when you start getting near the end, the timer will rapidly speed up. If the game hasn’t been played enough for it to decide to let you win the jackpot (achieved by finishing the maze), the timer will speed up an unfair amount.

There was also a merchandiser variant released in 2004, which would allow you to pick from a number of prizes behind locked doors once the jackpot is won, rather than tickets.

However, the final version of the game, Flamin Finger Tournament Edition, was released in 2005. This version of the game is HEAVILY different from the others, as it is entirely designed around competitive multiplayer!!

The game allows for up to 8 people, and even supports multiple games going at once!!

Due to now being designed as a multiplayer game, it’s now completely different from the original version. Before, you only had 1 single maze, and a timer that would speed up near the end. Here, however, the timer does not speed up, and, depending on how much time you have left at the end of a maze, it’ll warp you to a higher level, with a more complex maze!

When you run out of time, it will save what level you achieved to both its daily and all-time leaderboards! This is also when it will dispense your tickets, as it’s still a redemption game.

Unfortunately, this appears to be the rarest version of the game, as I have only ever found a single video of this being played, and it’s only a single player game as well.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Abnormal Check (1996)

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Namco ND-1

Dump Status: Dumped

Abnormal Check (アブノーマルチェック) is a quiz game from Namco that determines how weird or abnormal the player is!

The game starts out by showing how many coins have been inserted, which determines how many players (up to 3) will be playing.

After this, each player will choose their gender, and whether or not they're an adult or a minor. Once this is done, the players must select a category of questions. These include categories based on finance, personality, 'taste', 'experience', love, and even a category based on the location in Japan the players are (this is configured in the game's service menu)!

Once this is done, the game will now start the quiz, which consists of multiple rounds with several questions relating to the category. Each player answers the question provided with either the A or B buttons, and when everyone has answered and/or time runs out, the game reveals what % of people have picked either A or B. If any player is on the majority side, they get more points, while players on the minority lose points. When the game is finished, the cabinet prints out the game's results.

The amount of points each player has affects how the final cutscene plays out. These can be very bizarre, as one of them involves the male character sleeping with the female one, before reaching for a gun. However, when he turns back to shoot her, it turns out she was holding a knife, planning to kill him as well!

These characters also have a ton of animations that can play out after each answer! There are many for picking the majority, as well as picking the minority, and there's even animations that can play out differently when there's multiple players! These include getting picked up by an eagle, getting struck by lightning, flexing muscles, smoking a cigarette, and some even involve legacy Namco characters, such as getting eaten by Pac-Man and getting blown up by Dig-Dug!

The game's soundtrack is also very notable, being composed by Akihiko Ishikawa, who later went on to create the 2000 song series for Taiko no Tatsujin!!

The Mishima family from Tekken makes a cameo in the game's attract mode, and one of the tracks in the game is even directly titled 'Mishima Family'

[1arcadegameaweek]

Polynet Warriors (1993)

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Hardware: Konami Polygonet

Dump Status: Dumped

Polynet Warriors is a first-person shooter by Konami. This game is highly notable due to it being their first 3D arcade game!

The objective is to shoot enough enemies to get more points than them when time runs out. If you die, you jump back in after the game shows what killed you, though this gives the enemies a point.

The game starts out with a choice of 3 courses, with the third one being the hardest. Each one has their own ending theme once cleared, complete with vocals!!

The game was also designed to be played with other people via linked cabinets, and it allowed for a maximum of 4 players!!

This game specifically was never released outside of Japan, but it served as the basis for the tank game Polygonet Commanders, which was released in the US. This game retains many features from Polynet, though it is very different, from not just controls but also how the single player mode plays out.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Ganbare Ginkun (1995)

Developer: Tecmo

Publisher: Tecmo

Hardware: Tecmo 16

Dump Status: Dumped

Ganbare Ginkun (がんばれギンくん) is a minigame collection where you play as either Gin or Ham (depending on if you’re P1 or P2), as they take part on a radio gameshow, hosted by GatsuGatsu.

When the game starts, you have the option to pick from 3 courses, which have an increasing number of rounds. Every round has a set amount of minigames that need to be completed before moving on to the next. Each course has their own set of unique cutscenes that can play out at the start and end of every round, which can change depending on a choice you get at the start of a round.

The minigames are very bizarre, matching the game’s unconventional doodle artstyle. They range from getting your head blown off into the sky and having to move to have your head land back on your body, to keeping a bomb from detonating by urinating on the burning part of the fuse (which also turns the character into the Mannekin Pis statue)!!

The boss theme from Final Star Force is used in some of this game’s minigames, and is titled as ‘FSF!’ in the soundtrack.

Gin and GatsuGatsu would end up reappearing in the Monster Rancher series, as Doodle and Sketch respectively. Doodle’s moves reference minigames from this game, involving the chicken motorcycle and the boot!

