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PostPosted: January 13th, 2013, 8:44 am 
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ディーダッシュ (Dee-Dash)
D' [diːdæʃ]
Dixdaef
SF Violence RPG

By: Tecno Soft

Available on: PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X1, and MSX2

Wow, has there ever been a game as unfortunately named as this? This must be one of the games with the strongest ratios of awesome-to-unknown that I can think of. It's basically Metal Gear meets Alien Syndrome, is dressed as an RPG, and (apparently) supports simultaneous 2 players.

Japanese page:
http://retroblues.sakura.ne.jp/kouryaku ... 7_main.htm

English page:
http://retrogaming.blog128.fc2.com/blog-entry-46.html


I've only ever played the MSX2 version a bit, and I only know about it because the MSX community made a big map for it. There seems to be very little info online, despite lots of Google searching, and this seems to me to be because of the name. The Japanese "dee-dash" is fairly generic. I get results for restaurants when searching. Plain old "D" even with the possessive apostrophe tends to bring up results for WARP's game of the same name, or any generic page with D in it. Dixdaef brings up a few hits, but not many. As for "diːdæʃ" - I don't even know how to get most of those characters to show up using a QWERTY keyboard!

What I like about it is that it has that distinct, 1980s style of action adventure gameplay. It reminds me of Metal Gear 1 and 2, of War of the Dead 2, King Kong 2, and a few other top-down games available across Japanese computers.

Has anyone else played it? Has anyone completed it? I'm reluctant to put a lot of time into it due to the language barrier, but conceptually I am fascinated by what appears to be a buried gem of a game. I had always thought that Project Firestart was the first true survival horror (more so than War of the Dead or Sweet Home - since they're more like RPGs). But if this was January 1988, then it's a better candidate, despite being so unknown.

In a way this represents why I like Japanese computers. The chance to discover something awesome and poorly documented.

Also, does anyone know how to contact HERZOG on Retro Game Daisuki?

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Last edited by Sketcz on February 4th, 2013, 3:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: January 13th, 2013, 11:10 am 
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I've tried to play the MSX version but didn't get far due to language barrier, so I'm afraid I won't be very helpful. :(

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PostPosted: January 16th, 2013, 6:51 am 
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I finished the PC88 version last year. I recommend checking that version out, I remember seeing screenshots of the MSX version and it looked like crap compared to the other versions.

Its a cool game thanks to its theme and the simultaneous 2 player support. The action when fighting normal enemies is a bit crap and most of the time its easier to just run past them, but the boss battles are cool. Also similar to many other old japanese PC games when you equip different armors it actually changes your sprite, which I always love. Some good music too.

It shouldn't be too hard to play through as that english site has a decent walkthrough. The Japanese retroblues site has a walkthrough too that you can run through a translator.


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PostPosted: January 16th, 2013, 9:51 am 
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Thanks for the recommendation.

I assume the PC-88 and PC-98 versions are identical?

What about the X1 release? There's a few games I can think of where the X1 was superior to the PC-88 release.

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PostPosted: January 16th, 2013, 10:43 am 
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Never played the pc98 versions but I'm sure as usual for pc88 to 98 ports its the same, apart from maybe the use of high res text.

Yeah X1 ports are usually slightly improved technically, but so few of them are dumped. I've never played it.


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PostPosted: January 16th, 2013, 8:22 pm 
Some software made by tecnosoft have hidden messages in the each floppy disk.
In the case of D',I picked out some messages explained the created-background to this game and tried to translate it into English.
---...
Sorry for them who bought this game,
Actually I don't want to make such a game as I've often seen,just like Metal Gear + Alien syndrome + Kugyokuden.
Though I have a spectacular plan,I don't think the plan goes through.
True,We're originators of the D',but we don't mean to make it like this.
Hmm..We're trying to follow the image of the Anime 'Lily C.A.T*1. but it ended up being a Kugyokuden.
I should have poked my nose more into it along the way.
...
-----
this message is written by Yuichi Toyama*2.
he worked as a programmer at tecnosoft at that time.

*1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_C.A.T.
*2 https://twitter.com/U1_Toyama


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PostPosted: January 18th, 2013, 9:28 am 
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Quote:
Some software made by tecnosoft have hidden messages in the each floppy disk.
In the case of D',I picked out some messages explained the created-background to this game and tried to translate it into English.
---...
Sorry for them who bought this game,
Actually I don't want to make such a game as I've often seen,just like Metal Gear + Alien syndrome + Kugyokuden.
Though I have a spectacular plan,I don't think the plan goes through.
True,We're originators of the D',but we don't mean to make it like this.
Hmm..We're trying to follow the image of the Anime 'Lily C.A.T*1. but it ended up being a Kugyokuden.
I should have poked my nose more into it along the way.
...
-----
this message is written by Yuichi Toyama*2.
he worked as a programmer at tecnosoft at that time.