[1arcadegameaweek]

Gynotai (1996)

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Namco ND-1

Dump Status: Partial (Only revision 1.04 is dumped)

Gynotai is the first in the Almighty Human Project series, a series of games centered around preparing the player for an apocalyptic event. It’s played with three balls, each on their own rail. The game has 3 categories for its minigames, which include SKILL, BRAIN, and BODY.

SKILL minigames consist of hitting targets at a very precise time, BRAIN minigames involve number puzzles, such as quickly adding 2 numbers of 3 up to 7, while BODY minigames mostly consist of hitting things as much as you can. At the end of each minigame, you’re given a rank from E- to A+, and each minigame’s rank is averaged out at the end. After a playthrough, you’re given a receipt which lists off your results, and has different things appear depending on your averaged rank.

The game is marked as non-working in MAME, but all you need to do to bypass the error that comes up is to turn off the printer in the service menu, though the graphics emulation is still largely broken and unfinished.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Tesou Uranai Chotto Misete (1995)

Developer: Sega AM1

Publisher: Sega

Hardware: Sega System 32

Dump Status: Undumped

Fortune telling arcade machines gained quite a bit of popularity through the mid-90’s, and Sega threw their hat in the ring a few times, but one of their most interesting attempts was Tesou Uranai Chotto Misete (手相うらない ちょっとみせて), which is special in the fact that it actually scans your palm!

Not much is known about it, as not only is it undumped, but it also isn’t very well documented online. The only good source of information is several blog entries from a developer who worked on the game.

(NOTE: As the source is entirely in Japanese, the information might not be 100% accurate)

The game uses hardware from a company named Omron, which is all used to scan the palms. The game takes a picture of your hand in the hand space, and the hardware looks for the shape of your life, head, and intelligence lines, and returns the results as numbers to the game.

However, the hardware was pretty slow, as it took around a minute to finish analysis. When it was all done, the game would then start printing your results, but this also took a while, as printers at this time were pretty slow. So to pass the time, the game displays your results on-screen, and runs a quiz about palmistry, all while the results are being printed.

The developers added a secret credits screen, which is accessed by inputting a code on the ‘genre selection’ screen, and by the end of the game, a staff roll would appear. This contained the entire team in the form of their own characters, which also had their own 10-second jingle per person!!

Nearly all of the audio had to be played via CD, as there was so much voice data in the results summaries.

The game was so popular at location tests and the AOU show, that they had to start manufacturing more System 32 boards to make more cabs, despite how the game was initially made on it to get rid of excess boards!

[1arcadegameaweek]

Enma Daio (1993)

Developer: Toaplan

Publisher: Taito

Hardware: Enma Daio Hardware

Dump Status: Dumped

Enma Daio was the last game from Toaplan before they went bankrupt, and it’s a unique game in that it’s a lie detector in the form of a quiz game!!

The player is told at the very start of a credit to place their left hand on this ball that has a polygraph sensor a finger slides into to detect the player’s heartbeat. After this is done, the player selects their gender, and then a category of questions.

The game works by asking you several yes/no questions, and after each answer it shows your heartbeat in the form of a seismogram. If your heartbeat increases quickly after an answer, the game considers you a liar!

After a short recording of your heart, the deity Enma Daio will appear, and will judge you based on if the game considers you a liar or not. He’ll be happy if you answered honestly, and very angry if you lied.

The game has a very large amount of voicelines (every single question is voiced!!), and it all amounts up to 25MB of ADPCM voice sample data!!!

The game was Toaplan’s most expensive project, as former composer Tatsuya Uemura stated that it “cost a lot of money” in a 2009 interview.

[1arcadegameaweek]

Aim For Cash (2004)

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Namco System 10

Dump Status: Undumped

Point Blank is a series of arcade lightgun minigame collections by Namco where every minigame has a specific objective and quota, which is shown before the start of each one. People usually know of the first 3 games (which were also released on the PS1, each with more features, such as PB1's port having a full rpg mode!)

However, there was a very unqiue version of PB3 (which originally released in 2000) called Aim For Cash, released in 2004

It's a much smaller, more barebones version of the game where you can win money by playing well!!

The game deviates from the usual formula, as instead of the typical stage layout (multiple rounds, each with 4 stages to choose from), it instead has 8 randomly picked minigames where, once you clear 3 of them, you then go to the final stage, where you can win the jackpot. This stage has its difficulty upped to be even harder than the highest difficulty in the original trilogy (insane)!!

If you compare the harder-than-insane variant of a minigame from AFC to its insane variant from PB3, its obvious that it was made much harder so it's near humanly impossible to win the jackpot (the target can even end up being just a few pixels, and also moving quickly!!)