*1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_C.A.T.
*2 https://twitter.com/U1_Toyama


Wow, that's fantastic! Thank you very much. And welcome to the forums - I see you've only made 4 posts, but I really look forward to more of them. Are you a former developer, or just a fan of Japanese computer games?

Information like this is great - especially since trying to contact the original creators would be so difficult. Though I might try tweeting him. That's a great find!

The Lily C.A.T. reference is interesting. I saw a post about it on a blog quite a long time ago, but never got around to looking for it. Now I discover it's available on Youtube in 4 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU08-wEBouo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFULuM9D4xA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_CBmQsONPM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNHucyWR5Jk

I think I'm going to try to download these off Youtube and convert then burn them to DVD to watch on my TV. It looks awesome.

Nice to see confirmation about the Metal Gear influence too.

I'm wondering if I should try tackling my own article on this for HG101. I have the MSX2 version, but does anyone know where to find he PC-88/98 release? I checked my ZIP archives from Pete's collection, 5 archives on adventure games, and 2 archives on action games, and none of them had anything listed under "D".

The same regarding the X1 release. As Macaw points out, X1 releases are even harder to find.

The sad thing is, even searching for this game in Japanese yields little information. I can only assume it didn't do particularly well?

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PostPosted: January 18th, 2013, 9:57 am 
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Haha thanks for the info delicious! Not quite sure why the developer is disappointed with the game as he doesn't really mention the reasons, compared to similar games at the time though it certainly isn't too bad. I wonder what other Tecnosoft games have hidden messages? I've actually been playing some Shin Kugyokuden recently and think its a decent Ys clone.


Sketcz: Here is the 88 version. there are 2 disk images because I remember that one has an error (the computers on the walls lock the game up when you use certain ones) but the other image works, I forget which is which. http://www.sendspace.com/file/sivemy

Sketcz wrote:
The sad thing is, even searching for this game in Japanese yields little information. I can only assume it didn't do particularly well?


That Retroblues shrine to the game is already much more attention than hundreds of old PC games get. Its really only the stuff from Falcom, System Soft, Koei, Bothtec and a few others that are widely known as far as old Japanese PC games go.


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PostPosted: January 18th, 2013, 10:20 am 
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Got it - and thanks! Damn, that is smooth, and fast. I think I'll need to turn the emulation speed down. It's a little too fast for my old reflexes. A lot of MSX2 games look great, but they have extremely slow scrolling (currently going through Xak 2 - man, even on an MSX2 Turbo emulator it's slow). Will definitely put this on my "to play" list.

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PostPosted: January 19th, 2013, 10:55 am 
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Sketcz wrote:
Also, does anyone know how to contact HERZOG on Retro Game Daisuki?

His gmail address is shown if you click his name in one of his comments http://retrogaming.blog128.fc2.com/blog ... #comment69 (I assume it's the same guy and not someone else)

I wouldn't be surprised if he was a member of these forums.


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PostPosted: January 19th, 2013, 11:59 am 
--Are you a former developer, or just a fan of Japanese computer games?

Sorry,I'm not such a great person like a developer, just a person of leisure.

Though I have played some(about 40 titles) pc-98 computer games when I was in school,
I just stopped by and see this forum from motives of nostalgia and curiosity.


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PostPosted: January 26th, 2013, 2:03 pm 
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delicious wrote:
Some software made by tecnosoft have hidden messages in the each floppy disk.
In the case of D',I picked out some messages explained the created-background to this game and tried to translate it into English.


Where was this message? How can I find it? I'm planning to interview the programmer you mentioned, and the original text of this could be useful.

Is it accessible from having the d88 emulation files?

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2013, 4:28 pm 
To my knowledge,the programmer's messages are hidden in each of MSX game disk.
The extension .D88 file as a PC-88 emulation's disk doesn't contain its text.

For example,the game disk "Dixdaef (19xx)(TecnoSoft)(Jp).dsk" contains the file named "D'.DOC".
You can see and pick out the file by the win32 application "DiskExploer".

The rest of hidden messages has been released on the follwing sites.

1,D'
I attached this file.

2,HERZOG
http://masakazu.bake-neko.net/simpleVC_ ... 03909.html

3,feedback
since raw address 1408(x0580)
http://masakazu.bake-neko.net/simpleVC_ ... 03813.html

4,Kugyokuden
http://masakazu.bake-neko.net/simpleVC_ ... 04006.html


For all I know,all messages are written by him.


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PostPosted: January 27th, 2013, 11:42 am 
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That's excellent. Thank you for posting the word doc, and linking to other sources.

delicious wrote:
For all I know,all messages are written by him.


I agree, I think it is him. There was only one programmer on Feedback, which mentions also D', so that solves that mystery.

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PostPosted: March 18th, 2013, 10:03 am 
I edited m88's source codes and build it to run this game with the translated texts.
but it may not work as I expected.


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